[October 2021] OMEMO Status, UI and Bugfixes

This month was dedicated to fixing bugs and improving the usability.
Besides that, I updated to WinUI 2.7 from WinUI 2.5 and updated a bunch of UI light and dark theme inconsistencies.

Since UWPX is one of the few clients that support the "latest" OMEMO (0.7.0 (2020-09-05)) standard, I added a status indicator when enabling OMEMO, informing you if your contact supports it.

Please report bugs here!

Want more up to date news?

Follow @UWPX_APP on .

Donations

Known bugs

• MUC subject changing leads to an account disconnect #34
• Removing a chat does not perform cascade deletion #151
• ListDetailsView looses selection on reorder #166

Changes

• Added an OMEMO status control
• Added support for empty OMEMO key exchange messages
• A first pass for Russian translation (#165)
• Updated to Unicode 14 and Segoe UI Emoji 1.29
• Updated to WinUI 2.7
• Chat details header is now clickable
• Improved chat right click detection
• Fixed reconnect button locking the app up
• Fixed chat preview crash
• Fixed chat image backgrounds
• Fixed changing the OMEMO status via contact info

Example

The new OMEMO status indicator.

How can I get this App?

There are three ways how you can get access to the app.

1. Microsoft Store:

The simplest way is to just download it via the Microsoft Store.

2. Sideload:

If you don't want to use the Microsoft Store for getting access to UWPX you can also sideload a pre build app.
For this head over to releases and download the latest UWPX-Installer.exe.
Once downloaded, double click it and then click on install.

For this to work you first have to enable Sideload app in your Windows settings! Click here for more information about this.

⚠️ Windows will try to warn you that this is a malicious installation program. This is because I did not sign it with a valid developer certificate - you can ignore it. ⚠️

3. Build it by your own

Short version:

1. Install Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone the repository with Visual Studio 2019
3. Build the project for your target platform (e.g. x64)
4. Install the app on your target system:
   Here you can find more information about: How to install UWP apps, using the developer mode.

Long version:

An extended guide on how to build UWP with images to guide you through can be found here.

[September 2021] Beta and Push 📨🎉

It has been done. The first beta release of UWPX is out, and it's packed full of features.
After just 1457 days (3 Years, 11 Months and 21 Days) in development, UWPX finally has a stable push server up and running!
Now, even if you close the app, you still receive push notifications 🎉.
Besides that, I reworked and fixed the unread counter for messages and added a new welcome dialog.

Please report bugs here!

⚠Important ⚠

This is no in place update!
In order to get push notifications up and running, I had to republish the app with a new name in the Microsoft Store.
You can find more information about why here and here.

From now on, the old app will not receive any further updates any more.
Get the new one here:

Want more up to date news?

Follow @UWPX_APP on .

Donations

Known bugs

• MUC subject changing leads to an account disconnect #34
• Removing a chat does not perform cascade deletion #151

Changes

• Added push support.
• Added a new welcome dialog.
• Added MUC presence error parsing and handling support.
• Fixed MAM fails, when archive is empty.
• Fixed personalize settings page title bar content.
• Fixed selecting wrong chat when the chats changed.
• Fixed the unread notifications and counter.

Example

The new welcome dialog.

How can I get this App?

There are three ways how you can get access to the app.

1. Microsoft Store:

The simplest way is to just download it via the Microsoft Store.

2. Sideload:

If you don't want to use the Microsoft Store for getting access to UWPX you can also sideload a pre build app.
For this head over to releases and download the latest UWPX-Installer.exe.
Once downloaded, double click it and then click on install.

For this to work you first have to enable Sideload app in your Windows settings! Click here for more information about this.

⚠️ Windows will try to warn you that this is a malicious installation program. This is because I did not sign it with a valid developer certificate - you can ignore it. ⚠️

3. Build it by your own

Short version:

1. Install Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone the repository with Visual Studio 2019
3. Build the project for your target platform (e.g. x64)
4. Install the app on your target system:
   Here you can find more information about: How to install UWP apps, using the developer mode.

Long version:

An extended guide on how to build UWP with images to guide you through can be found here.

[August 2021] Beta Preparations

This release focuses on fixing bugs, so we are on track for releasing the first beta 🎉 of UWPX next month (ETA 01.09.2021).
Besides that, it fixes and enhances the XEP-0085 (Chat State Notifications) integration with a brand-new typing indicator and updated activity indicators.

Starting with the first beta of UWPX, push notifications will be supported out of the box, even if the app is closed 🤪.
So stay tuned!

Please report bugs here!

Want more up to date news?

Follow @UWPX_APP on .

Donations

Known bugs

• Not receiving offline messages #27
• MUC subject changing leads to an account disconnect #34
• MUC Errors broken #58
• Removing a chat does not perform cascade deletion #151

Changes

• Added a typing indicator.
• Changed: Using B-tier providers as suggestion instead of C-tier ones for registration suggestions.
• Fixed: Going back to register page after login.
• Fixed: Marking chat messages as read when at the bottom.
• Fixed: Typing indicator for XEP-0085 chat states.
• Fixed: Not publishing the OMEMO bundle on each start.
• Fixed: Parsing nodes with null as attributes (Text nodes).
• Fixed: Loading accounts when initializing push.

Example

The typing indicator in action.

How can I get this App?

There are three ways how you can get access to the app.

1. Microsoft Store:

The simplest way is to just download it via the Microsoft Store.

2. Sideload:

If you don't want to use the Microsoft Store for getting access to UWPX you can also sideload a pre build app.
For this head over to releases and download the latest UWPX-Installer.exe.
Once downloaded, double click it and then click on install.

For this to work you first have to enable Sideload app in your Windows settings! Click here for more information about this.

⚠️ Windows will try to warn you that this is a malicious installation program. This is because I did not sign it with a valid developer certificate - you can ignore it. ⚠️

3. Build it by your own

Short version:

1. Install Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone the repository with Visual Studio 2019
3. Build the project for your target platform (e.g. x64)
4. Install the app on your target system:
   Here you can find more information about: How to install UWP apps, using the developer mode.

Long version:

An extended guide on how to build UWP with images to guide you through can be found here.

[July 2021] Curated List of Providers for Registration and Autocomplete

This release adds support for XMPP Providers for auto complete and registration. It is a curated list of providers which should simplify the onboarding for new users.
Besides that, I fixed a few bugs related to stream close and open message parsing.

Please report bugs here!

Want more up to date news?

Follow @UWPX_APP on .

Donations

Known bugs

• Not receiving offline messages #27
• MUC subject changing leads to an account disconnect #34
• MUC Errors broken #58
• Removing a chat does not perform cascade deletion #151

Changes

• Added XMPP Providers support #159
• Added a register page
• Fixed invalid stream close messages
• Fixed master chat list item not staying selected

Example

How can I get this App?

There are three ways how you can get access to the app.

1. Microsoft Store:

The simplest way is to just download it via the Microsoft Store.

2. Sideload:

If you don't want to use the Microsoft Store for getting access to UWPX you can also sideload a pre build app.
For this head over to releases and download the latest UWPX-Installer.exe.
Once downloaded, double click it and then click on install.

For this to work you first have to enable Sideload app in your Windows settings! Click here for more information about this.

⚠️ Windows will try to warn you that this is a malicious installation program. This is because I did not sign it with a valid developer certificate - you can ignore it. ⚠️

3. Build it by your own

Short version:

1. Install Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone the repository with Visual Studio 2019
3. Build the project for your target platform (e.g. x64)
4. Install the app on your target system:
   Here you can find more information about: How to install UWP apps, using the developer mode.

Long version:

An extended guide on how to build UWP with images to guide you through can be found here.

[June 2021#2] Bug Fixes

Hotfix for the [June 2021#2] Bug Fixes update.
Fixes a couple of bugs related to #157.
Also adds a new dialog when we catch some specific known exceptions.
There you can decide to report what happened with a few more details that the automated crash reporting does, since I need more information to know exactly why those crashes exist, so I can fix them.

Please report bugs here!

Want more up to date news?

Follow @UWPX_APP on .

Donations

Known bugs

• Not receiving offline messages #27
• MUC subject changing leads to an account disconnect #34
• MUC Errors broken #58
• UWPX hangs after receiving contact request #107
• Removing a chat does not perform cascade deletion #151

Changes

• Fixed DataCache.INSTANCE.CHATS changing during Linq operation
• Fixed clicking on markdown links does not open a browser
• Added an UI dialog to catch specific potential crashes for #157
• Removed the test exception when exporting logs

How can I get this App?

There are three ways how you can get access to the app.

1. Microsoft Store:

The simplest way is to just download it via the Microsoft Store.

2. Sideload:

If you don't want to use the Microsoft Store for getting access to UWPX you can also sideload a pre build app.
For this head over to releases and download the latest UWPX-Installer.exe.
Once downloaded, double click it and then click on install.

For this to work you first have to enable Sideload app in your Windows settings! Click here for more information about this.

⚠️ Windows will try to warn you that this is a malicious installation program. This is because I did not sign it with a valid developer certificate - you can ignore it. ⚠️

3. Build it by your own

Short version:

1. Install Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone the repository with Visual Studio 2019
3. Build the project for your target platform (e.g. x64)
4. Install the app on your target system:
   Here you can find more information about: How to install UWP apps, using the developer mode.

Long version:

An extended guide on how to build UWP with images to guide you through can be found here.

[June 2021] Bug Fixes

This month is all about bug fixes. Since there are still a couple of those around, I'm planing to continue focusing on bug fixes for the next releases to bring UWPX back up to the "high" standard it should be if it comes to stability.

Here is a quick image showing crashes currently still present and waiting to be fixed.

Please report bugs here!

Want more up to date news?

Follow @UWPX_APP on .

Donations

Known bugs

• Not receiving offline messages #27
• MUC subject changing leads to an account disconnect #34
• MUC Errors broken #58
• UWPX hangs after receiving contact request #107
• Removing a chat does not perform cascade deletion #151

Changes

• Fixed adding a MUC crash
• Fixed MAM not being able to handle IQ-Error messages
• Fixed updating null chat
• Fixed handling of stream:error
• Fixed SCRAM-SHA-256

How can I get this App?

There are three ways how you can get access to the app.

1. Microsoft Store:

The simplest way is to just download it via the Microsoft Store.

2. Sideload:

If you don't want to use the Microsoft Store for getting access to UWPX you can also sideload a pre build app.
For this head over to releases and download the latest UWPX-Installer.exe.
Once downloaded, double click it and then click on install.

For this to work you first have to enable Sideload app in your Windows settings! Click here for more information about this.

⚠️ Windows will try to warn you that this is a malicious installation program. This is because I did not sign it with a valid developer certificate - you can ignore it. ⚠️

3. Build it by your own

Short version:

1. Install Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone the repository with Visual Studio 2019
3. Build the project for your target platform (e.g. x64)
4. Install the app on your target system:
   Here you can find more information about: How to install UWP apps, using the developer mode.

Long version:

An extended guide on how to build UWP with images to guide you through can be found here.

[April 2021] New DB and OMEMO 0.7.0

A LOT has changed in the last couple of months in UWPX.
I undertook the adventure of replacing the badly maintained SQLite-net DB backend with a new Entity Framework Core DB.
With this I was finally able to fix and update my OMEMO implementation to the latest version of the draft (OMEMO 0.7.0 (2020-09-05)).
This version is incompatible with all other previous versions of OMEMO and UWPX allows you now to only exchange OMEMO encrypted messages with contacts that support at least OMEMO 0.7.0 (2020-09-05) draft.

This should now finally allow UWPX to act as a client with a propper one to one OMEMO implementation!

Since we have new DB backend, the old DB is incompatible and you have to add your accounts again.

Please report bugs here!

Want more up to date news?

Follow @UWPX_APP on .

Donations

Known bugs

• Not receiving offline messages #27
• MUC subject changing leads to an account disconnect #34
• MUC Errors broken #58
• UWPX hangs after receiving contact request #107
• Removing a chat does not perform cascade deletion #151

Changes

• New DB backend. Switched from a SQLite-net DB to Entity Framework Core.
• OMEMO 0.7.0 (2020-09-05) support.
• New custom OMEMO Double Ratchet library.
• XEP-0313 (MAM) fixes and new settings.
• OMEMO device name support.
• Support for changing chat nicknames.
• Fixed displaying empty chat messages.

How can I get this App?

There are three ways how you can get access to the app.

1. Microsoft Store:

The simplest way is to just download it via the Microsoft Store.

2. Sideload:

If you don't want to use the Microsoft Store for getting access to UWPX you can also sideload a pre build app.
For this head over to releases and download the latest UWPX-Installer.exe.
Once downloaded, double click it and then click on install.

For this to work you first have to enable Sideload app in your Windows settings! Click here for more information about this.

⚠️ Windows will try to warn you that this is a malicious installation program. This is because I did not sign it with a valid developer certificate - you can ignore it. ⚠️

3. Build it by your own

Short version:

1. Install Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone the repository with Visual Studio 2019
3. Build the project for your target platform (e.g. x64)
4. Install the app on your target system:
   Here you can find more information about: How to install UWP apps, using the developer mode.

Long version:

An extended guide on how to build UWP with images to guide you through can be found here.

[January 2021] MAM the second

I bit of time has passed since the last release of UWPX in November.
In the meantime I was hard at work adding XEP-0313 (MAM) support to UWPX.
It's now in an actually usable form and I decided to enable it for everybody in this release.

Also in this release I refactored the way the post connection setup for, for example XEP-0030 (Service Discovery), XEP-0280 (Message Carbons) and XEP-0384 (OMEMO Encryption) is beeing handled. This should result in a far more reliable way those extensions function and work.

Those were all the features that made it into the current release.
Here are a couple of features, I'm working on and that will hopefully be in one of the next couple of releases in the beginning of 2021:

• I started working on replacing the SQLite-net DB with the Entity Framework Core. In theory this will again vastly improve OMEMO key storage reliability and the general DB performance.
• In the last couple of months XEP-0384 (OMEMO Encryption) got a couple of updates to it and is now (in theory) able to be implemented without a version of libsignal. I started writing my own OMEMO encryption library for that, so I do not have to rely on an unmaintained and outdated libsignal fork any more.

Please report bugs here!

Want more up to date news?

Follow @UWPX_APP on .

Donations

Known bugs

• Not receiving offline messages #27
• MUC subject changing leads to an account disconnect #34
• MUC Errors broken #58
• UWPX hangs after receiving contact request #107
• OmemoHelper is null #134

Changes

• Fixed message body included in the origin-id tag
• Refactored the client connection handler
• Refactored the way post connection events get handled. This should result in a far more reliable OMEMO encryption.
• Disco and MAM now work hand in hand
• Requesting MAM on startup
• Trying to load more chat messages from MAM when there are no local messages any more to display

How can I get this App?

There are three ways how you can get access to the app.

1. Microsoft Store:

The simplest way is to just download it via the Microsoft Store.

2. Sideload:

If you don't want to use the Microsoft Store for getting access to UWPX you can also sideload a pre build app.
For this head over to releases and download the latest UWPX-Installer.exe.
Once downloaded, double click it and then click on install.

For this to work you first have to enable Sideload app in your Windows settings! Click here for more information about this.

⚠️ Windows will try to warn you that this is a malicious installation program. This is because I did not sign it with a valid developer certificate - you can ignore it. ⚠️

3. Build it by your own

Short version:

1. Install Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone the repository with Visual Studio 2019
3. Build the project for your target platform (e.g. x64)
4. Install the app on your target system:
   Here you can find more information about: How to install UWP apps, using the developer mode.

Long version:

An extended guide on how to build UWP with images to guide you through can be found here.

[November 2020] MAM the first

Since the addition of incremental loading chat messages last month, the next logical step was to add support for MAM (XEP-0313: Message Archive Management).
For this I started implementing MAM support. Currently the implementation supports retrieving archived MUC (group chat) messages.
Since it's still very much work in progress, I decided to deactivate it for now.

Nevertheless this version includes, besides all the fundamental work for MAM, a bunch of bug fixes like for #139 and #140.

Please report bugs here!

Want more up to date news?

Follow @UWPX_APP on .

Donations

Known bugs

• Not receiving offline messages #27
• MUC subject changing leads to an account disconnect #34
• MUC Errors broken #58
• UWPX hangs after receiving contact request #107
• OmemoHelper is null #134

Changes

• Preparations for MAM (XEP-0313) support
• Fixed the IconButtonControl background color
• Added additional IoT controls
• Updated to the emoji picker to the latest version of Unicode 13
• Fixed a crash when deleting accounts #140
• Added support for parsing disco request messages
• Additional fixes related to IoT data forms
• Increased the Windows 10 target version to 10.0.19041.0 (2004) (minimum version stays at 10.0.16299.0 (1709))

How can I get this App?

There are three ways how you can get access to the app.

1. Microsoft Store:

The simplest way is to just download it via the Microsoft Store.

2. Sideload:

If you don't want to use the Microsoft Store for getting access to UWPX you can also sideload a pre build app.
For this head over to releases and download the latest UWPX-Installer.exe.
Once downloaded, double click it and then click on install.

For this to work you first have to enable Sideload app in your Windows settings! Click here for more information about this.

⚠️ Windows will try to warn you that this is a malicious installation program. This is because I did not sign it with a valid developer certificate - you can ignore it. ⚠️

3. Build it by your own

Short version:

1. Install Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone the repository with Visual Studio 2019
3. Build the project for your target platform (e.g. x64)
4. Install the app on your target system:
   Here you can find more information about: How to install UWP apps, using the developer mode.

Long version:

An extended guide on how to build UWP with images to guide you through can be found here.

[October 2020] Back to the Future

Time has passed again and a new release of UWPX is ready to be tested.
It includes a bunch of chat view related fixes and improvements.
Up until now it was only possible to view the last 100 messages.
This changes now. It took me about one and a half year to implement incremental loading for chat messages.
The problem here: The UWP ScrollViewer only supports incremental loading if you are scrolling downwards. But like you probably already noticed chats are being scrolled upwards ➡💥.

I finally managed to write my own logic for detecting and loading chat messages incrementally.
Besides that the chat interface also got a little bit of love. I fixed a bunch of chat message related bugs like downloading images and showing empty chat messages.

Please report bugs here!

Push

During my trial and error runs for fixing the push channel I deleted the Live SDK integration. I was hoping to get a new link, which is not broken. Turns out, once you deleted it, you can not create a new one.
Thanks for now warning, when clicking this button...
https://twitter.com/UWPX_APP/status/1254786200134578178
MS support is also not helpful, since they either want money from me, so I even can start chatting with them about that, or redirect you to ask questions in the forum. There the only suggestion is to DELETE UWPX from the store and start all over again.

This is no solution for me, since then everybody would have redownload the app...
To deliver push support I have to change the app identity. This results in a new app in the Microsoft Store. People have to redownload the app.

So I decided to do the following:

• Do not offer push support for versions < v.1.0
• Once version v.1.0 has been released people have to redownload a new and stable version of the app

You can read more about this here.

Want more up to date news?

Follow @UWPX_APP on .

Donations

Known bugs

• Not receiving offline messages #27
• MUC subject changing leads to an account disconnect #34
• MUC Errors broken #58
• UWPX hangs after receiving contact request #107
• OmemoHelper is null #134

Changes

• Added incremental loading for chat messages
• Added a "Click to view" tool tip for images
• Added a scroll down button for chat messages
• Better TLS upgrade error messages
• Fixed the image download progress not updating #69
• Fixed reconnect loops
• Increased the account reconnect delay to 15 seconds
• Fixed displaying empty chat messages
• Fixed showing send even if there are only whitespace chars
• Preparations for MAM (XEP-0313) support

Examples

A working version of incremental loading of chat messages.

How can I get this App?

There are three ways how you can get access to the app.

1. Microsoft Store:

The simplest way is to just download it via the Microsoft Store.

2. Sideload:

If you don't want to use the Microsoft Store for getting access to UWPX you can also sideload a pre build app.
For this head over to releases and download the latest UWPX-Installer.exe.
Once downloaded, double click it and then click on install.

For this to work you first have to enable Sideload app in your Windows settings! Click here for more information about this.

⚠️ Windows will try to warn you that this is a malicious installation program. This is because I did not sign it with a valid developer certificate - you can ignore it. ⚠️

3. Build it by your own

Short version:

1. Install Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone the repository with Visual Studio 2019
3. Build the project for your target platform (e.g. x64)
4. Install the app on your target system:
   Here you can find more information about: How to install UWP apps, using the developer mode.

Long version:

An extended guide on how to build UWP with images to guide you through can be found here.