The Grengarnet This is a guide I wrote some time ago to help people get a hang of using matrix. I'm not sure how accurate it is anymore but it may still provide some help.
Matrix Guide
I've made this guide to show people I am inviting to my space, but the client reccomendations may be useful to anyone.
Matrix has it's problems, but if you use good clients and set everything up correctly, it can be pretty good; and by using it over other messengers you will be supporting a better and more sovereign future for online communications, and the server and clients keep getting better.
Choosing a Homeserver
Matrix is a federated protocol, this means that people on different servers can easily communicate with people - this is one of it's gretest strengths. You can think of it like Email for instant messaging.
The first thing you will need to do is register on some server. The ones I'm aware of that have open registration and seem to work well areHalogen Place,Joe's site,andmidov.pl(but the weirdo shit on midov.pl website really turns me away). Alternatively you could always use matrix.org which is usually pretty stable, but has some privacy issues.
Registering is easy, just follow one of the above links, then click "continue to (server you selected)"
click "sign up" at the bottom
and fill out the required form
and you're done! depending on the server you will probably need to log into your email to complete registration. Please note that these screenshots are from halogen place and the steps may vary a bit depending on the server you choose.
Setting Up Your Client
Now that you've registered an account you can close out of that and pick a client. as matrix is federated and open source, there are many clients you can choose from. I will lay out the ones that I think are best for each major platform.
Cinny: Cinny (Linux, Windows, Mac) is a great client that has several features that you can't find on any other client, it also looks a lot like discord/slack so it should be familiar for a lot of you.
Schildichat: Schildichat is a pretty solid client, and it is the one I reccomend for android. in the settings you can seperate DM's from group chats which I think cleans things up nicely.
Element: Element is the "official" matrix client maintained by the matrix team. It is the only usable client I am aware of for iOS.
Cinny Guide
I will now go over how to download and log in on Cinny. I may add similar tutorials for the other clients on android and iOS at a later date.
First you will go to this linkand scroll down a little bit to the "Downloads" section and click the link for your platform. (You can alternatively just use the web appbut I have found it to be unreliable.)
The first thing you will want to do is to type the url of your homeserver at the top and then select "Login with (homeserver)"
Then just log in with your email/username and account
and you're in! if you click on your profile in the bottom right you can pick a theme, and even set some custom emojis for yourself.
Joining The Grengarnet Chat
To join The Grengarnet Chatspace you need only to join the following public room and wait for an invite to the space. (a matrix space is like a server in discord)
just click the plus > Join with address > and type in "#grengar:halogen.place"
once you get the invite it will show up in the bottom right like so:
accept it, and join the subspaces and whatever rooms you want to be in.
Click the dropdown where it says "grengar chat" and select"categorize subspaces" and then "manage rooms" and join these spaces:
and I am having some issues with managing the permissions for the rooms so for the time being just refer to the following list and request invites to rooms you want, or just say you want them all in immigration.
General
- announcements
- book club
- chess
- computers
- food/fitness
- general
- news
- shitposting
Media
- art
- images
- aesthetic images
- music
Misc.
- animals
- anime
- wizards
- history
and that's about it!