184 lines
6.3 KiB
Markdown
184 lines
6.3 KiB
Markdown
# Chats
|
|
|
|
Chats are a way to represent an IM-style conversation between two actors. They are not the same as direct messages and they are not `Status`es, even though they have a lot in common.
|
|
|
|
## Why Chats?
|
|
|
|
There are no 'visibility levels' in ActivityPub, their definition is purely a Mastodon convention. Direct Messaging between users on the fediverse has mostly been modeled by using ActivityPub addressing following Mastodon conventions on normal `Note` objects. In this case, a 'direct message' would be a message that has no followers addressed and also does not address the special public actor, but just the recipients in the `to` field. It would still be a `Note` and is presented with other `Note`s as a `Status` in the API.
|
|
|
|
This is an awkward setup for a few reasons:
|
|
|
|
- As DMs generally still follow the usual `Status` conventions, it is easy to accidentally pull somebody into a DM thread by mentioning them. (e.g. "I hate @badguy so much")
|
|
- It is possible to go from a publicly addressed `Status` to a DM reply, back to public, then to a 'followers only' reply, and so on. This can be become very confusing, as it is unclear which user can see which part of the conversation.
|
|
- The standard `Status` format of implicit addressing also leads to rather ugly results if you try to display the messages as a chat, because all the recipients are always mentioned by name in the message.
|
|
- As direct messages are posted with the same api call (and usually same frontend component) as public messages, accidentally making a public message private or vice versa can happen easily. Client bugs can also lead to this, accidentally making private messages public.
|
|
|
|
As a measure to improve this situation, the `Conversation` concept and related Pleroma extensions were introduced. While it made it possible to work around a few of the issues, many of the problems remained and it didn't see much adoption because it was too complicated to use correctly.
|
|
|
|
## Chats explained
|
|
For this reasons, Chats are a new and different entity, both in the API as well as in ActivityPub. A quick overview:
|
|
|
|
- Chats are meant to represent an instant message conversation between two actors. For now these are only 1-on-1 conversations, but the other actor can be a group in the future.
|
|
- Chat messages have the ActivityPub type `ChatMessage`. They are not `Note`s. Servers that don't understand them will just drop them.
|
|
- The only addressing allowed in `ChatMessage`s is one single ActivityPub actor in the `to` field.
|
|
- There's always only one Chat between two actors. If you start chatting with someone and later start a 'new' Chat, the old Chat will be continued.
|
|
- `ChatMessage`s are posted with a different api, making it very hard to accidentally send a message to the wrong person.
|
|
- `ChatMessage`s don't show up in the existing timelines.
|
|
- Chats can never go from private to public. They are always private between the two actors.
|
|
|
|
## Caveats
|
|
|
|
- Chats are NOT E2E encrypted (yet). Security is still the same as email.
|
|
|
|
## API
|
|
|
|
In general, the way to send a `ChatMessage` is to first create a `Chat`, then post a message to that `Chat`. `Group`s will later be supported by making them a sub-type of `Account`.
|
|
|
|
This is the overview of using the API. The API is also documented via OpenAPI, so you can view it and play with it by pointing SwaggerUI or a similar OpenAPI tool to `https://yourinstance.tld/api/openapi`.
|
|
|
|
### Creating or getting a chat.
|
|
|
|
To create or get an existing Chat for a certain recipient (identified by Account ID)
|
|
you can call:
|
|
|
|
`POST /api/v1/pleroma/chats/by-account-id/{account_id}`
|
|
|
|
The account id is the normal FlakeId of the usre
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
POST /api/v1/pleroma/chats/by-account-id/someflakeid
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
There will only ever be ONE Chat for you and a given recipient, so this call
|
|
will return the same Chat if you already have one with that user.
|
|
|
|
Returned data:
|
|
|
|
```json
|
|
{
|
|
"account": {
|
|
"id": "someflakeid",
|
|
"username": "somenick",
|
|
...
|
|
},
|
|
"id" : "1",
|
|
"unread" : 2
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
### Getting a list of Chats
|
|
|
|
`GET /api/v1/pleroma/chats`
|
|
|
|
This will return a list of chats that you have been involved in, sorted by their
|
|
last update (so new chats will be at the top).
|
|
|
|
Returned data:
|
|
|
|
```json
|
|
[
|
|
{
|
|
"account": {
|
|
"id": "someflakeid",
|
|
"username": "somenick",
|
|
...
|
|
},
|
|
"id" : "1",
|
|
"unread" : 2
|
|
}
|
|
]
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
The recipient of messages that are sent to this chat is given by their AP ID.
|
|
The usual pagination options are implemented.
|
|
|
|
### Getting the messages for a Chat
|
|
|
|
For a given Chat id, you can get the associated messages with
|
|
|
|
`GET /api/v1/pleroma/chats/{id}/messages`
|
|
|
|
This will return all messages, sorted by most recent to least recent. The usual
|
|
pagination options are implemented
|
|
|
|
Returned data:
|
|
|
|
```json
|
|
[
|
|
{
|
|
"account_id": "someflakeid",
|
|
"chat_id": "1",
|
|
"content": "Check this out :firefox:",
|
|
"created_at": "2020-04-21T15:11:46.000Z",
|
|
"emojis": [
|
|
{
|
|
"shortcode": "firefox",
|
|
"static_url": "https://dontbulling.me/emoji/Firefox.gif",
|
|
"url": "https://dontbulling.me/emoji/Firefox.gif",
|
|
"visible_in_picker": false
|
|
}
|
|
],
|
|
"id": "13"
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"account_id": "someflakeid",
|
|
"chat_id": "1",
|
|
"content": "Whats' up?",
|
|
"created_at": "2020-04-21T15:06:45.000Z",
|
|
"emojis": [],
|
|
"id": "12"
|
|
}
|
|
]
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
### Posting a chat message
|
|
|
|
Posting a chat message for given Chat id works like this:
|
|
|
|
`POST /api/v1/pleroma/chats/{id}/messages`
|
|
|
|
Parameters:
|
|
- content: The text content of the message
|
|
|
|
Currently, no formatting beyond basic escaping and emoji is implemented, as well as no
|
|
attachments. This will most probably change.
|
|
|
|
Returned data:
|
|
|
|
```json
|
|
{
|
|
"account_id": "someflakeid",
|
|
"chat_id": "1",
|
|
"content": "Check this out :firefox:",
|
|
"created_at": "2020-04-21T15:11:46.000Z",
|
|
"emojis": [
|
|
{
|
|
"shortcode": "firefox",
|
|
"static_url": "https://dontbulling.me/emoji/Firefox.gif",
|
|
"url": "https://dontbulling.me/emoji/Firefox.gif",
|
|
"visible_in_picker": false
|
|
}
|
|
],
|
|
"id": "13"
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
### Notifications
|
|
|
|
There's a new `pleroma:chat_mention` notification, which has this form:
|
|
|
|
```json
|
|
{
|
|
"id": "someid",
|
|
"type": "pleroma:chat_mention",
|
|
"account": { ... } // User account of the sender,
|
|
"chat_message": {
|
|
"chat_id": "1",
|
|
"id": "10",
|
|
"content": "Hello",
|
|
"account_id": "someflakeid"
|
|
},
|
|
"created_at": "somedate"
|
|
}
|
|
```
|