view mod_minimix/README.markdown @ 4362:116c88c28532

mod_http_admin_api: restructure group-related info in API - Return the members of the group right in the get_group_by_id call. This is an O(1) of extra work. - Remove the groups attribute from get_user_by_name as that is O(n) of work and rarely immediately needed. The replacement for the group membership information in the user is for now to use the group API and iterate; future work may fix that.
author Jonas Schäfer <jonas@wielicki.name>
date Wed, 20 Jan 2021 15:30:29 +0100
parents 92b4a1d72d73
children 3aab4e3ab06f
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Account based MUC joining
=========================

Normally when joining a MUC groupchat, it is each individual client that
joins. This means their presence in the group is tied to the session,
which can be short-lived or unstable, especially in the case of mobile
clients.

This has a few problems. For one, for every message to the groupchat, a
copy is sent to each joined client. This means that at the account
level, each message would pass by once for each client that is joined,
making it difficult to archive these messages in the users personal
archive.

A potentially better approach would be that the user account itself is
the entity that joins the groupchat. Since the account is an entity that
lives in the server itself, and the server tends to be online on a good
connection most of the time, this may improve the experience and
simplify some problems.

This is one of the essential changes in the MIX architecture, which is
being designed to replace MUC.

`mod_minimix` is an experiment meant to determine if things can be
improved without replacing the entire MUC standard. It works by
pretending to each client that nothing is different and that they are
joining MUCs directly, but behind the scenes, it arranges it such that
only the account itself joins each groupchat. Which sessions have joined
which groups are kept track of. Groupchat messages are then forked to
those sessions, similar to how normal chat messages work.

Known issues
------------

-   You can never leave.
-   You will never see anyone leave.
-   Being kicked is not handled.

Unknown issues
--------------

-   Probably many.

Compatibility
=============

Briefly tested with Prosody trunk (as of this writing).