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.

• Come to talk to us on Matrix: https://matrix.to/#/#fractal-gtk:matrix.org
• Main repository: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/fractal/

Installation instructions

Flatpak is the recommended installation method. You can get the official Fractal Flatpak on Flathub.

Fractal can also be installed as a snap on any distro with snap support enabled

Build Instructions

Flatpak

Flatpak is the recommended way of building and installing Fractal.

First you need to make sure you have the GNOME SDK and Rust toolchain installed.

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

# Install the gnome-nightly Sdk and Platform runtime
flatpak install --user gnome-nightly org.gnome.Sdk org.gnome.Platform

# Install the required rust-stable extension from Flathub
flatpak install --user flathub org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.rust-stable//21.08

# Install the required llvm extension from Flathub
flatpak install --user flathub org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.llvm12//21.08

Inside the build-aux folder run:

flatpak-builder --user --install app org.gnome.FractalNext.Devel.json

to compile and build fractalNext.Devel via flatpak.
(If flatpak is used, FractalNext.Devel can be entirely removed from your system with: flatpak remove org.gnome.FractalNext.Devel.json)

Snap

To build as a snap simply install snapcraft

snap install --classic snapcraft
snapcraft

The snapcraft build will produce a file that ends with .snap that can be easily installed with the snap command

snap install --dangerous FILENAME.snap

GNU/Linux

If you decide to ignore our recommendation and build on your host system, outside of Flatpak or snap, you will need Meson and Ninja (as well as Rust and Cargo).

meson . _build --prefix=/usr/local
ninja -C _build
sudo ninja -C _build install

macOS

brew install gtk+3 dbus bash adwaita-icon-theme libhandy gtksourceview4 \
    gspell gstreamer gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-good gst-plugins-bad gst-editing-services
# empirically needs 3.22.19 or later of gtk3+
# ...and run configure as:
/usr/local/bin/bash -c "meson . _build --prefix=/usr/local"
ninja -C _build
sudo ninja -C _build install

Translations

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

If you want to add a new language you should update the file fractal-gtk/po/LINGUAS and add the code for that language to the list.

Get the pot file from the Fractal module page on Damned lies.

Password Storage

Fractal uses Secret Service to store the password so you should have something providing that service on your system. If you're using GNOME or KDE this should work for you out of the box with gnome-keyring or ksecretservice.

Supported m.room.message (msgtypes)

msgtypes	Recv	Send
m.text	Done	Done
m.emote	Done	Done
m.notice
m.image	Done	Done
m.file	Done	Done
m.location
m.video	Done	Done
m.audio	Done	Done

Full reference in: https://matrix.org/docs/spec/client_server/r0.2.0.html#m-room-message-msgtypes

Frequently Asked Questions

• Does Fractal have encryption support? Will it ever?

Fractal does not currently have encryption support, but there is an initiative for it.

We are heading towards using matrix-rust-sdk rather than our own implementation. (See https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/fractal/-/issues/636)

Code and further information for this module can be found at matrix/matrix-rust-sdk.

• Can I run Fractal with the window closed?

Currently Fractal does not support this. Fractal is a GNOME application, and accordingly adheres GNOME guidelines and paradigms. This will be revisited if or when GNOME gets a "Do Not Disturb" feature.

The origin of Fractal

This project is based on Fest https://github.com/fest-im/fest, formerly called ruma-gtk.

Instead of using RUMA Client, Fractal calls directly to the matrix.org REST API.

The first version of this project 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.