MSC3765: Rich text in room topics

[Johennes]

Rendered

Implementations:

• Add support for different renderings to topic events matrix-events-sdk#5
• Add support for HTML renderings of room topics matrix-js-sdk#2272
• Add support for MD / HTML in room topics matrix-react-sdk#8215

[turt2live]

@alphapapa says:

On one hand, I can see some elegance in repurposing room topics for general-purpose, long-term room reference information. OTOH, it seems like overloading the purpose of topics with what, in other systems, would go in "pinned" topics or messages, or a wiki, etc.

So IMHO I would consider implementing support for pinned messages/events before overloading topics like this. It would seem relatively straightforward for a room's state to have a list of pinned events, which could be sent in initial sync by the server or be retrieved manually by clients. Clients could then display these pinned events in a room's timeline view, optionally hiding them, compressing them, etc. And the pinned events could be edited by room moderators using existing event-editing tools. (Forgive me if there's already a proposal for something like that.)

[turt2live]

@Johennes replies:

Interesting idea. Pinned events seem to already exist. However, in their current form, these are not fit to be used for what you describe because, depending on room settings, users joining the room after the events were sent could be unable to see them.

[turt2live]

@alphapapa and others: please use threads on the diff to have your comments considered. This can be done by adding a line comment.

If there's no obvious line for where to put a comment, please use the line containing the title.

[turt2live]

Generally this lgtm - thanks for updating it :)

[turt2live]

@jplatte says:

The current implementation in the JS SDK adds "org.matrix.msc3765.topic" as a content field to the existing m.room.topic event, but this MSC documents a new m.topic event type. Is the JS SDK implementation just outdated?

[Johennes]

The JS SDK implements an earlier version of this MSC, yes.

[ceearrbee]

This hasn't been touched for over a year, is there any ETA as to when it'll go live?

[Johennes]

Sorry, I'm not currently able to follow through on this myself. However, if you're interested, you could adopt ownership over this MSC.

[tmonz]

Sorry, I'm not currently able to follow through on this myself. However, if you're interested, you could adopt ownership over this MSC.

what would be the work that needs to be done? time effort? skills necessary? ...

[Johennes]

The unresolved comments need to be addressed and afterwards I think it could be sent through FCP which might yield further comments.

Update (2024-02-23): I've resolved the remaining comments and raised the proposal with the SCT.