Hello messaging alternatives!

who would like being able to use their regular email accounts for easy to use, free and secure, quick messaging across devices and operating systems?

There exists a new email-chat specification, and development versions of the first corresponding messenger app are available, see https://delta.chat. Also K-9 and Thunderbird are getting support to handle the opportunistic encryption of these messages.

The delta chat messaging app is already gaining some international popularity, as it makes email so easy to use.

Dekko2 looks as it could perfectly integrate a messaging interface within itself.

Would anybody want that?

Please have a look at the https://delta.chat website and think of it carefully. As @DanChapman, the author of Dekko wrote "If there's sufficient interest from others as well then we can get it on the road map :-)"

Is it worth the effort? Will people actually use it? Will others also find it perfect to recommend reconsidering email to others?

Dekko could make use of the available deltachat-core library (there is a lot of things to consider/implement to make chat and email work nicely side by side) and provide a virtual folder "Chats" that opens a messaging interface (in the right pane on tablets and desktops).

The delta chat messenger provides a mobile email client that is as easy to use as a messenger, without requiring central mobile notification servers. It gives people the power to communicate with the entire email world, using their existing email account. The other side does not have to use delta chat. All classic email clients will be able to respond to messages. But the messaging interface may not be appropriate to replace the classic email editing interface in all cases, thus one may require a second MUA app to be installed to handle classic emails, or have both integrated in a single app. Well, if you have access to an android phone, it is probably easier to try it out, than explaining.

Personally, I am happy that I found a messenger alternative that allows avoiding the data silos and is at the same time able to reach just about "everybody", through email. And email truly works in the mobile century again, once the other side also installs the "email chat" messenger.

IMHO, if Dekko could support this on UBports, we would be in the nice position to be able to exchange messages with virtually anybody and readily recommend delta chat for those on android, and also for iOS once that port is usable.
The current android development version is already very usable, although, still only on F-Droid until now.

Can you see the generic email chat messaging standard to work out?
Please see below and respond with your thoughts and/or vote on the topic.

Incidentally, interesting news: https://delta.chat/en/2017-12-21-34c3-and-other-news

I made a mockup from the screenshots, now. Thought of a new button or virtual folder that lists the current chats in the left pane (the screenshot happens to be from delta chat's long-press-on-chat feature (for archiving or deleting). The right pane shows the opened chat with the messages and text input line.

If both re-implementing all the things in Dekko as well as switching backends is too much work, maybe it is easiest to just embed deltachat within Dekko.

PS: There is also an article about why one should consider email chat: https://delta.chat/en/2017-05-31-delta-makes-chatting-better

Could somebody update an M10 tablet to 16.04 using one of the update channels?

@advocatux Just tried again switching to devel, stable and back to rc, all the time it said the software is up to date (showing Ubuntu touch Version 3, 15 and 61).

Maybe the reason there is no automatic update shown is the following error. Is this something one needs to fix locally?

~# system-image-cli -vvvv --switch ubports-touch/16.04/rc
...
[systemimage] ... uncaught exception in state machine
...
AssertionError: Missing destination files: ['/var/lib/system-image/keyring.tar.xz', '/var/lib/system-image/keyring.tar.xz.asc']
local_paths: [dbus.String('/tmp/blacklist.tar.xz'), dbus.String('/tmp/blacklist.tar.xz.asc')]
Exception occurred during update; see log file for details

Same thing happens with other channels, only for devel this happens for the file name channels.json.

@advocatux said in Automatic upgrade to OTA-4:

https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/877

Can somebody confirm that updates are available with the issue closed?

I think everybody understands work need to be done, with limited resources and it takes time, especially in projects like ubports. Just no need to use professional diverting talk with its typical reputation.

https://ubports.com/de_DE/blog/ubports-blog-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-4-release-166 :

If you are running Ubuntu Touch from the 15.04/devel or 15.04/RC channel, you will get an update to a 16.04-based image when you select 'updates' on your device at any time from the 3rd of September onward.

The problem with this information is, unfortunately, that nobody is getting an update and we're at a time after september 3rd. It might thus really have been better to say "sometime after september 3rd" (and maybe adding "before october 5th").

Well, next time, no problem.

Seems like there was a delay or a communication error in the announcement, hopefully the RC and DEVEL branches get updated some time after september 3rd.

Hopefully there were no roadblocks, since the branches should be usefull for the work on OTA-5.

I'd also say the current design of the app switcher, showing slightly angled screenshots of the apps, makes it easier to distinguish the apps.

I think it's not that easy to measure or calculate the improvements in snappiness and ease of use, compared to a practical test.

So here it is:

The only comparable action at the moment is the right edge "flip-to-latest-app". One could try out this flipping for a while, and then imagine you could flip apps left and right, and flip "home" in and out from the upper edge, with exactly the same speed!

Sorry, I had to improve my last sentence. Hopefully, it's better understandable now.

Sure, "home" stands for whatever will get used or configured in the future.

As stated above the current "long-drag from left" gesture to get "home" is slow and is not equally good for both hands. It even unnecessarily often needs a movement of the complete hand on tablets, not easily done by only moving a finger that is holding the device. Please re-read above posts and think about the different mentioned aspects brought to the discussion that can be improved together, by optimizing the edge gesture assignments. To use your own words, put yourself in the shoes to compare the things like symmetry and the ease of explaining the usage.

What do you think is so relevant about it --for optimizing edge gesture assignments-- to point out that touch gestures are useless without touchscreens, and that trackpad gestures can't be the same? Please elaborate if important.

@dobey Please let us know what you understand, and were you have questions.

When the buttons are not available like on a laptop display, the gestures need to work independently.

But considering the buttons are usually on the bottom, the ability to flip to the "home" at the upper edge is a good complement to the "home" button below the display, making the "home" quickly accessible from the top and the bottom side on such devices. (And the top edge is even reachable by fingers holding the device on either side, too.)