<story><title>Matrix 1.0 and the Matrix.org Foundation</title><url>https://matrix.org/blog/2019/06/11/introducing-matrix-1-0-and-the-matrix-org-foundation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chrismorgan</author><text>This interests me, as a potential user; but it’s only a killer feature if it’s accessible.&lt;p&gt;I start by looking into Hangouts matters, because I use Hangouts to talk to some of my family, currently only on my phone and not on my laptop; and I see three projects listed in &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;projects&amp;#x2F;try-matrix-now&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;projects&amp;#x2F;try-matrix-now&lt;/a&gt;: matrix-appservice-hangouts, mautrix-hangouts, and Hangouts Bridge. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;projects&amp;#x2F;bridges&amp;#x2F;#hangouts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;projects&amp;#x2F;bridges&amp;#x2F;#hangouts&lt;/a&gt; lists two, matrix-puppet-hangouts and matrix-appservice-hangouts.&lt;p&gt;Bridge, puppeting bridge, appservice—I have no idea what any of this means. I’m generally hoping for something like an instruction to install a piece of software on my laptop with `curl … | sudo bash` or some unsigned .exe or something. (Are any of these things basically a Matrix server that I could run on localhost, or do they slot into a Matrix server that I’d need to host elsewhere?)&lt;p&gt;And so I give up. The content formatting of those pages on matrix.org was super-ugly anyway, it’s clearly either not a good product or not for normal people. (This remark may seem harsh, but this &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; how most will think.)&lt;p&gt;What do I need to do for all of this to get Hangouts, SMS and Slack working in Matrix? Is Matrix ever going to focus on users and make questions like this easier to answer, or will it remain a niche product that I should not bother with?</text></item><item><author>mikenew</author><text>The not-so-talked-about but killer feature of Matrix is that you can bridge other services into it. I&amp;#x27;m currently able to send and receive messages from Hangouts, iMessage, SMS, and Slack all from within Matrix. If I&amp;#x27;m working on my laptop I can put my phone in my bag and not even touch it for 8 hours, because there&amp;#x27;s no need. I have Riot running on my laptop with a full keyboard and access to all my communication platforms.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not exactly easy to do (iMessage requires a dedicated Mac, for example), but it&amp;#x27;s possible. And it works pretty well. Pulling out my phone to tap out an SMS when I have a full keyboard in front of me seems silly at this point. Hopefully the bridging will continue to evolve and become more accessible to the average user, because it&amp;#x27;s amazing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Arathorn</author><text>The most mature bridges are available today via a user-friendly appstore if you click on the integration button in Riot. The matrix.org site is intended for developers rather than end-users. If you want to see user-focused stuff, go to Riot.im. That said, there is still work to be done to make the UX around bridging better.</text></comment>
<story><title>Matrix 1.0 and the Matrix.org Foundation</title><url>https://matrix.org/blog/2019/06/11/introducing-matrix-1-0-and-the-matrix-org-foundation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chrismorgan</author><text>This interests me, as a potential user; but it’s only a killer feature if it’s accessible.&lt;p&gt;I start by looking into Hangouts matters, because I use Hangouts to talk to some of my family, currently only on my phone and not on my laptop; and I see three projects listed in &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;projects&amp;#x2F;try-matrix-now&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;projects&amp;#x2F;try-matrix-now&lt;/a&gt;: matrix-appservice-hangouts, mautrix-hangouts, and Hangouts Bridge. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;projects&amp;#x2F;bridges&amp;#x2F;#hangouts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;projects&amp;#x2F;bridges&amp;#x2F;#hangouts&lt;/a&gt; lists two, matrix-puppet-hangouts and matrix-appservice-hangouts.&lt;p&gt;Bridge, puppeting bridge, appservice—I have no idea what any of this means. I’m generally hoping for something like an instruction to install a piece of software on my laptop with `curl … | sudo bash` or some unsigned .exe or something. (Are any of these things basically a Matrix server that I could run on localhost, or do they slot into a Matrix server that I’d need to host elsewhere?)&lt;p&gt;And so I give up. The content formatting of those pages on matrix.org was super-ugly anyway, it’s clearly either not a good product or not for normal people. (This remark may seem harsh, but this &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; how most will think.)&lt;p&gt;What do I need to do for all of this to get Hangouts, SMS and Slack working in Matrix? Is Matrix ever going to focus on users and make questions like this easier to answer, or will it remain a niche product that I should not bother with?</text></item><item><author>mikenew</author><text>The not-so-talked-about but killer feature of Matrix is that you can bridge other services into it. I&amp;#x27;m currently able to send and receive messages from Hangouts, iMessage, SMS, and Slack all from within Matrix. If I&amp;#x27;m working on my laptop I can put my phone in my bag and not even touch it for 8 hours, because there&amp;#x27;s no need. I have Riot running on my laptop with a full keyboard and access to all my communication platforms.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not exactly easy to do (iMessage requires a dedicated Mac, for example), but it&amp;#x27;s possible. And it works pretty well. Pulling out my phone to tap out an SMS when I have a full keyboard in front of me seems silly at this point. Hopefully the bridging will continue to evolve and become more accessible to the average user, because it&amp;#x27;s amazing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>shaan7</author><text>&amp;gt; or not for normal people&lt;p&gt;Given that the documentation you&amp;#x27;re reading is for sysadmins, it shouldn&amp;#x27;t be a surprise that its not targeted to end-users (assuming that is what you meant by &amp;quot;normal people&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; but it’s only a killer feature if it’s accessible.&lt;p&gt;Again, depends on your definition of accessible. Personally, if there is a feature I really like, I don&amp;#x27;t mind being patient and spending couple of hours to understand the docs.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not denying that Matrix needs to improve the issues that you&amp;#x27;ve pointed out, but that shouldn&amp;#x27;t make one disregard how useful it is.</text></comment>