Fractal

Fractal is a Matrix messaging app for GNOME written in Rust. Its interface is optimized for collaboration in large groups, such as free software projects.

Work in Progress

We already talked several times in the past about rewriting the application, but for different reasons we didn't do it. Now that the matrix-rust-sdk exists, which does a lot of the heavy lifting for us, we have a good starting point to build Fractal without the need to implement every single feature from the Matrix API. Finally with the release of GTK4 we would need to rework most of Fractal's code anyways. Therefore, it just makes sense to start over and build Fractal with all the features (e.g end-to-end encryption) we have in mind.

A year ago we started working on rewriting Fractal from scratch using GTK4 and the matrix-rust-sdk. This effort was called Fractal Next.

Fractal Next now replaced our previous codebase, and has become the new nightly version. It isn't yet ready for a release and you can follow along our progress towards it by looking at the Fractal v5 (Fractal-next) milestone.

Installation instructions

Stable version

The current stable version is 4.4.0 (released August 2020).

Flatpak is the recommended installation method. Until our next iteration is ready, you can get the official Fractal Flatpak on Flathub.

Development version

If you want to try Fractal Next without building it yourself, it is available as a nightly Flatpak in the gnome-nightly repo.

First, setup the GNOME nightlies.

Then install the application.

Or from the command line:

# Add the gnome-nightly repo
flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists gnome-nightly https://nightly.gnome.org/gnome-nightly.flatpakrepo

# Install the nightly build
flatpak install --user gnome-nightly org.gnome.Fractal.Devel

Runtime Dependencies

Fractal doesn’t store your password, but it stores your access token and the passphrase used to encrypt the database and the local cache.

The stable Flatpak available on Flathub and any version that is not sandboxed rely on software that implements the Secret Service API to store those secrets. Therefore, you need to have software providing that service on your system, like gnome-keyring, KeepassXC (setup guide), or a recent version of KWallet. If you are using GNOME this should just work.

With the nightly Flatpak, Fractal uses the Secret portal to store those secrets. Once again, if you are using GNOME this should just work. If you are using a different desktop environment or are facing issues, make sure xdg-desktop-portal is installed along with a service that provides the Secret portal backend interface, which is currently only implemented by gnome-keyring.

If you prefer to use other software that only implements the Secret Service API while using the nightly Flatpak, you need to make sure that no service implementing the Secret portal backend interface is running, and you need to allow Fractal to access the D-Bus service with this command:

flatpak override --user --talk-name=org.freedesktop.secrets org.gnome.Fractal.Devel

Or with Flatseal, by adding org.freedesktop.secrets in the Session Bus > Talk list of Fractal.

Security Best Practices

You should use a strong password that is hard to guess to protect the secrets stored on your device, whether the password is used directly to unlock your secrets (with a password manager for example) or if it is used to open your user session and your secrets are unlocked automatically (which is normally the case with a GNOME session).

Furthermore, make sure to lock your system when stepping away from the computer since an unlocked computer can allow other people to access your private communications and your secrets.

Contributing

Code

Please follow our contributing guidelines.

Translations

Fractal is translated by the GNOME translation team on Damned lies.

Find your language in the list on the Fractal module page on Damned lies.

The names of the emoji displayed during verification come from the Matrix specification repository. They are translated on Element’s translation platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Does Fractal have encryption support? Will it ever?

Yes, the current development version (main branch) has encryption support using Cross-Signing. See https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/fractal/-/issues/717 for more info on the state of encryption.

• Can I run Fractal with the window closed?

Currently Fractal does not support this. Fractal is a GNOME application, and accordingly adheres to the GNOME guidelines and paradigms. This will be revisited if or when GNOME gets a proper paradigm to interact with apps running in the background.

The origin of Fractal

The development version is a complete rewrite of Fractal built on top of the matrix-rust-sdk using GTK4.

The previous version of Fractal was using GTK3 and its own backend to talk to a matrix homeserver, the code can be found in the legacy branch.

Initial versions were based on Fest https://github.com/fest-im/fest, formerly called ruma-gtk. In the origins of the project it was called guillotine, based on French revolution, in relation with the Riot client name, but it's a negative name so we decide to change for a math one.

The name Fractal was proposed by Regina Bíró.

Code of Conduct

Fractal follows the official GNOME Foundation code of conduct. You can read it here.