Farticle Accelerator🇨🇦1d ago
Is anyone here using NextCloud for extended family chat/photo/whatever?

Thoughts?

EDIT: Primary needs are a fall-off-log easy chat and photo sharing system in one app that is available on apple and android.

Current family chat is sms/rcs that inexplicably randomly splits the group chat into subgroups and confuses everyone. Investigated Matrix already and it's too fragile / complicated to try moving them to.

No photo editing needed, no voice/video chats, no shared calendars etc. I'm now thinking next cloud is too heavy for this.

EDIT 2: Found a list of things to investigate github.com/itsbryanman/selfhostedFamily?tab=readme-ov-file

#SelfHosting #familynetwork
GitHub - itsbryanman/selfhostedFamily: collection of family oriented self hosted apps/services

collection of family oriented self hosted apps/services - itsbryanman/selfhostedFamily

GitHub
Show threadD:\side\>1d ago

@scuttlebutt a little bit. Really depends on what your family uses and needs. Mine hasn't stuck much with Talk, but Files and Deck have been great, sharing features especially. OnlyOffice backed by Nextcloud has filled the need for a browser-based document editor a la Google Docs, but only for me I think.

Talk needs a STUN+TURN setup for calls which I don't have and don't have the guts to set up properly; and where I'm at (Russia) access to public/default options is getting increasingly scarce as the government keeps tightening internet restrictions to herd everyone to government-controlled platforms. It's… a fun environment to adapt to, in its own morbid way.

Practically everything offering voice&video calls needs STUN&TURN though, so… we've kinda postponed that bit for now and settled on just not having that for a while. Messages, including with voice and video, travel across Matrix fine for now, so that's what we have.

Show threadFarticle Accelerator🇨🇦1d ago
@dside Matrix is a non starter here. I looked into it and it's not been reliable nor easy for very non technical people to use. We're looking for replacement to sms/rcs (which randomly splits the group chats for unknown reasons), and simple photo sharing that doesn't leave images lost somewhere scrolled way back in the chat. Editing photos isn't needed either.
Show threadD:\side\>1d ago

@scuttlebutt yeah, this is by no means a recommendation, the UX of Matrix is pretty rough. But it's what we use. And after initial setup (sign up, sign in, auto key backup setup) for which I'm present, it hasn't been giving us grief. So far anyway. For like 3 years now. And server setup (Synapse) was easy. Only joining large public rooms is probably a mistake.

My next in queue to look at is Delta Chat, the UX of which I hear is sweet, but hosting a server for it is… a decision. Because it [ab-]uses mail servers for message transit, and if you already have a mail server on your IP, you can't host another specifically for Delta on it. There are no virtual hosts like with HTTP[S].

They heavily advertise "chatmail" for a complete set of features, which is only easy to set up on an *empty* machine, and it's also clearly meant for *public* use. If your country isn't censoring the Web heavily like mine you'll probably have a good ride with existing public chatmail relays to try it out.

Show threadFarticle Accelerator🇨🇦1d ago
@dside deltachat is high on my to investigate list. I have capability of only one ip at home and it's already been consumed for the mail ports for the built in synology mail system.

It is possible to compile the clients to use alternate ports but then I'd have to somehow get those modified clients onto the mobile devices and manage them etc etc.

I'm a retired sysadmin, it is possible for me, but I don't want to! The more I try to de-cloud, the more I wrestle with how to do so without overly complicating things. Making a new dependency on someone else's server isn't how I want to go either.

Oof. :p
Show threadD:\side\>19h ago
@scuttlebutt if you already have a mail server, you can use it, you'll have most of Delta's capabilities. Just make sure to get separate accounts&mailboxes for Delta, they've recently stopped supporting using one mailbox for both classic email and Delta Chat – clutter in classic clients and needless notifications have been a problem.
Show threadFarticle Accelerator🇨🇦12h ago
@dside unfortunately I moved my Synology to MailPlus for the additional features over the stock mail. I would have to buy additional seats or migrate back (I will investigate)

It looks like delta chat might be able to use multiple chat mail relays? At the very least, the relays do not appear to hold the encrypted messages long term. Maybe using one of the existing ones hosted in Canada would suffice.

We have moved everyone off Facebook messenger to sms in the past year so any friction on moving to delta should be less. I want to set it up and test a bunch before trying to do the move.
Show threadD:\side\>

> It looks like delta chat might be able to use multiple chat mail relays? At the very least, the relays do not appear to hold the encrypted messages long term. Maybe using one of the existing ones hosted in Canada would suffice.

@scuttlebutt yes, yes and probably. I'd certainly start looking at the app itself using public infrastructure before committing to set up a server for it.

6:59pmWeb
Show threadFarticle Accelerator🇨🇦9h ago
@dside Agreed. Also will need to create a how-to for them if we go with it. They are all remote from me, like 3 hour drive for the nearest and 5-7 hours for the rest.

Screen sharing a computer is one thing, but mobile devices I have never tried and seems like a recipe for disaster.