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https://github.com/element-hq/element-desktop

A glossy Matrix collaboration client for desktop.
https://github.com/element-hq/element-desktop

desktop element element-web hacktoberfest matrix matrix-chat

Last synced: about 2 hours ago
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A glossy Matrix collaboration client for desktop.

Host: GitHub
URL: https://github.com/element-hq/element-desktop
Owner: element-hq
License: agpl-3.0
Created: 2019-12-06T13:07:36.000Z (almost 5 years ago)
Default Branch: develop
Last Pushed: 2024-10-29T09:49:32.000Z (15 days ago)
Last Synced: 2024-10-29T11:49:53.483Z (15 days ago)
Topics: desktop, element, element-web, hacktoberfest, matrix, matrix-chat
Language: TypeScript
Homepage: https://element.io
Size: 17.1 MB
Stars: 1,149
Watchers: 29
Forks: 263
Open Issues: 395
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- Changelog: CHANGELOG.md
- Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md
- License: LICENSE-AGPL-3.0
- Codeowners: .github/CODEOWNERS

Awesome Lists containing this project

README

        ![Build](https://github.com/vector-im/element-desktop/actions/workflows/build.yaml/badge.svg)

![Static Analysis](https://github.com/vector-im/element-desktop/actions/workflows/static_analysis.yaml/badge.svg)

[![Localazy](https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https%3A%2F%2Fconnect.localazy.com%2Fstatus%2Felement-web%2Fdata%3Fcontent%3Dall%26title%3Dlocalazy%26logo%3Dtrue)](https://localazy.com/p/element-web)

[![Quality Gate Status](https://sonarcloud.io/api/project_badges/measure?project=element-desktop&metric=alert_status)](https://sonarcloud.io/summary/new_code?id=element-desktop)

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# Element Desktop

Element Desktop is a Matrix client for desktop platforms with Element Web at its core.

# First Steps

Before you do anything else, fetch the dependencies:

```

yarn install

```

# Fetching Element

Since this package is just the Electron wrapper for Element Web, it doesn't contain any of the Element Web code,

so the first step is to get a working copy of Element Web. There are a few ways of doing this:

```

# Fetch the prebuilt release Element package from the element-web GitHub releases page. The version

# fetched will be the same as the local element-desktop package.

# We're explicitly asking for no config, so the packaged Element will have no config.json.

yarn run fetch --noverify --cfgdir ""

```

...or if you'd like to use GPG to verify the downloaded package:

```

# Fetch the Element public key from the element.io web server over a secure connection and import

# it into your local GPG keychain (you'll need GPG installed). You only need to to do this

# once.

yarn run fetch --importkey

# Fetch the package and verify the signature

yarn run fetch --cfgdir ""

```

...or either of the above, but fetching a specific version of Element:

```

# Fetch the prebuilt release Element package from the element-web GitHub releases page. The version

# fetched will be the same as the local element-desktop package.

yarn run fetch --noverify --cfgdir "" v1.5.6

```

If you only want to run the app locally and don't need to build packages, you can

provide the `webapp` directory directly:

```

# Assuming you've checked out and built a copy of element-web in ../element-web

ln -s ../element-web/webapp ./

```

[TODO: add support for fetching develop builds, arbitrary URLs and arbitrary paths]

# Building

## Native Build

TODO: List native pre-requisites

Optionally, [build the native modules](https://github.com/vector-im/element-desktop/blob/develop/docs/native-node-modules.md),

which include support for searching in encrypted rooms and secure storage. Skipping this step is fine, you just won't have those features.

Then, run

```

yarn run build

```

This will do a couple of things:

-   Run the `setversion` script to set the local package version to match whatever

    version of Element you installed above.

-   Run electron-builder to build a package. The package built will match the operating system

    you're running the build process on.

## Docker

Alternatively, you can also build using docker, which will always produce the linux package:

```

# Run this once to make the docker image

yarn run docker:setup

yarn run docker:install

# if you want to build the native modules (this will take a while)

yarn run docker:build:native

yarn run docker:build

```

After running, the packages should be in `dist/`.

# Starting

If you'd just like to run the electron app locally for development:

```

yarn start

```

# Config

If you'd like the packaged Element to have a configuration file, you can create a

config directory and place `config.json` in there, then specify this directory

with the `--cfgdir` option to `yarn run fetch`, eg:

```

mkdir myconfig

cp /path/to/my/config.json myconfig/

yarn run fetch --cfgdir myconfig

```

The config dir for the official Element app is in `element.io`. If you use this,

your app will auto-update itself using builds from element.io.

# Profiles

To run multiple instances of the desktop app for different accounts, you can

launch the executable with the `--profile` argument followed by a unique

identifier, e.g `element-desktop --profile Work` for it to run a separate profile and

not interfere with the default one.

Alternatively, a custom location for the profile data can be specified using the

`--profile-dir` flag followed by the desired path.

# User-specified config.json

-   `%APPDATA%\$NAME\config.json` on Windows

-   `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/$NAME/config.json` or `~/.config/$NAME/config.json` on Linux

-   `~/Library/Application Support/$NAME/config.json` on macOS

In the paths above, `$NAME` is typically `Element`, unless you use `--profile

$PROFILE` in which case it becomes `Element-$PROFILE`, or it is using one of

the above created by a pre-1.7 install, in which case it will be `Riot` or

`Riot-$PROFILE`.

You may also specify a different path entirely for the `config.json` file by

providing the `--config $YOUR_CONFIG_JSON_FILE` to the process, or via the

`ELEMENT_DESKTOP_CONFIG_JSON` environment variable.

# Translations

To add a new translation, head to the [translating doc](https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/blob/develop/docs/translating.md).

For a developer guide, see the [translating dev doc](https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/blob/develop/docs/translating-dev.md).

# Report bugs & give feedback

If you run into any bugs or have feedback you'd like to share, please let us know on GitHub.

To help avoid duplicate issues, please [view existing issues](https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+sort%3Areactions-%2B1-desc) first (and add a +1) or [create a new issue](https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/new/choose) if you can't find it. Please note that this issue tracker is associated with the [element-web](https://github.com/vector-im/element-web) repo, but is also applied to the code in this repo as well.