Riot ==== Riot (formerly known as Vector) is a Matrix web client built using the [Matrix React SDK](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk). Riot is officially supported on the web in modern versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Other browsers may work, however official support is not provided. For accessing Riot on an Android or iOS device, check out [riot-android](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-android) and [riot-ios](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-ios) - riot-web does not support mobile devices. Getting Started =============== The easiest way to test Riot is to just use the hosted copy at https://riot.im/app. The `develop` branch is continuously deployed by Jenkins at https://riot.im/develop for those who like living dangerously. To host your own copy of Riot, the quickest bet is to use a pre-built released version of Riot: 1. Download the latest version from https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/releases 1. Untar the tarball on your web server 1. Move (or symlink) the `riot-x.x.x` directory to an appropriate name 1. If desired, copy `config.sample.json` to `config.json` and edit it as desired. See the [configuration docs](docs/config.md) for details. 1. Enter the URL into your browser and log into Riot! Releases are signed using gpg and the OpenPGP standard, and can be checked against the public key located at https://packages.riot.im/riot-release-key.asc. Note that Chrome does not allow microphone or webcam access for sites served over http (except localhost), so for working VoIP you will need to serve Riot over https. To install Riot as a desktop application, see [Running as a desktop app](#running-as-a-desktop-app) below. Important Security Note ======================= We do not recommend running Riot from the same domain name as your Matrix homeserver. The reason is the risk of XSS (cross-site-scripting) vulnerabilities that could occur if someone caused Riot to load and render malicious user generated content from a Matrix API which then had trusted access to Riot (or other apps) due to sharing the same domain. We have put some coarse mitigations into place to try to protect against this situation, but it's still not good practice to do it in the first place. See https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/1977 for more details. The same applies for end-to-end encrypted content, but since this is decrypted on the client, Riot needs a way to supply the decrypted content from a separate origin to the one Riot is hosted on. This currently done with a 'cross origin renderer' which is a small piece of javascript hosted on a different domain. To avoid all Riot installs needing one of these to be set up, riot.im hosts one on usercontent.riot.im which is used by default. https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/6173 tracks progress on replacing this with something better. Building From Source ==================== Riot is a modular webapp built with modern ES6 and uses a Node.js build system. Ensure you have the latest LTS version of Node.js installed. Using `yarn` instead of `npm` is recommended. Please see the Yarn [install guide](https://yarnpkg.com/docs/install/) if you do not have it already. 1. Install or update `node.js` so that your `node` is at least v10.x. 1. Install `yarn` if not present already. 1. Clone the repo: `git clone https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web.git`. 1. Switch to the riot-web directory: `cd riot-web`. 1. Install the prerequisites: `yarn install`. 1. If you're using the `develop` branch then it is recommended to set up a proper development environment ("Setting up a dev environment" below) however one can install the develop versions of the dependencies instead: ```bash scripts/fetch-develop.deps.sh ``` Whenever you git pull on `riot-web` you will also probably need to force an update to these dependencies - the simplest way is to re-run the script, but you can also manually update and rebuild them: ```bash cd matrix-js-sdk git pull yarn install # re-run to pull in any new dependencies cd ../matrix-react-sdk git pull yarn install ``` Or just use https://riot.im/develop - the continuous integration release of the develop branch. (Note that we don't reference the develop versions in git directly due to https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/3055.) 1. Configure the app by copying `config.sample.json` to `config.json` and modifying it. See the [configuration docs](docs/config.md) for details. 1. `yarn dist` to build a tarball to deploy. Untaring this file will give a version-specific directory containing all the files that need to go on your web server. Note that `yarn dist` is not supported on Windows, so Windows users can run `yarn build`, which will build all the necessary files into the `webapp` directory. The version of Riot will not appear in Settings without using the dist script. You can then mount the `webapp` directory on your webserver to actually serve up the app, which is entirely static content. Running as a Desktop app ======================== Riot can also be run as a desktop app, wrapped in Electron. You can download a pre-built version from https://riot.im/download/desktop/ or, if you prefer, build it yourself. To build it yourself, follow the instructions below. 1. Follow the instructions in 'Building From Source' above, but run `yarn build` instead of `yarn dist` (since we don't need the tarball). 2. Install Electron and run it: ```bash yarn electron ``` To build packages, use `electron-builder`. This is configured to output: * `dmg` + `zip` for macOS * `exe` + `nupkg` for Windows * `deb` for Linux But this can be customised by editing the `build` section of package.json as per https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/wiki/Options See https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/wiki/Multi-Platform-Build for dependencies required for building packages for various platforms. The only platform that can build packages for all three platforms is macOS: ```bash brew install mono yarn install yarn build:electron ``` For other packages, use `electron-builder` manually. For example, to build a package for 64 bit Linux: 1. Follow the instructions in 'Building From Source' above 2. `node_modules/.bin/build -l --x64` All electron packages go into `electron_app/dist/`. Electron Specific Features -------------------------- The electron version of Riot contains some features that are only possible from electron rather than within a browser window. This includes the "Push-to-Talk" feature, which allows you to toggle your microphone during a call even if Riot is not in focus. This requires the use of a native node module called [iohook](https://github.com/matrix-org/iohook/). Native node modules are written in C, and by default during the build of Riot the compiled binaries will be downloaded from npm. If you would like to build this module from source yourself, please read [Compiling iohook](docs/native_node_modules.md#compiling-iohook). Many thanks to @aviraldg for the initial work on the Electron integration. Other options for running as a desktop app: * @asdf:matrix.org points out that you can use nativefier and it just works(tm) ```bash yarn global add nativefier nativefier https://riot.im/app/ ``` The [configuration docs](docs/config.md#desktop-app-configuration) show how to override the desktop app's default settings if desired. Running from Docker =================== The Docker image can be used to serve riot-web as a web server. The easiest way to use it is to use the prebuilt image: ```bash docker run -p 80:80 vectorim/riot-web ``` To supply your own custom `config.json`, map a volume to `/app/config.json`. For example, if your custom config was located at `/etc/riot-web/config.json` then your Docker command would be: ```bash docker run -p 80:80 -v /etc/riot-web/config.json:/app/config.json vectorim/riot-web ``` To build the image yourself: ```bash git clone https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web.git riot-web cd riot-web git checkout master docker build -t vectorim/riot-web . ``` If you're building a custom branch, or want to use the develop branch, check out the appropriate riot-web branch and then run: ```bash docker build -t vectorim/riot-web:develop \ --build-arg USE_CUSTOM_SDKS=true \ --build-arg REACT_SDK_REPO="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk.git" \ --build-arg REACT_SDK_BRANCH="develop" \ --build-arg JS_SDK_REPO="https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-js-sdk.git" \ --build-arg JS_SDK_BRANCH="develop" \ . ``` config.json =========== Riot supports a variety of settings to configure default servers, behaviour, themes, etc. See the [configuration docs](docs/config.md) for more details. Labs Features ============= Some features of Riot may be enabled by flags in the `Labs` section of the settings. Some of these features are described in [labs.md](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/blob/develop/docs/labs.md). Development =========== Before attempting to develop on Riot you **must** read the [developer guide for `matrix-react-sdk`](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk), which also defines the design, architecture and style for Riot too. You should also familiarise yourself with the ["Here be Dragons" guide ](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12jYzvkidrp1h7liEuLIe6BMdU0NUjndUYI971O06ooM) to the tame & not-so-tame dragons (gotchas) which exist in the codebase. The idea of Riot is to be a relatively lightweight "skin" of customisations on top of the underlying `matrix-react-sdk`. `matrix-react-sdk` provides both the higher and lower level React components useful for building Matrix communication apps using React. After creating a new component you must run `yarn reskindex` to regenerate the `component-index.js` for the app (used in future for skinning). Please note that Riot is intended to run correctly without access to the public internet. So please don't depend on resources (JS libs, CSS, images, fonts) hosted by external CDNs or servers but instead please package all dependencies into Riot itself. Setting up a dev environment ============================ Much of the functionality in Riot is actually in the `matrix-react-sdk` and `matrix-js-sdk` modules. It is possible to set these up in a way that makes it easy to track the `develop` branches in git and to make local changes without having to manually rebuild each time. First clone and build `matrix-js-sdk`: ``` bash git clone https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-js-sdk.git pushd matrix-js-sdk git checkout develop yarn link yarn install popd ``` Then similarly with `matrix-react-sdk`: ```bash git clone https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk.git pushd matrix-react-sdk git checkout develop yarn link yarn link matrix-js-sdk yarn install popd ``` Finally, build and start Riot itself: ```bash git clone https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web.git cd riot-web git checkout develop yarn link matrix-js-sdk yarn link matrix-react-sdk yarn install yarn start ``` Wait a few seconds for the initial build to finish; you should see something like: ``` Hash: b0af76309dd56d7275c8 Version: webpack 1.12.14 Time: 14533ms Asset Size Chunks Chunk Names bundle.js 4.2 MB 0 [emitted] main bundle.css 91.5 kB 0 [emitted] main bundle.js.map 5.29 MB 0 [emitted] main bundle.css.map 116 kB 0 [emitted] main + 1013 hidden modules ``` Remember, the command will not terminate since it runs the web server and rebuilds source files when they change. This development server also disables caching, so do NOT use it in production. Open http://127.0.0.1:8080/ in your browser to see your newly built Riot. ___ When you make changes to `matrix-react-sdk` or `matrix-js-sdk` they should be automatically picked up by webpack and built. If you add or remove any components from the Riot skin, you will need to rebuild the skin's index by running, `yarn reskindex`. If any of these steps error with, `file table overflow`, you are probably on a mac which has a very low limit on max open files. Run `ulimit -Sn 1024` and try again. You'll need to do this in each new terminal you open before building Riot. Running the tests ----------------- There are a number of application-level tests in the `tests` directory; these are designed to run in a browser instance under the control of [karma](https://karma-runner.github.io). To run them: * Make sure you have Chrome installed (a recent version, like 59) * Make sure you have `matrix-js-sdk` and `matrix-react-sdk` installed and built, as above * `yarn test` The above will run the tests under Chrome in a `headless` mode. You can also tell karma to run the tests in a loop (every time the source changes), in an instance of Chrome on your desktop, with `yarn test-multi`. This also gives you the option of running the tests in 'debug' mode, which is useful for stepping through the tests in the developer tools. Translations ============ To add a new translation, head to the [translating doc](docs/translating.md). For a developer guide, see the [translating dev doc](docs/translating-dev.md). [translationsstatus](https://translate.riot.im/engage/riot-web/?utm_source=widget) Triaging issues =============== Issues will be triaged by the core team using the below set of tags. Tags are meant to be used in combination - e.g.: * P1 critical bug == really urgent stuff that should be next in the bugfixing todo list * "release blocker" == stuff which is blocking us from cutting the next release. * P1 feature type:voip == what VoIP features should we be working on next? priority: **compulsory** * P1: top priority - i.e. pool of stuff which we should be working on next * P2: still need to fix, but lower than P1 * P3: non-urgent * P4: interesting idea - bluesky some day * P5: recorded for posterity/to avoid duplicates. No intention to resolves right now. bug or feature: **compulsory** * bug * feature bug severity: **compulsory, if bug** * critical - whole app doesn't work * major - entire feature doesn't work * minor - partially broken feature (but still usable) * cosmetic - feature works functionally but UI/UX is broken types * type:* - refers to a particular part of the app; used to filter bugs on a given topic - e.g. VOIP, signup, timeline, etc. additional categories (self-explanatory): * release blocker * ui/ux (think of this as cosmetic) * network (specific to network conditions) * platform specific * accessibility * maintenance * performance * i18n * blocked - whether this issue currently can't be progressed due to outside factors community engagement * easy * hacktoberfest * bounty? - proposal to be included in a bounty programme * bounty - included in Status Open Bounty