Software Update: Riot Web 1.3.0

Matrix is an open specification for secure and decentralized communication. To use this network, you can download the application Riot Bet. It allows you to chat, exchange files, make audio and video calls, set notifications and bring bots to life to set up integrations with other applications. The developers have released the 1.3.0 version of Riot Web with the following announcement:

️Message Editing & Reactions

The wait is over, they’re finally here! Message editing and reactions are live on Riot Web (1.3), Riot iOS (0.9.1) and RiotX (0.1.0) on Android!

Message Editing
To err is human; to fix your errors before anyone notices, divine. Message editing in Riot lets you edit your messages after sending. You can even correct your messages without taking your fingers off the keyboard — just press ‘up’ or ‘down’ to navigate through your message history to make the necessary changes. There’s no time limit on your ability to edit messages, but be aware that your message’s history is still available — anyone can see how a message has changed over time by clicking on the (edited) link next to the message text. Editing is live across Riot Web (and Desktop), iOS and RiotX on Android, so give it a whirl and let us know how you get on!

reactions
Riot’s new reactions feature lets you mark any message with emoji to convey your agreement, disagreement, happiness, celebration, skepticism, love, sense of rocketship or the wideness of your eyes. You can add a new reaction by clicking on the reaction icon that appears when you hover over a message; you can ‘+1’ somebody else’s reaction by clicking on the reaction emoji beneath the message. Reactions are also live across Riot Web (and Desktop), iOS and RiotX on Android. Riot iOS and Riot Web only support sending the eight ‘quick reactions’ today (👍👎😄🎉😕❤🚀👀) — support for reacting with any officially recognized emoji is implemented on RiotX and will land across all platforms soon! Custom emoji support will come in the future — watch this space for updates.

What about Riot Android support?
With RiotX on Android now in public beta, we’re focusing all of our Android development effort on getting it ready to replace the legacy Android app. As a result, we’ve chosen to implement message editing and reactions in RiotX and not in Riot Android. Android users can always install RiotX alongside the legacy Android app to get the best of both worlds 😛

Caveats!
Implementing message editing and reactions in a decentralized, openly-federated, end-to-end encrypted messaging platform is tricky. We’re still developing the implementation, and in particular the Matrix specification proposal for edits and reactions (MSC1849) is still in flight. Particularly, there are some edge cases you might encounter when following a permalink to an older message with edits or reactions where they won’t be picked up correctly — these will get fixed shortly however 🙂

As always, your feedback and bug reports are warmly welcome, so join us in #riot-web:matrix.org, #riot-ios:matrix.org and #riotx:matrix.org or file an issue on GitHub to let us know your thoughts!