NOTE: Server is currently offline until further notice. Thanks!
So I see there's a bunch of Matrix users here, so naturally, I started a channel on there. So if you're on there you can join room #codewalrus:codewalr.us and join the fun!
If you're new to this, a good client is https://riot.im/: it features browser, desktop and mobile apps. You can either register an account with any homeserver available (default is matrix.org but you can easily run your own) or use our custom homeserver http://codewalr.us (add :8448 if it doesn't work, leave identity server default) and log in with your CodeWalrus account to get a @YourCWUsername:codewalr.us. (If your username contain spaces or other weird characters, please get in touch.) Then you can search for #codewalrus:codewalr.us and join the room.
Right now, it's a bit experimental and might be a bit slow as the synapse server should refrain from eating all the available RAM (the matrix.org instance uses quite a lot of memory and disk space, but it's pretty big, ours should be way smaller and hopefully not use all the RAM and disk we have left), but you are welcome to come in and test! Matrix has quite a bunch of features WalrusIRC does not have like end-to-end encryption and other fun things, so maybe it may one day replace it and fully integrate with the forum.
FAQ
Q: Is there an IRC bridge?
A: Yes. There's a bunch of them, however, they create a new IRC client for each Matrix user (and vice-versa), which may be problematic with EFNet. matrix.org provides a bridge with Freenode and we're using it with our old channel on Freenode for the time being.
Q: There's something not working/a feature you should add
A: First or all, try again. Still not working? You can always complain in this thread. Additionally, the code for the forum auth provider is published at https://github.com/juju2143/matrix-synapse-smf, you can always check it out, I've left a bunch of TODO comments in the code, such as the problem below and syncing avatars, emails, display names and stuff.
Q: I can't get in with the CW homeserver
A: You can't register on this server. There's a few bugs left to squash with the login process, the most major one being with usernames with spaces and other weird characters Matrix might not like, if you're in this situation, please get in touch with me. The server might probably just be off, in that case, try again later. Feel free to register with another homeserver such as matrix.org or create your own, though.
Q: Can I link my several Matrix accounts with the CodeWalrus one?
A: I'm not aware you can do that, but you can easily pick one to use with any channel on any server you want and ditch the rest. Your account on the CW homeserver might be used for future integration with the website, though.
Q: Can I host a room for my project on the CW server?
A: Sure thing. Just create a new channel and integrate with IRC with the available bots if needed.
Q: I need help
A: Just poke me.
Q: There's no walruses
A: It indeed lack walruses. This should be fixed.
Have fun!
Regarding projects we should still encourage people to release update logs to the forums, though. Anyway glad to see this implemented. I assume I need to change my forum account to DJ_Omnimaga to use this?
This is more intended to replace wirc in the long run than the forum itself. :P Chat media aren't great for promoting your stuff due to their volatile nature.
Yeah what I meant is that we ended up with channels such as #CEmu-dev, #ez80-dev and many other IRC channels specific to certain calc projects in the past. While it's nice for discussing certain projects between co-authors, we already have #codewalrus and a few other established channels for general project discussion, as well as of course the forums.
Anyway my main concern for Matrix was if it was gonna be completely split from our IRC and Telegram groups. Remember how quiet #codewalrus was back when we did not have a CW-specific Telegram group <_<. Ideally it would be nice if this could replace WIRC in long terms, providing we can re-add OmnomIRC-like functionalities including the smileys and stuff as well as img.codewalr.us uploads.
Sadly I had to shut the server down for now. It's using up too much resources (constant CPU load and the little bit of RAM we had left), we can't afford to compromise our other services for this (WIRC keeps crashing), so until we fix the issue or get a server upgrade, it will stay as-is.
Yeah I noticed WIRC went down quite often since this discussion started. >.< We will have to upgrade I guess (I hope 2 cores and 2 GB RAM is fine, tho)
Well, that was a nice experiment.
you shouldedit the first post and add a "CURRENTLY OFFLINE" somewhere :)
I'm trying to connect to the server through matrix. It was fine on discord. But I have a riot.im account. When I go to add a room using #codewalrus:codewalr.us it gives me an error saying room unavailable.
Any help appreciated.
I kinda forgot how it worked, the server is dead because it was too much on our VPS for the amount of people who used it, but I guess you can go on a server that provides bridging with EFNet instead and go on #codewalrus there.
Nowadays, the Discord server is the only chatroom that is actively maintained, we provide a bridge to IRC for convenience, anything that can bridge to either of those (provided it's not a pain to maintain) should work.