1# Conversations
2
3Conversations: the very last word in instant messaging
4
5[](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations) [](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WD35AAC/)
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* Send and receive images as well as other kind of files
21* Share your location via an external [plug-in](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations.sharelocation)
22* Indication when your contact has read your message
23* Intuitive UI that follows Android Design guidelines
24* Pictures / Avatars for your Contacts
25* Syncs with desktop client
26* Conferences (with support for bookmarks)
27* Address book integration
28* Multiple accounts / unified inbox
29* Very low impact on battery life
30
31
32### XMPP Features
33
34Conversations works with every XMPP server out there. However XMPP is an
35extensible protocol. These extensions are standardized as well in so called
36XEP's. Conversations supports a couple of these to make the overall user
37experience better. There is a chance that your current XMPP server does not
38support these extensions; therefore to get the most out of Conversations you
39should consider either switching to an XMPP server that does or — even better —
40run your own XMPP server for you and your friends. These XEP's are:
41
42* XEP-0065: SOCKS5 Bytestreams (or mod_proxy65). Will be used to transfer
43 files if both parties are behind a firewall (NAT).
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-0313: Message Archive Management synchronize message history with the
52 server. Catch up with messages that were sent while Conversations was
53 offline.
54* XEP-0352: Client State Indication lets the server know whether or not
55 Conversations is in the background. Allows the server to save bandwidth by
56 withholding unimportant packages.
57* XEP-0191: Blocking command lets you blacklist spammers or block contacts
58 without removing them from your roster.
59
60## Team
61
62#### Head of Development
63
64* [Daniel Gultsch](https://github.com/inputmice)
65
66#### Code Contributions
67
68(In order of appearance)
69
70* [Rene Treffer](https://github.com/rtreffer)
71* [Andreas Straub](https://github.com/strb)
72* [Alethea Butler](https://github.com/alethea)
73* [M. Dietrich](https://github.com/emdete)
74* [betheg](https://github.com/betheg)
75* [Sam Whited](https://github.com/SamWhited)
76
77#### Logo
78* [Ilia Rostovtsev](https://github.com/qooob) (Progress)
79* [Diego Turtulici](http://efesto.eigenlab.org/~diesys) (Original)
80
81#### Translations
82Translations are managed on [Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/conversations/)
83
84## FAQ
85
86### General
87
88#### How do I install Conversations?
89
90Conversations is entirely open source and licensed under GPLv3. So if you are a
91software developer you can check out the sources from GitHub and use ant to
92build your apk file.
93
94The more convenient way — which not only gives you automatic updates but also
95supports the further development of Conversations — is to buy the App in the
96Google [Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations).
97
98Buying the App from the Play Store will also give you access to our [beta test](#beta).
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#### Where can I set up a custom hostname / port
127Conversations will automatically look up the SRV records for your domain name
128which can point to any hostname port combination. If your server doesn’t provide
129those please contact your admin and have them read
130[this](http://prosody.im/doc/dns#srv_records)
131
132#### Conversations doesn't work for me. Where can I get help?
133
134You can join our conference room on `conversations@conference.siacs.eu`.
135A lot of people in there are able to answer basic questions about the usage of
136Conversations or can provide you with tips on running your own XMPP server. If
137you found a bug or your app crashes please read the Developer / Report Bugs
138section of this document.
139
140#### I need professional support with Conversations or setting up my server
141
142I'm available for hire. Contact me at `inputmice@siacs.eu`.
143
144#### How does the address book integration work?
145
146The address book integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
147neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
148address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
149add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
150the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
151your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
152details within Conversations. This will start an "add to address book" intent
153with the JID as the payload. This doesn't require Conversations to have write
154permissions on your address book but also doesn't require you to copy/paste a
155JID from one app to another.
156
157#### I get 'delivery failed' on my messages
158
159If you get delivery failed on images it's probably because the recipient lost
160network connectivity during reception. In that case you can try it again at a
161later time.
162
163For text messages the answer to your question is a little bit more complex.
164When you see 'delivery failed' on text messages, it is always something that is
165being reported by the server. The most common reason for this is that the
166recipient failed to resume a connection. When a client loses connectivity for a
167short time the client usually has a five minute window to pick up that
168connection again. When the client fails to do so because the network
169connectivity is out for longer than that all messages sent to that client will
170be returned to the sender resulting in a delivery failed.
171
172Other less common reasons are that the message you sent didn't meet some
173criteria enforced by the server (too large, too many). Another reason could be
174that the recipient is offline and the server doesn't provide offline storage.
175
176Usually you are able to distinguish between these two groups in the fact that
177the first one happens always after some time and the second one happens almost
178instantly.
179
180#### Where can I see the status of my contacts? How can I set a status or priority?
181
182Statuses are a horrible metric. Setting them manually to a proper value rarely
183works because users are either lazy or just forget about them. Setting them
184automatically does not provide quality results either. Keyboard or mouse
185activity as indicator for example fails when the user is just looking at
186something (reading an article, watching a movie). Furthermore automatic setting
187of status always implies an impact on your privacy (are you sure you want
188everybody in your contact list to know that you have been using your computer at
1894am‽).
190
191In the past status has been used to judge the likelihood of whether or not your
192messages are being read. This is no longer necessary. With Chat Markers
193(XEP-0333, supported by Conversations since 0.4) we have the ability to **know**
194whether or not your messages are being read. Similar things can be said for
195priorities. In the past priorities have been used (by servers, not by clients!)
196to route your messages to one specific client. With carbon messages (XEP-0280,
197supported by Conversations since 0.1) this is no longer necessary. Using
198priorities to route OTR messages isn't practical either because they are not
199changeable on the fly. Metrics like last active client (the client which sent
200the last message) are much better.
201
202Unfortunately these modern replacements for legacy XMPP features are not widely
203adopted. However Conversations should be an instant messenger for the future and
204instead of making Conversations compatible with the past we should work on
205implementing new, improved technologies and getting them into other XMPP clients
206as well.
207
208Making these status and priority optional isn't a solution either because
209Conversations is trying to get rid of old behaviours and set an example for
210other clients.
211
212#### Conversations is missing a certain feature
213
214I'm open for new feature suggestions. You can use the [issue tracker][issues] on
215GitHub. Please take some time to browse through the issues to see if someone
216else already suggested it. Be assured that I read each and every ticket. If I
217like it I will leave it open until it's implemented. If I don't like it I will
218close it (usually with a short comment). If I don't comment on an feature
219request that's probably a good sign because this means I agree with you.
220Commenting with +1 on either open or closed issues won't change my mind, nor
221will it accelerate the development.
222
223#### You closed my feature request but I want it really really badly
224
225Just write it yourself and send me a pull request. If I like it I will happily
226merge it if I don't at least you and like minded people get to enjoy it.
227
228#### I need a feature and I need it now!
229
230I am available for hire. Contact me via XMPP: `inputmice@siacs.eu`
231
232### Security
233
234#### Why are there two end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
235
236In most cases OTR should be the encryption method of choice. It works out of the
237box with most contacts as long as they are online. However PGP can, in some
238cases, (message carbons to multiple clients) be more flexible.
239
240#### How do I use OpenPGP
241
242Before you continue reading you should note that the OpenPGP support in
243Conversations is experimental. This is not because it will make the app unstable
244but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for widespread use.
245The way PGP works is that you trust Key IDs instead of JID's or email addresses.
246So in theory your contact list should consist of Public-Key-IDs instead of
247JID's. But of course no email or XMPP client out there implements these
248concepts. Plus PGP in the context of instant messaging has a couple of
249downsides: It is vulnerable to replay attacks, it is rather verbose, and
250decrypting and encrypting takes longer than OTR. It is however asynchronous and
251works well with message carbons.
252
253To use OpenPGP you have to install the open source app
254[OpenKeychain](www.openkeychain.org) and then long press on the account in
255manage accounts and choose renew PGP announcement from the contextual menu.
256
257#### How does the encryption for conferences work?
258
259For conferences the only supported encryption method is OpenPGP (OTR does not
260work with multiple participants). Every participant has to announce their
261OpenPGP key (see answer above). If you would like to send encrypted messages to
262a conference you have to make sure that you have every participant's public key
263in your OpenKeychain. Right now there is no check in Conversations to ensure
264that. You have to take care of that yourself. Go to the conference details and
265touch every key id (The hexadecimal number below a contact). This will send you
266to OpenKeychain which will assist you on adding the key. This works best in
267very small conferences with contacts you are already using OpenPGP with. This
268feature is regarded experimental. Conversations is the only client that uses
269XEP-0027 with conferences. (The XEP neither specifically allows nor disallows
270this.)
271
272### Development
273
274<a name="beta"></a>
275#### Beta testing
276If you bought the App on [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations)
277you can get access to the latest beta version by joining the
278[Conversations Beta Testers](https://plus.google.com/communities/107649347599361240873)
279community on Google+ and then using [this link](https://play.google.com/apps/testing/eu.siacs.conversations)
280to sign up for the beta test.
281
282#### How do I build Conversations
283
284Make sure to have ANDROID_HOME point to your Android SDK
285
286 git clone https://github.com/siacs/Conversations.git
287 cd Conversations
288 ./gradlew build
289
290
291[](https://travis-ci.org/siacs/Conversations)
292
293### How do I update/add external libraries?
294
295If the library you want to update is in Maven Central or JCenter (or has its own
296Maven repo), add it or update its version in `build.gradle`. If the library is
297in the `libs/` directory, you can update it using a subtree merge by doing the
298following (using `minidns` as an example):
299
300 git remote add minidns https://github.com/rtreffer/minidns.git
301 git fetch minidns
302 git merge -s subtree minidns master
303
304To add a new dependency to the `libs/` directory (replacing "name", "branch" and
305"url" as necessary):
306
307 git remote add name url
308 git merge -s ours --no-commit name/branch
309 git read-tree --prefix=libs/name -u name/branch
310 git commit -m "Subtree merged in name"
311
312#### How do I debug Conversations
313
314If something goes wrong Conversations usually exposes very little information in
315the UI (other than the fact that something didn't work). However with adb
316(android debug bridge) you squeeze some more information out of Conversations.
317These information are especially useful if you are experiencing trouble with
318your connection or with file transfer.
319
320 adb -d logcat -v time -s conversations
321
322#### I found a bug
323
324Please report it to our [issue tracker][issues]. If your app crashes please
325provide a stack trace. If you are experiencing misbehaviour please provide
326detailed steps to reproduce. Always mention whether you are running the latest
327Play Store version or the current HEAD. If you are having problems connecting to
328your XMPP server your file transfer doesn’t work as expected please always
329include a logcat debug output with your issue (see above).
330
331[issues]: https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/issues