Version 0.6

Almost 4 months since the last stable release, and more than a year and almost 500 commits (woah...) since the last big one... Anyway, here's a new release of QMatrixClientQuotient - version 0.6, better than ever.

Thanks to all contributors and testers, as well as those building their applications using Quotient! This release's shoutouts go to:

• @a-andreyev for his work on E2EE within GSoC '19, color coding for user names etc.
• @encombhat for QtOlm, power level events support and making libQuotient more QML-friendly.

Thank you again!

New name

More than a year ago, a poll has been carried out in #qmatrixclient:matrix.org on a new, more concise name for the library and the project. As a result, the new name has been chosen; the project has changed the name to Quotient, and the library is named libQuotient, in line with
capitalisation practices in Qt ecosystem. (Some Linux distributions will use libquotient, along with their naming guidelines.) Apologies go to packagers - they'll have to do extra work to move over to the new name. Versions are counted as previously; but branch 0.5.x continues with the previous name (libQMatrixClient), while branch 0.6.x and master branch use the new name. I hope it won't cause too much mess as we collectively move over and retire 0.5 versions completely.

Compatibility

As usual for 0.x versions, 0.6 breaks API compatibility with previous versions. Most of the API is kept intact but there are also quite a few changes. See diffs in header files (you only need to check the difference between 0.5.3.2 and 0.6) to pinpoint them; these release notes will strive to guide you through most prominent updates.

Micro-versions in 0.6.y will maintain the API and ABI. Version 0.7 will break either API or ABI or both.

Toolchain (see also README.md)

Besides the name, another significant change is that libQuotient 0.6 uses C++17 as the baseline C++ standard. This drives new minimal supported versions of compilers: GCC 8+, Clang 7+, and MSVC 2017+. Older compilers and standard libraries will almost surely fail to build the codebase.

Oldest supported Qt version has been bumped as well (as warned in 0.5 release) - it is Qt 5.9 now. The next libQuotient version will bump the required Qt version further (most likely, to 5.12). As before, it's mostly driven by the Qt version in stable versions of major Linux releases. Along the same lines, the oldest CMake version supported is now 3.10.

Maintenance

The 0.6.x branch will be supported with non-breaking updates and fixes until the release of version 0.7. The 0.5.x branch is from now on sustaining support, only receiving critical and security fixes (see also the SECURITY.md file for details.

Note that Quotient installs include files to a subdirectory by default (#328).

Changes

The following list is based against 0.5.3.2, rather than 0.5.0. If you don't see some prominent feature (such as SSO, e.g.) that most likely means it's already backported as of 0.5.3.2. The full list of changes can be found in the commit log; the list of closed GitHub issues, as usual, can be found at the project dashboard.

Features and highlights

• The library now has a uniform layer dealing with whichever form Matrix identifiers come to the client - be it a "classic" Matrix identifier, a matrix.to link, or a newfangled MSC2312 matrix: URI. In any case you can pass a string to Quotient::Uri, and Quotient::UriResolverBase or Quotient::visitResource() (depending on your needs and taste) will handle it in a typesafe way, depending on what kind of identifiers it turns out to be. Most work is done in #407.
• Color coding for users and generic strings: User::hue(), User::hueF() (#298) and Quotient::stringToHueF() (#322) - thanks to @a-andreyev.
• Initial work on E2EE made by @a-andreyev, building on the @encombhat's QtOlm wrapper, as a part of last year's GSoC (#87, #90, #91, #95, #329, #332, #333, #334, #335, #346). This work is not complete and continues; the current E2EE code is behind a #define. Those willing to follow up on the effort kindly read the README file. Packagers are discouraged from enabling this code.
  • This is also an unusual (and, probably, the last) case of the original author of QMatrixClient application (that became Quaternion early on) showing up in the commit log (unfortunately, that commit still comes from 2016...). Thanks for @Fxrh once again for starting the whole thing!
• Event relations along the lines of MSC1849 (#341, #373, #376), specifically:
  • receiving reactions and edited messages (receiving replies was supported before);
  • sending reactions: Room::postReaction();
  • sending edits: extended interfaces around RoomMessageEvent (thanks to @rpallai).
• RoomPowerLevelEvent - checking permissions is easy now! Those checks themselves are not applied across the library though, as yet; this will come in further 0.6.x releases (#276/#371) - thanks to @encombhat
• When congested, the library much less hammers the server with requests thanks to rate-limiting applied connection-wide rather than per-request (#292).

API breakage

• The biggest breakage is, of course, the renaming of the library. This includes:
  • CMake/pkg-config strings, along with CMake options: QMatrixClient -> Quotient and QMATRIXCLIENT_* -> QUOTIENT_* (a18cfa5);
  • qmake library name: libqmatrixclient.pri -> libquotient.pri
  • C++ namespace: QMatrixClient -> Quotient (27ca32a); the old namespace is still a synonym to the new one until 0.7;
  • logging categories: libqmatrixclient.* -> quotient.* (40002b0);
  • qmc-example -> quotest (#352)
  • the group in application settings: libQMatrixClient -> libQuotient (64d096d)
  • the JSON key for the cached unread count: x-qmatrixclient.unread_count -> x-quotient.unread_count (a1be975).
• CS API jobs are always reparented to their Connection when started up. This allows to safely use in QML pointers to jobs returned by Connection and Room calls (previously QtQuick's garbage collector would clean them away right afterwards, leading to premature jobs deletion) (86b2931).
• Connection::resolveServer doesn't accept bare domans anymore - you have to pass a proper MXID to it (651478c). If you really need to resolve bare domain within the Connection context, you can use any (even invalid) MXID in the domain by prepending @ and some localpart to your domain string - but you better figure out the actual MXID this Connection should represent.
• Thumbnail requests now use the "scale" transform method rather than a dubious empty one. This may change the avatar images returned from media servers.
• The library uses the latest snapshot of official Matrix API definitions. For client-server interaction. Since spring 2019 there's been a huge amount of backend API changes; however, unless you use the library's callApi() layer you're unlikely to be directly affected.
• Deactivated users are signals with BaseJob::UserDeactivated instead of BaseJob::ContentAccessError (#344).
• Trying to leave a server notice room will cause BaseJob::CannotLeaveRoom instead of BaseJobe::IncorrectRequestError (#326, fadce11).
• RoomMessageEvent::content() returns a pointer to const now - this can break erroneous code that tries to edit the content in place (which would not work correctly anyway).

Deprecations

• Connection::token() is dropped; use Connection::accessToken() instead.
• EventType namespace used in pre-0.5 code to tag event types is now dropped; by now you should have long used the much more robust and extensible type tags system around Event::typeId() and Event::matrixTypeId() and (even better) is(), eventCast() and visit() template functions.
• Omittable<> now derives from std::optional<>; its omitted() method is now deprecated (fd3d681, f82ad2a).
• Connection::connectToServer() and Connection::connectWithToken() are deprecated and will be removed in 0.7; use Connection::login*() methods to login or Connection::assumeIdentity() to set the access token you already have (#388, 7ecc820).
• Room::setMemberState() is deprecated as a part of replacing it with better and more generic Room::setState() (025e5ab); it will be removed in 0.7.
• Room::roomMap() is deprecated as it's too easy to be misused leading to crashes as soon as left rooms are involved. Use allRooms() and rooms() as cleaner alternatives instead.
• RoomEvent::timestamp() -> RoomEvent::originTimestamp() to make it clear the time is not a universal virtue.
• ptrCast() is deprecated and will be removed in 0.7.
• BaseJob::JsonParseError is deprecated and is now a synonym for IncorrectResponse. It will be removed in 0.7.
• Not yet a breakage but a heads-up that BaseJob::StatusCode enumerators are being stripped of Error suffix. As of now, Error-less synonyms have been added; enumerators ending at Error may become deprecated in 0.7.

Fixes and smaller things

• A few more pieces of the library API are made Q_INVOKABLE/Q_PROPERTY or otherwise fixed for direct usage from QML: Room::highlightCount/notificationCount (#299), Room::aliases/altAliases() (79a3e9e, thanks to @encombhat), ignored users group in Connection (05c9984, thanks to @encombhat), BaseJob::statusCode (0495639) and many others.
• HTTP2 is disabled in this version, as Qt doesn't seem to be quite reliable with SSL HTTP2 connections (b1e8456).
• When using Qt 5.15, the library s...

Version 0.6 RC

This is a release candidate for the upcoming version 0.6. Release notes will come along with the final version. The list of closed issues and PRs can be found at the project board.

Version 0.6 beta 1

No release notes available

Version 0.5.3.2

This is the same as 0.5.3.1, except the API version (aka soversion) bumped to 0.5.3 to ensure correct upgrade via Quaternion dependencies.

Version 0.5.3.1

One more "sustaining" release that fixes a long-standing problem with job objects lifetime lasting beyond their connection lifetime, leading to crashes on connection removal (#397/#398). This problem became very apparent with introduction of SSO in Quaternion, where connection objects are removed as soon as the login dialog is cancelled; this release is aimed solely at fixing that.

Version 0.5.3

This is a "sustaining" release of 0.5.x branch, with ABI and API compatibility still retained but quite a few improvements backported from the upcoming 0.6 version. Here's the list:

• (#301/#383) Room::aliases() and Room::setAliases() are fixed, using the new alias management introduced in MSC2432 - thanks to @ram-nad
• (#321) More careful linkification of Matrix ids
• (#326) Support for the server notices room tag (MSC1452)
• (#330) Support of resolving the homeserver using .well-known (MSC433) - thanks to @encombhat
• (#341/#373/#376) Support of message editing and annotation (MSC1849) - thanks to @rpallai
• (#344) Compatibility with user deactivation error codes (MSC2181)
• (#345) Fix cache becoming inconsistent with actual room state due to unread counts not properly tracked - thanks to @rpallai
• (#347) Fix for a corner case in internal user avatar management that may lead to a crash in rare cases
• (#354) Provide a means to get the full list of rooms to client applications (aimed at fixing quotient-im/Quaternion#637 in the next Quaternion 0.0.9.4 rebuild)
• (#358) Only send access token where the spec says that it should be sent - thanks to nepugia for reporting
• (#359) Fix room highlighting for names with a hashtag - thanks to @a-andreyev
• (#361) Initialise read marker if there's none on the room yet
• (#365) Remove prev_content from special keys preserved against redaction (MSC1954)
• (#366) Make downloaded file name building more robust - thanks to nepugia for reporting
• (#387) Compatibility with Qt 5.14
• (#386/#388) SSO support
• (#390) Notify the client application about alias updates

Many thanks to everybody who tests and helps with development - and a separate thanks for the patience of users waiting for so long to get this release! You all are awesome!

P.S. The name of the library in this branch is still libQMatrixClient. Version 0.6 will be named libQuotient, as announced previously.

Version 0.5.2

A new bugfix release in 0.5.x branch:

• (#323) Direct chats are no more unmarked when logging in or after clearing the cache.

0.5.x releases keep the previous library name, libQMatrixClient.

Version 0.5.1.2

One more bugfix release in the 0.5.x branch:

• (#316) Expired tokens no more bring IncorrectRequestError instead of ContentAccessError; consequently, Connection::logout() ignores ContentAccessErrors so expired tokens don't leave the library in a "can't go-in, can't go out" state.
• Jobs abandoned due to Connection being deleted no more cause crashes.

Version 0.5.1.1

This release fixes a bug that makes 0.5.1 not being "new enough" for Quaternion 0.0.9.4, and another bug that made user showing up multiple times in the user list of Quaternion after renaming. Otherwise it's the same as version 0.5.1.

Version 0.5.1

(Update: this version has a bug in CMakeLists.txt that prevents it from being used by the upcoming Quaternion 0.0.9.4; version 0.5.1.1 fixes that)
This is a minor release in 0.5.x branch, fixing a few issues and adding small features:

• Fix (#303): linkification doesn't break on peculiar links.
• Fix (#310 and 27c2989): quirks in rendering room display names have been ironed out.
• Fix: Tighter validations of URLs coming with file events (too relaxed validations were causing the library to assert-crash on, e.g., encrypted attachments).
• Enhancement (#305): rooms created as direct chats are now automatically marked as m.direct for invited as well as inviting users.
• Enhancement (#306): Room::canSwitchVersions() returns false on rooms already upgraded (you still can disregard and call Room::switchVersion() but you better think twice - see https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/1937).
• Enhancement: Room::postFile() now first starts file upload and then places a pending event (neatly packed with file transfer information), rather than the other way around. Unless you do weird things with the library's API, you shouldn't notice.
• Enhancement: LRO/RLO Unicode markers are now stripped from display names, to curtail abuse of those.
• Feature: Connection::domain() to save client authors from taking the domain from user MXID.