After a year of development, the communication client Dino 0.4 has been released, supporting chat, audio calls, video calls, video conferencing, and text messaging using the Jabber/XMPP protocol. The program is compatible with various XMPP clients and servers, focusing on ensuring conversation privacy and supporting end-to-end encryption. The project's code is written in Vala using the GTK toolkit and is distributed under the GPLv3+ license.
To establish a connection, the XMPP protocol and standard XMPP extensions (XEP-0353, XEP-0167) are used, allowing calls between Dino and any other XMPP clients that support the relevant specifications, such as encrypted video calls with Conversations and Movim applications, as well as unencrypted calls with the Gajim app. End-to-end encryption of messages and authentication is achieved using the OMEMO XMPP extension based on the Signal protocol.
In the new release:
- Support for reactions has been added, allowing users to quickly respond to messages with appropriate emoji symbols, such as expressing surprise (🤯), agreement (👍️), or disapproval (👎️) without typing text.
- Direct replies have been added in group chats, direct messaging, and channels, linked to specific messages and enabling quick navigation to view them.
- The transition from GTK3 to GTK4 and the libadwaita library has been made, providing ready-made widgets and objects for building applications that comply with the new GNOME HIG (Human Interface Guidelines). The user interface is adapted to work correctly on screens of any size, including small mobile device screens.
Key features of Dino and supported XEP extensions:
- Multi-user chats with support for private groups and public channels (in groups, communication can only be done with included group members on any topic, while in channels any users can communicate only on the specified topic);
- Use of avatars;
- Message archive management;
- Marking the last received and read messages in chats;
- Attaching files and images to messages. Files can be transferred either directly from client to client or uploaded to a server with a link provided for another user to download the file;
- Support for direct multimedia content transfer (audio, video, files) between clients using the Jingle protocol;
- Support for SRV records to establish a direct encrypted connection using TLS, in addition to sending through an XMPP server;
- Encryption using OMEMO and OpenPGP;
- Message distribution via subscription (Publish-Subscribe);
- Notification of message typing status by another user (it is possible to disable typing notifications in relation to chats or individual users);
- Delayed message delivery;
- Bookmarks for various services and resources stored on server;
- Notification of successful message delivery;
- Advanced messaging search and output filtering tools in conversation history;
- Support for working in a single interface with multiple accounts, for example, to separate work and personal conversations;
- Offline mode operation with actual message sending and received accumulated messages after a network connection becomes available; server messages after the network connection appears;
- Support for SOCKS5 for enabling direct P2P connections;
- Support for XML vCard format.
Source: opennet.ru
