Matrix and Gitter

Last-updated 2020-12-07

Matrix (stylized “[matrix]”) is an app-layer network protocol for federated, decentralized, real-time chat/voice/video.

“Element” (formerly “New Vector”) is the company that writes and maintains a Matrix-based chat client called “Element”. In late 2020 they bought Gitter from Gitlab.

You can access the hosted version of Element at https://element.io/. You can create a Matrix account at there.

There’s a desktop app (it’s based on React+Electron). Install instructions are at https://element.io/get-started (click “Also available on Linux”).

Gitter is to be phased out at some point in favor of Element.

Mozilla is replacing their irc.mozilla.org with an Element-based chat.mozilla.org.

Channels

When you join a gitter channel/room using the element.io app, you have three options. For example, for the Janet language community room, you can join:

• “Matrix rooms (matrix.org)” (#janet-language_community:gitter.im),
• “Gitter rooms (matrix.org)” (#janet-language_community:gitter.im), or
• “Matrix rooms (gitter.im)” (#gitter_janet-language=2Fcommunity:matrix.org)

The first two may be the same room (?).

When you use the last one above, your messages over in the gitter.im app get your nick right (otherwise your nick ends up like “matrixbot @matrixbot” with @yourname:matrix.org).

Currently, the element.io webapp doesn’t seem to allow the nice multi-line “compose mode” that gitter.im does, nor does it render nice $$\mathrm{LaTeX \: math}$$, so I’m sticking with the gitter.im interface for now.