Implement contact list for Matrix contacts like Roster in XMPP Jabber

[MurzNN]

At now Riot track only Rooms in left sidebar. Even in People category there are also rooms, but with 2 persons, this is not direct contact to user.

So there are no way for users to manage classic contact list, like Roster in XMPP Jabber, User list in ICQ, Android contacts list, etc.

Without contact list it's too hard to find specific user contact when inviting it to room, or when you want to start new direct chat - I must remember it's email or Matrix ID for find him.

Also very often I rename users in contact list to my name, for easily finding. For example, user can fill in name only nickname "Fox" that not so unique, and I rename it to "Alexey Fox Ivanov (friend of Sergey Petrov)" to remember who is it.

So will be good to implement Matrix private user contact list (something like Jabber roster), for manage private Matrix contacts list (not rooms) in separate Riot tab, and shows items from contact list in "Start a chat" and "Invite new room members" windows.

[MTRNord]

A direct chat is always a "normal group chat" in matrix and I think there were multiple Issues about it that got reject because direct chats are equal to rooms. But petnames for rooms are planned I think ( https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/3130 ).

[MurzNN]

Yes, the main problem is direct chats is group chats and "People" is only custom tag for multi-user room. So I can rename it, add users, remove users and after this - I lost contacts. Also I can start multiple "direct chats" with same person, and got double contacts.
We need static contact list, independent to rooms. And we can merge current "People" group with Rooms (with ability to filter by tag "People" and other), and place "Contact list" instead if it in it place.

[MurzNN]

Seems that "Contact list" API or something other to manage contact list is missed in current Matrix spec, So we must implement this at first on Matrix Server side?

[MTRNord]

Well I thik first wait for votes of the community :) Some people like how it currently is

[turt2live]

Related: element-hq/element-web#2930

[uhoreg]

Also related: matrix-org/matrix-spec#365

[cuibonobo]

Strong vote for this. I've been looking for a replacement to our aging XMPP server and Matrix+Riot almost fits the bill, but people on a team are used to being able to see the whole roster list of who they are able to talk to in an organization. Unfortunately Riot doesn't provide this, so user onboarding is harder than it needs to be.

Basically, I'm echoing @ara4n's comment on 2930.

[DiThi]

This needs to be done as an additional level of abstraction over rooms:

• I should be able to add someone to my contact list, either from a button in their profile or from a matrix ID.
• When clicking a contact in the contact list (or from a button in the profile), it should instantly show an "empty room", and not to try to create an actual room until I send a message (I don't want to invite someone accidentally just because I added them to my list).
• Invites should not say it's a "room" but a direct 1:1 conversation.
• Add an option to automatically accept invites from direct messages. Maybe with some additional conditions (e.g. only from people seen in channels).
• Direct message rooms should hide a lot of room features: renaming, moderating... People try to rename direct message rooms assuming it's only visible to them, like when you rename a contact in a contact list.

Every single time my team tries Riot we find the private message UX awkward, confusing and slow, and not worth switching yet. Even something like showing common rooms in the user profile would help a lot, to avoid making duplicate private conversations again and again.

Using https://riot.im/develop/

[UnaSalisVictis]

I signed up just to say, yes, this is needed, badly, i get it requires code on both server and client side but, this is what keeps 1/2 of my friends from using riot.im, and insisting we should use wire instead since. it has proper contact lists.

i love the phone camera app and alot of aspects of riot, i would like some more theme options, and the settings to be....more user friendly(the layout on pc is as if your using a phone, and not one person i have on riot with me has anything but complaints about that aspect of the stupid thing..

they could just implement the ability to make 1:1 and non 1:1 rooms that are "locked"/"forever" for those who tick that option, this would probably be easier then adding a treditional contact list.

this is really what keeps a huge number of people i know from using it....

[banholzer]

I can confirm. We're just migrating from an xmpp environment to matrix / riot and the users are confused, because they don't have a roster.

[avirdoz]

Upvote for this feature.

[DinizCabreira]

I'll definitely upvote for this too.

Riot.im / Matrix is a dream come true in the downwards spiral that IM applications have become. I sincerely believe that if we want to drag people into it we need a way for them to be able to see their «friends» and contact them easily, in the way they are used to with other applications.

[MurzNN]

Maybe this can be implemented via special type of private groups (communities), to which users will can add contacts without sharing this info to added user and others, and without invite confirmation?

So users will create private community "Personal contacts" and manage it via add/remove all contacts that wanted.

But the problem now it that we must invite each contact to your community, so we must wait confirmation for adding them, also your personal contact list will be shared with other people.