rns.recipes

https://github.com/torlando-tech/columba/releases/tag/v2.0.0-beta

Hey everyone,

Columba 2.0 pre-release is available now.

Most notably, 2.0 completely refactored the backend to allow for either RNS or reticulum-kt to be plugged in at build time, though the vast majority of my testing was done for RNS. These install as separate APKs so you can try them side by side without reinstalling.

As usual, there may be some things that I missed, and this release touches every interaction point between Columba and Reticulum. For now, please post any bugs you find here or on GitHub.

Other notable changes include

• a breaking change for the wire format of replies and reactions in Columba, to confirm to MeshchatX's format. This means pre 2.0 and post 2.0 Columba instances won't see each other's replies and reactions.
• Columba can now share its Reticulum instance
• Voice calls can now be globally disabled, or allowed only for contacts
• Crash reporting via sentry.io has been made opt-in on the standard APKs. Sentry's SDK has been removed at compile time from the -no-sentry APKs

Thank you all for your support and appreciation for Columba. I may write a longer retrospective on 1.0 at some point, but the short version is I regret shipping it with reticulum-kt as the only option. An android optimized Reticulum package still remains an aspiration for me, but frankly it will not be a high priority for me over the next few months at least.

Anyway, thanks again and enjoy your weekend!

Nice release and hope you enjoy the weekend too!

Unrelated to you mostly, since you're just adding interop to them, but, MeshChatX should perhaps consider using the actual 0xFB/0xFC custom slots for reactions/replies rather than using unallocated, incase they ever get allocated in the future.

I'm confused, how are you running RNS, a python program, on android?

RNS runs via chaquopy in Columba. There are two processes in Columba, the main UI process is a native Android app built with jetpack compose and material 3 design. The second is a foreground service that runs RNS via chaquopy. They communicate over an AIDL bridge

I am getting pretty decent daily driving now that Columba has hit 2.0.8.

Nickie wrote:

I am getting pretty decent daily driving now that Columba has hit 2.0.8.

Thanks for the feedback! I have been considering promoting it to stable soon

Using Columba on my android successfully, thanks for it !

Columba seems to not be able to establish links if the destination hasn't sent an anounce during the time columba was online. Also messages for destinations that haven't sent an anounce during the time columba was online receive the message, but columba never gets the second check indicating that the message was received (even though it was).

Anonymous wrote:

Columba seems to not be able to establish links if the destination hasn't sent an anounce during the time columba was online. Also messages for destinations that haven't sent an anounce during the time columba was online receive the message, but columba never gets the second check indicating that the message was received (even though it was).

Are you using the python, or the kotlin version?

Torlando wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Columba seems to not be able to establish links if the destination hasn't sent an anounce during the time columba was online. Also messages for destinations that haven't sent an anounce during the time columba was online receive the message, but columba never gets the second check indicating that the message was received (even though it was).

Are you using the python, or the kotlin version?

Kotlin

Can you make it so that Columba shows more information about what's happening? Instead of just having circle, single tick, two ticks, you can have some indication for requesting path, sending, receipt confirmed, sending to propagation, sent to propagation, establishing link (for longer messages), sent via link... This will accomplish two things:

1. Users will be more psychologically connected to the actual reticulum network when they know what's going on
2. Debugging and explaining issues will be way easier.

Anonymous wrote:

Can you make it so that Columba shows more information about what's happening? Instead of just having circle, single tick, two ticks, you can have some indication for requesting path, sending, receipt confirmed, sending to propagation, sent to propagation, establishing link (for longer messages), sent via link... This will accomplish two things:

1. Users will be more psychologically connected to the actual reticulum network when they know what's going on
2. Debugging and explaining issues will be way easier.

I wouldn't mind adding additional details to the Message Details view, but keeping details minimal in the Conversation view was a deliberate design choice early on. Sideband already does a great job of showing lots of details up front, and my design intent with Columba wasn't to replace Sideband, but to offer a more approachable experience for users. I ended up getting a ton of feature requests after initial release to bring and more and more from Sideband into Columba, and some of these I probably should have said no to. That being said, the Message Details view is a fine place imo to show extra details to users who are looking for them (otherwise they wouldn't have been on that view in the first place) and a visualization of the LXMF state machine would be a neat thing to add.

The one thing I am open to on the chat bubble itself is disambiguating the single checkmark on sent messages. It can currently mean either sent without a delivery proof (for opp. and direct), or propagated. I haven't settled on a new icon to use for propagated yet, so if anyone has any ideas I'm open to suggestions.

Torlando wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can you make it so that Columba shows more information about what's happening? Instead of just having circle, single tick, two ticks, you can have some indication for requesting path, sending, receipt confirmed, sending to propagation, sent to propagation, establishing link (for longer messages), sent via link... This will accomplish two things:

1. Users will be more psychologically connected to the actual reticulum network when they know what's going on
2. Debugging and explaining issues will be way easier.

I wouldn't mind adding additional details to the Message Details view, but keeping details minimal in the Conversation view was a deliberate design choice early on. Sideband already does a great job of showing lots of details up front, and my design intent with Columba wasn't to replace Sideband, but to offer a more approachable experience for users. I ended up getting a ton of feature requests after initial release to bring and more and more from Sideband into Columba, and some of these I probably should have said no to. That being said, the Message Details view is a fine place imo to show extra details to users who are looking for them (otherwise they wouldn't have been on that view in the first place) and a visualization of the LXMF state machine would be a neat thing to add.

The one thing I am open to on the chat bubble itself is disambiguating the single checkmark on sent messages. It can currently mean either sent without a delivery proof (for opp. and direct), or propagated. I haven't settled on a new icon to use for propagated yet, so if anyone has any ideas I'm open to suggestions.

That's a good idea to know if it was put into propagation versus just sent with one check mark. 2 check marks mean sent and received I assume?

Anonymous wrote:

Torlando wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can you make it so that Columba shows more information about what's happening? Instead of just having circle, single tick, two ticks, you can have some indication for requesting path, sending, receipt confirmed, sending to propagation, sent to propagation, establishing link (for longer messages), sent via link... This will accomplish two things:

1. Users will be more psychologically connected to the actual reticulum network when they know what's going on
2. Debugging and explaining issues will be way easier.

I wouldn't mind adding additional details to the Message Details view, but keeping details minimal in the Conversation view was a deliberate design choice early on. Sideband already does a great job of showing lots of details up front, and my design intent with Columba wasn't to replace Sideband, but to offer a more approachable experience for users. I ended up getting a ton of feature requests after initial release to bring and more and more from Sideband into Columba, and some of these I probably should have said no to. That being said, the Message Details view is a fine place imo to show extra details to users who are looking for them (otherwise they wouldn't have been on that view in the first place) and a visualization of the LXMF state machine would be a neat thing to add.

The one thing I am open to on the chat bubble itself is disambiguating the single checkmark on sent messages. It can currently mean either sent without a delivery proof (for opp. and direct), or propagated. I haven't settled on a new icon to use for propagated yet, so if anyone has any ideas I'm open to suggestions.

That's a good idea to know if it was put into propagation versus just sent with one check mark. 2 check marks mean sent and received I assume?

Correct. Technically it means you also got the delivery proof in response to your message. Propagation messages never show double checkmarks because there is no delivery proof from the recipient for propagation messages

Torlando wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can you make it so that Columba shows more information about what's happening? Instead of just having circle, single tick, two ticks, you can have some indication for requesting path, sending, receipt confirmed, sending to propagation, sent to propagation, establishing link (for longer messages), sent via link... This will accomplish two things:

1. Users will be more psychologically connected to the actual reticulum network when they know what's going on
2. Debugging and explaining issues will be way easier.

I wouldn't mind adding additional details to the Message Details view, but keeping details minimal in the Conversation view was a deliberate design choice early on. Sideband already does a great job of showing lots of details up front, and my design intent with Columba wasn't to replace Sideband, but to offer a more approachable experience for users. I ended up getting a ton of feature requests after initial release to bring and more and more from Sideband into Columba, and some of these I probably should have said no to. That being said, the Message Details view is a fine place imo to show extra details to users who are looking for them (otherwise they wouldn't have been on that view in the first place) and a visualization of the LXMF state machine would be a neat thing to add.

The one thing I am open to on the chat bubble itself is disambiguating the single checkmark on sent messages. It can currently mean either sent without a delivery proof (for opp. and direct), or propagated. I haven't settled on a new icon to use for propagated yet, so if anyone has any ideas I'm open to suggestions.

Will having a different icons for all these cases really make columba unapproachable for users?

For over a month no Columba updates in GitHub. This is unusual.

Anonymous wrote:

For over a month no Columba updates in GitHub. This is unusual.

I returned to civilization after a vacation today but it will be at least a week before I return to development. Lots of grass to touch still