1# Conversations
2
3Conversations: the very last word in instant messaging
4
5[](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations)
6
7
8
9## Design principles
10
11* Be as beautiful and easy to use as possible without sacrificing security or
12 privacy
13* Rely on existing, well established protocols (XMPP)
14* Do not require a Google Account or specifically Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)
15* Require as few permissions as possible
16
17## Features
18
19* End-to-end encryption with either [OTR](https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/) or [OpenPGP](http://www.openpgp.org/about_openpgp/)
20* Sending and receiving images
21* Indication when your contact has read your message
22* Intuitive UI that follows Android Design guidelines
23* Pictures / Avatars for your Contacts
24* Syncs with desktop client
25* Conferences (with support for bookmarks)
26* Address book integration
27* Multiple accounts / unified inbox
28* Very low impact on battery life
29
30
31### XMPP Features
32
33Conversations works with every XMPP server out there. However XMPP is an
34extensible protocol. These extensions are standardized as well in so called
35XEP's. Conversations supports a couple of these to make the overall user
36experience better. There is a chance that your current XMPP server does not
37support these extensions; therefore to get the most out of Conversations you
38should consider either switching to an XMPP server that does or — even better —
39run your own XMPP server for you and your friends. These XEP's are:
40
41* XEP-0065: SOCKS5 Bytestreams (or mod_proxy65). Will be used to transfer
42 files if both parties are behind a firewall (NAT).
43* XEP-0138: Stream Compression saves bandwidth
44* XEP-0163: Personal Eventing Protocol for avatars
45* XEP-0198: Stream Management allows XMPP to survive small network outages and
46 changes of the underlying TCP connection.
47* XEP-0280: Message Carbons which automatically syncs the messages you send to
48 your desktop client and thus allows you to switch seamlessly from your mobile
49 client to your desktop client and back within one conversation.
50* XEP-0237: Roster Versioning mainly to save bandwidth on poor mobile connections
51* XEP-0352: Client State Indication let the server know whether or not
52 Conversations is in the background. Allows the server to save bandwidth by
53 withholding unimportant packages.
54
55## Team
56
57#### Head of Development
58
59* [Daniel Gultsch](https://github.com/inputmice)
60
61#### Code Contributions
62
63(In order of appearance)
64
65* [Rene Treffer](https://github.com/rtreffer)
66* [Andreas Straub](https://github.com/strb)
67* [Alethea Butler](https://github.com/alethea)
68* [M. Dietrich](https://github.com/emdete)
69* [betheg](https://github.com/betheg)
70
71#### Logo
72
73* [Diego Turtulici](http://efesto.eigenlab.org/~diesys)
74
75#### Translations
76
77* [Sergio Cárdenas](https://github.com/kruks23) (Spanish)
78* [Benoit Bouvarel](https://github.com/BenoitBouvarel) (French)
79* [Daniel Gultsch](https://github.com/iNPUTmice) (German)
80* [Aitor Beriain](https://github.com/beriain) (Basque)
81* [Ilia Rostovtsev](https://github.com/qooob) (Russian)
82* [Jelmer Vernooij](https://github.com/jelmer) (Dutch)
83* [Anders Sandblad](https://github.com/andersruneson) (Swedish)
84* [Aizaz AZ](http://www.linkedin.com/in/aizazhaider) (Chinese)
85
86## FAQ
87
88### General
89
90#### How do I install Conversations?
91
92Conversations is entirely open source and licensed under GPLv3. So if you are a
93software developer you can check out the sources from GitHub and use ant to
94build your apk file.
95
96The more convenient way — which not only gives you automatic updates but also
97supports the further development of Conversations - is to buy the App in the
98Google [Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations).
99
100#### I don't have a Google Account but I would still like to make a contribution
101
102I accept donations over PayPal, Bitcoin and Flattr. For donations via PayPal you
103can use the email address `donate@siacs.eu` or the button below.
104
105[](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=CW3SYT3KG5PDL)
106
107**Disclaimer:** I'm not a huge fan of PayPal and their business policies. For
108larger contributions please get in touch with me beforehand and we can talk
109about bank transfer (SEPA).
110
111My Bitcoin Address is: `1NxSU1YxYzJVDpX1rcESAA3NJki7kRgeeu`
112
113
114[](https://flattr.com/submit/auto?user_id=inputmice&url=http%3A%2F%2Fconversations.siacs.eu&title=Conversations&tags=github&category=software)
115
116#### How do I create an account?
117
118XMPP, like email, is a federated protocol which means that there is not one
119company you can create an 'official XMPP account' with. Instead there are
120hundreds, or even thousands, of provider out there. To find one use a web search
121engine of your choice. Or maybe your university has one. Or you can run your
122own. Or ask a friend to run one. Once you've found one, you can use
123Conversations to create an account. Just select 'register new account on server'
124within the create account dialog.
125
126#### Conversations doesn't work for me. Where can I get help?
127
128You can join our conference room on `conversations@conference.siacs.eu` A lot of
129people in there are able to answer basic questions about the usage of
130Conversations or can provide you with tips on running your own XMPP server. If
131you found a bug or your app crashes please read the Developer / Report Bugs
132section of this document.
133
134#### I need professional support with Conversations or setting up my server
135
136I'm available for hire. Contact me at `inputmice@siacs.eu`.
137
138#### How does the address book integration work?
139
140The address book integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
141neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
142address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
143add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
144the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
145your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
146details within Conversations. This will start an "add to address book" intent
147with the JID as the payload. This doesn't require Conversations to have write
148permissions on your address book but also doesn't require you to copy/paste a
149JID from one app to another.
150
151#### I get 'delivery failed' on my messages
152
153If you get delivery failed on images it's probably because the recipient lost
154network connectivity during reception. In that case you can try it again at a
155later time.
156
157For text messages the answer to your question is a little bit more complex.
158When you see 'delivery failed' on text messages, it is always something that is
159being reported by the server. The most common reason for this is that the
160recipient failed to resume a connection. When a client loses connectivity for a
161short time the client usually has a five minute window to pick up that
162connection again. When the client fails to do so because the network
163connectivity is out for longer than that all messages sent to that client will
164be returned to the sender resulting in a delivery failed.
165
166Other less common reasons are that the message you sent didn't meet some
167criteria enforced by the server (too large, too many). Another reason could be
168that the recipient is offline and the server doesn't provide offline storage.
169
170Usually you are able to distinguish between these two groups in the fact that
171the first one happens always after some time and the second one happens almost
172instantly.
173
174#### Where can I see the status of my contacts? How can I set a status or priority?
175
176Statuses are a horrible metric. Setting them manually to a proper value rarely
177works because users are either lazy or just forget about them. Setting them
178automatically does not provide quality results either. Keyboard or mouse
179activity as indicator for example fails when the user is just looking at
180something (reading an article, watching a movie). Furthermore automatic setting
181of status always implies an impact on your privacy (are you sure you want
182everybody in your contact list to know that you have been using your computer at
1834am‽).
184
185In the past status has been used to judge the likelihood of whether or not your
186messages are being read. This is no longer necessary. With Chat Markers
187(XEP-0333, supported by Conversations since 0.4) we have the ability to **know**
188whether or not your messages are being read. Similar things can be said for
189priorities. In the past priorities have been used (by servers, not by clients!)
190to route your messages to one specific client. With carbon messages (XEP-0280,
191supported by Conversations since 0.1) this is no longer necessary. Using
192priorities to route OTR messages isn't practical either because they are not
193changeable on the fly. Metrics like last active client (the client which sent
194the last message) are much better.
195
196Unfortunately these modern replacements for legacy XMPP features are not widely
197adopted. However Conversations should be an instant messenger for the future and
198instead of making Conversations compatible with the past we should work on
199implementing new, improved technologies and getting them into other XMPP clients
200as well.
201
202Making these status and priority optional isn't a solution either because
203Conversations is trying to get rid of old behaviours and set an example for
204other clients.
205
206#### Conversations is missing a certain feature
207
208I'm open for new feature suggestions. You can use the [issue tracker][issues] on
209GitHub. Please take some time to browse through the issues to see if someone
210else already suggested it. Be assured that I read each and every ticket. If I
211like it I will leave it open until it's implemented. If I don't like it I will
212close it (usually with a short comment). If I don't comment on an feature
213request that's probably a good sign because this means I agree with you.
214Commenting with +1 on either open or closed issues won't change my mind, nor
215will it accelerate the development.
216
217#### You closed my feature request but I want it really really badly
218
219Just write it yourself and send me a pull request. If I like it I will happily
220merge it if I don't at least you and like minded people get to enjoy it.
221
222#### I need a feature and I need it now!
223
224I am available for hire. Contact me via XMPP: `inputmice@siacs.eu`
225
226### Security
227
228#### Why are there two end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
229
230In most cases OTR should be the encryption method of choice. It works out of the
231box with most contacts as long as they are online. However PGP can, in some
232cases, (message carbons to multiple clients) be more flexible.
233
234#### How do I use OpenPGP
235
236Before you continue reading you should note that the OpenPGP support in
237Conversations is experimental. This is not because it will make the app unstable
238but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for widespread use.
239The way PGP works is that you trust Key IDs instead of JID's or email addresses.
240So in theory your contact list should consist of Public-Key-IDs instead of
241JID's. But of course no email or XMPP client out there implements these
242concepts. Plus PGP in the context of instant messaging has a couple of
243downsides: It is vulnerable to replay attacks, it is rather verbose, and
244decrypting and encrypting takes longer than OTR. It is however asynchronous and
245works well with message carbons.
246
247To use OpenPGP you have to install the open source app
248[OpenKeychain](www.openkeychain.org) and then long press on the account in
249manage accounts and choose renew PGP announcement from the contextual menu.
250
251#### How does the encryption for conferences work?
252
253For conferences the only supported encryption method is OpenPGP (OTR does not
254work with multiple participants). Every participant has to announce their
255OpenPGP key (see answer above). If you would like to send encrypted messages to
256a conference you have to make sure that you have every participant's public key
257in your OpenKeychain. Right now there is no check in Conversations to ensure
258that. You have to take care of that yourself. Go to the conference details and
259touch every key id (The hexadecimal number below a contact). This will send you
260to OpenKeychain which will assist you on adding the key. This works best in
261very small conferences with contacts you are already using OpenPGP with. This
262feature is regarded experimental. Conversations is the only client that uses
263XEP-0027 with conferences. (The XEP neither specifically allows nor disallows
264this.)
265
266### Development
267
268#### How do I build Conversations
269
270Make sure to have ANDROID_HOME point to your Android SDK
271
272 git clone https://github.com/siacs/Conversations.git
273 cd Conversations
274 git submodule update --init --recursive
275 ant clean
276 ant debug
277
278#### How do I debug Conversations
279
280If something goes wrong Conversations usually exposes very little information in
281the UI (other than the fact that something didn't work). However with adb
282(android debug bridge) you squeeze some more information out of Conversations.
283These information are especially useful if you are experiencing trouble with
284your connection or with file transfer.
285
286 adb -d logcat -v time -s conversations
287
288#### I found a bug
289
290Please report it to our [issue tracker][issues]. If your app crashes please
291provide a stack trace. If you are experiencing misbehaviour please provide
292detailed steps to reproduce. Always mention whether you are running the latest
293Play Store version or the current HEAD. If you are having problems connecting to
294your XMPP server your file transfer doesn’t work as expected please always
295include a logcat debug output with your issue (see above).
296
297[issues]: https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/issues