[circularfoyers]

If you prefer FluffyChat's UI over Element's then I'm guessing you are after a 1:1 or group style chat (i.e. chat bubbles), similar to say Signal or Facebook Messenger. Element isn't catering to this audience from what I can tell, it has a UI that is similar to Slack or Discord, which is suited for large group chats. Just because you aren't using Element in this way doesn't mean that it has the "worst UX" of any other client.

Your third point is a client side feature. If you meant that you want Element to have that feature, then yes I agree. But in saying that, it wouldn't surprise me that it's not high on the priority list when most clients (of any chat app) have this feature.

[dingo454]

I totally get it, but I still disagree. Getting more users on the network should be a #1 priority. You don't want to keep another 10 chat programs, just because matrix is "not" a plain chat app. If the element foundation doesn't do this, who will?

As a tech user, I still don't find the element UI great. It's clunky, quite slow and generally not intuitive, and wastes a lot of screen real-estate.

I'm using slack and discord and I find both to be _significantly_ better for group work.

But actively trying matrix on mobile, I still found the simplified FluffyChat UI much more usable on mobile anyway. Element is this sort of annoying middle ground which is not great for either.

The third point is also important, because matrix is one of the few systems where you can have a private network for your work. You know, just like slack (again, the "group" they're apparently targeting?). Great feature. But if you, like me, would like to use matrix for both work and other communications, you're stuck.

So in the end you run two clients. Element for work, fluffychat for everything else? And maybe shildychat for your other private group (I wish this was a joke).

[d110af5ccf]

Not to justify the missing feature in any way, but assuming you're on Android can't you modify the applicationId of the existing apk (there are tools on GitHub that will do this for you), resign the apk, and adb push it? Unlike desktop, mobile apps are so thoroughly sandboxed from one another that I don't think there's any way for that to cause problems. I guess updates might be cumbersome though.

[dingo454]

You can. People have suggested the Element foundation to publish "red blue green yellow" versions of element with just a different app id for this.

I wouldn't be against it (the _clear_ distinction between accounts is important!), but element is already a memory hog. You really don't want multiple instances running.

[godelski]

This is why I've always been confused by HN's comparisons of Signal and Matrix. I see Signal as a replacement to texting/Messenger/WhatsApp (chats focused on one on one or small groups) but I see Matrix as a replacement to Slack/Discord (chats focused on organizations or large groups). I'm not sure why these aren't two different paradigms, but maybe someone sees something I don't. Telegram seems the most in between to me, though there are security reasons I see Signal/Matrix as being better.

[hellcow]

Matrix is a protocol. Element is a reference app built on top of that protocol, and Element looks like Slack/Discord.

Other apps built on Matrix do not look like Slack, e.g. Fluffychat, which looks very similar to Signal.

[godelski]

But don't you still have the same server paradigm on Fluffychat as you do with Slack/Discord? That's very much not like Signal/WhatsApp.