Category: Release

Version 0.3.2 released

New release!

Contains many performance improvements as well as private chat rooms support.

There’s also a JAR version which is supposed to run on Linux ARM64 and OSX ARM64 too. Since I don’t have the hardware to test, your feedback is welcome.

Update: the JAR doesn’t seems to work. Missing JavaFX native libraries for some reasons. Use the installer instead.

List of changes:

Chat UI improvements

  • chat rooms with unread messages are highlighted
  • scrollback buffer fixes
  • unseen chat rooms are removed after a while

General UI improvements

  • visible error messages when there’s a startup problem
  • peer window only shows connected locations instead of all of them
  • improved ‘add certificate’ window

Protocol improvements

  • add user timeout support in chat rooms
  • faster syncing for distributed chat
  • improved identity transfers reliability
  • add private chats rooms with invitation support
  • faster connection to a peer by using the best connection first

Distribution

  • smaller packaging by only bundling needed native libraries
  • added JAR version: needs a local JDK 17 and runs on all supported architectures + Linux ARM64 and OSX ARM64

Head over to Github to download it.

Version 0.3.1 released

Finally a new release!

I now switched to Github Actions, which means it’s easier to build and as a bonus there’s now a MacOS version (but see here).

Here’s the list of changes:

Chat UI improvements

  • add time stamps prefix for each line
  • improve text formatting
  • add support for URLs
  • add support for emojis
  • add image support for node to node messaging
  • add support for inline certificate links
  • add support for actions (/me is happy)
  • add nicknames coloring

General UI improvements

  • add ability to delete profiles
  • sort profiles and identities

Protocol improvements

  • forward chat messages between multiple peers
  • handle SSL handshake failures properly
  • better recovery from a suspend/resume cycle (for example on a laptop)
  • chat rooms can be created even when no peer is connected
  • certificate support is back
  • add support for DNS names in certificates

And many bug fixes and other improvements.

Head over to Github to download it.

Version 0.2.0 released

This version contains many improvements:

  • identities transferts is fully supported and validations is performed, which means you can properly chat with RS users (no more missing usernames and so on)
  • the chat UI has been improved a lot
  • support for sending and receiving images in the distributed chat
  • typing notifications in distributed chat
  • many many bug fixes

This release is not compatible with the previous one. If you upgrade, please delete your previous user data and recreate a profile (there were too many changes to make it seamless).

Xeres should be usable for distributed chat now, also with Retroshare users. More services are comming.

Available on the release page.

First version released

The first public release of Xeres is available. Please note that it’s considered as a beta release (i.e. many features are still lacking) and you shouldn’t use it for mission critical stuff yet. But feel free to play around with it and give feedback as there’s still a lot of ongoing development.

What is supported

Xeres is compatible with Retroshare 0.6.6 or higher and can connect with such instances. Right now the supported services are as follows:

  • service info
  • discovery
  • heartbeat
  • rtt
  • chat (partial)
  • status (partial)
  • gxsid (partial)

Xeres can mostly be used for chatting. Either private messages (one friend to another) or group chats, also known as chat rooms.

Known bugs

  • creating a chat room is a bit spotty (the other side will see it but the local side requires a reconnect sometimes)
  • Retroshare seems to not like the outgoing GxsIds and refuses them, resulting of an “Unknown” identity in the chat rooms