Alloy v0.2.0

Highlights

Added

• Messenger and Telegram style conversations (ADR 0008):
  • Reactions: hover bar on desktop; on a phone press and hold a message for a pill of your emoji beside it, or double tap to react with your first emoji. Tap or right-click a reaction to see who reacted.
  • Reply: swipe a message to the right on a phone; the Up arrow in an empty message box edits your last message on desktop.
  • Seen: one check when sent, two when someone has read it, and avatars of readers under your newest message in small rooms (setting: Show who has read your messages).
  • Pinned messages with a bar under the header, Forward to several rooms, Select several messages to copy, forward or delete, and Delete for everyone with a confirmation (moderators can delete others' messages).
  • Jump to latest shows how many new messages arrived, and an @ button jumps to messages that mention you.
• Chat list: pin chats to the top, archive them, mark as unread, mute for 1 hour, 8 hours, 24 hours or until you turn it back on, a "more" button on hover, swipe a chat left for Mute and Archive on a phone, and unsent text shows as "Draft:" in the list and comes back when you return.
• Search all chats: the sidebar search also finds message text across your unencrypted rooms.
• Media: pictures sent together appear as one album; the viewer is a gallery (swipe or arrow keys, pinch or double tap to zoom, swipe down to close, sender and time); audio plays inline with a waveform and 1x / 1.5x / 2x speed; Android can now download media to the Downloads folder; the attach button takes several files at once.
• Voice messages: hold the microphone on a phone (slide left to cancel, up to lock) or click it on desktop. Voice notes from other Matrix clients play too.
• Writing: a formatting toolbar on selected text (and an "Aa" row on phones) with Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, Code, Spoiler, Quote and Link, plus Ctrl/Cmd shortcuts; ||spoilers|| stay blurred until clicked; @room pings everyone when you are allowed to.
• Location: send your location or share it live for 15 minutes, 1 hour or 8 hours, with a banner and Stop button; received locations show a card that opens a map in your browser. No map is loaded inside the app.
• Safety: sign out one or all other sessions, change a member's role, remove or ban members, report a message, and block people (Settings > Security and privacy lists and unblocks them).

Changed

• The update prompt is a small, quiet notice above your account card instead of a bright button in an extra top bar. It never interrupts: dismiss it with the X (it returns next launch), skip a version from its menu, or keep chatting and restart whenever you like.
• Opening a picture or video fills the whole window on every platform, with the picture on the plain background.
• Pictures, videos and stickers sent without a caption sit straight on the timeline: no bubble or panel behind them, and a bare file name is no longer shown as a caption.
• Phones: tapping the message box no longer jumps the conversation to older messages when the keyboard opens.
• Quick reactions are yours to choose in Settings > Preferences > Reactions (synced across your devices).
• Start typing anywhere in a conversation and the text goes into the message box, no click needed.
• Read receipts are now tracked in every conversation (needed for the seen marks).
• Deleting a message asks first.

What's changed

Features

• ui: Quiet update notice, full-screen media viewer and type to focus (742dd1e)
• ui: Quick reaction bar on hover and long press with a setting (02742df)
• engine: Pins, forward, drafts, voice, location and moderation (5144e1a)
• ui: Chat parity with Messenger and Telegram (26dbc14)

Bug Fixes

• ui: Keep the timeline view steady when the keyboard opens (c692f74)
• e2e: React through the quick-reaction bar and add a one-click step (30727df)
• ui: Ignore a pagination answer from a room the user left (d102a5c)

Testing

• e2e: Open a menu and click its entry in one page task (aa1c0c4)
• e2e: Print the page text when a step fails (f72f179)

Full changelog: v0.1.9...v0.2.0

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Install

Unsigned pre-release build. See CHANGELOG.md for what is included and the known gaps.

macOS: the app is not notarized yet, so the first launch needs one extra step. Drag Alloy to Applications, then right-click it and choose Open, or allow it under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway. From a terminal: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Alloy.app

Windows: SmartScreen may warn; choose More info > Run anyway.

Android: signed with a throwaway key; uninstall the previous version before installing a new one.