Whisperfish
The new Whisperfish 0.6 is getting functional. Whisperfish should be in a usable state for many users; make sure to have the latest version! Also, check our Wiki and feel free to contribute to it!
What to expect
If you had a pre-existing, working 0.5 installation with default settings, migration should be a breeze. Notably not working:
- Creating groups (planned for beta.1)
- GroupsV2 ("private groups", created after 14 Oct 2020) messages (planned for beta.1). If you have a private group on Android or iOS, please do not yet migrate!
- Session reset and identity reset in Whisperfish (planned for beta.1)
- Linking with Signal Desktop (planned for beta.1)
Contribute: get in touch, report issues and translate!
If the app behaves strangely or slow (I have a strong dislike for slow software) to you, please get in touch on Matrix #whisperfish:rubdos.be or on Freenode #whisperfish, file an issue, or send an email to whisperfish [at] rubdos [dot] be, or post on the SailfishOS Forum topic. If it works well already, alse let me know! That's good for morale.
Development and progress
Follow the progress of the rework in the 0.6 milestone on Gitlab. If you are interested in contributing, contact me on Gitlab. If you want to discuss development, join the discussion on Matrix #whisperfish:rubdos.be.
There are nightly builds (in form of RPM) available on Gitlab. Whenever there is a version that makes sense to post here, it'll be there!
Donations
Thanks for the support, feel free to buy me a coffee! Liberapay allows for donations via PayPal or credit card. While I do appreciate the donations, please consider matching your donation towards Signal themselves. They need it more than I do, now more than ever!
License note
The original Whisperfish 0.5.0, by Andrew, was released under GPLv3+. Since we are using the upstream code of Signal themselves, partly licensed under AGPLv3+, the whole of Whisperfish 0.6.0 falls under AGPLv3+.
Screenshots:
Category:
Application versions:
Changelog:
Whisperfish 1.0.0 (planned)
The milestone on GitLab for this release
Many big plans!
- The Big Refactoring, including cleanup of spaghetti, building with the official SDK, ...
- Registration as a secondary device, if you prefer running the official Android Signal app as main device.
Whisperfish 0.6.0 (planned)
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
- Feature parity with, and modernized version of Whisperfish 0.5.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.1 (planned)
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
Features
- Creating and managing groups
- GroupsV2 compatibility
- Complete migration to UUID-based sessions.
- Device linking (Signal Desktop)
- Portuguese translation, thanks to Yield!
Fixes
- More stable reconnection management. Flight mode and network changes should now work as expected.
- Slight cleanup of the registration page, thanks to ntninja.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.7
Features
- Reactions show up as "R@number:EMOJI", instead of empty balloons. Thanks to Markus for this!
- Multiple password attempts! Thanks to Igon Makarov
Fixes
- Create the correct attachments download directory, should fix attachments downloading for new installations.
- Some phone numbers (notably with dashes, parantheses or dots) did not show up with names.
- New members in a group show up, group renames come through.
- Group members show up as names, not phone numbers, thanks to Thomas Michel.
- Fixes copying message to clipboard, thanks to Thomas Michel.
- Auto-focus password field, thanks to Markus.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.6
Features
- The conversation page got a complete overhaul in design. I hope you like it.
Fixes
- Fix a race condition during registration, which may corrupt the settings file.
- Sent messages update the session view
- More names show up correctly in session view (please file an issue if it's still buggy!)
- Session sections
- Sent attachments show up as thumbnails
- Some translation work in the (currently disfunctional) Device List page
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.5
Features
- Sending new messages to a single contact, clean-up of contact selection
- Started French language translation
- French translation finished (thanks Thibaut Vandervelden)
- Spanish translation got a lot of clean-up (thanks carlosgonz)
- Settings page looks a lot nicer
Fixes
- Settings page revamped, looks a lot cleaner
- attachment_dir was not set on settings init.
- Contact DB fix for non-nemo users (new 3.4 installs, alternate users)
- Show build ID in about screen
- Notifications with vibration and sound
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.4
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
Features:
- Sending attachments
- Registration via voice and text
- Connection status feedback
- Aarch64 version
Under the hood:
- Partial support new UUID-based identifiers
- Initial tooling for future database migrations
- Pre-key refreshing
- Attachment failure log (set attachment_log=true in harbour-whisperfish.conf)
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.3
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
- Sending direct and group messages, notably no attachments.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.2
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
- Receiving messages and their attachments
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.1
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
- Move the base code over to Rust, for easy linking to libsignal-protocol-c.
I made a write-up about Qt, Sailfish and event loops on my blog. - Implement most of the GUI and bind to the database (thank you, Markus, for all the work!)
Comments
NGC_Ollie
Thu, 2020/11/26 - 09:29
Permalink
Actually there is no main show stopper, so you're right, beta might be considerable, since 0.5 gets more and more unstable. I need a smooth transition from 0.5 to 0.6, that's all, because I use WF since ages and I don't want to lose all conversations. I need that app on a daily basis, because I avoid any messenger like whatsapp, Telegram or worse.
rubdos
Thu, 2020/11/26 - 14:59
Permalink
FWIW, the only known issue on Whisperfish 0.6 alpha.5 is during registration. If you currently run 0.5, I think you'd be happy to try out alpha.5 already. I'm using it as daily, together with many others. 0.6 uses the exact same db and storage as 0.5, the compatibility was my first priority.
EDIT: wrt to 0.5 compatibility, 0.6 only supports the encrypted database ON, unencrypted database is untested (at least by me), but should be easy enough to implement. Let me know if you have any peculiar settings, because we've mainly tested default settings!
NGC_Ollie
Mon, 2020/11/23 - 16:59
Permalink
Ok, I love WF, it's the last reason why I can deactivate the Android layer. Thanks a lot for maintaining this app. I didn't install it yet, because I'm a sheepish chicken, but as soon as 0.6 is stable I'll drown you with feedback.
rubdos
Mon, 2020/11/23 - 20:54
Permalink
The "stable" label is something I'm very careful with, won't be there for a while. The meaning of "stable" will be the feature parity with 0.5. I think you might want to consider stepping in at beta.1 or beta.2, I expect those to be mostly bug-free (but not feature complete). We haven't had very many bugs yet, and those bugs we had, were easily mitigated.
I am interested in hearing what the main blockers or would-be features are for you! Thanks for the feedback :-)
broncheoli
Sun, 2020/11/22 - 22:00
Permalink
Dear rubdos,
first of all, thanks for developing this app, I will pay you some money for your effort.
I have a problem. I had signal installed to try it out. After some installing and deleting Whisperfish, I also deleted Signal. No problem so far. I now wanted to newly register with wisperfish but the dialog refuses to show up. I deleted WF and also deleted the folder under ~/.config with no luck, after reinstalling WF no register-dialog. What more do I have to delete to start from scratch?
Thanks in advance, broncheolus.
broncheoli
Sun, 2020/11/22 - 22:58
Permalink
I found the solution. I also deleted the WF folder under ~/.local/share/. Everything works fine now. Thanks. :-))
rubdos
Mon, 2020/11/23 - 12:00
Permalink
For future reference: deleting ~/.local/share/harbour-whisperfish indeed resets the complete application state. Resetting the settings is possible too, by removing ~/.config/harbour-whisperfish/*. The latter contains settings like your phone number and registration UUID.
lispy
Fri, 2020/11/20 - 19:48
Permalink
Hmm...login worked, but how do I add contacts? The adressbook is empty.
rubdos
Sat, 2020/11/21 - 14:54
Permalink
Fixed with alpha.5! :-)
rubdos
Fri, 2020/11/20 - 21:32
Permalink
Working on getting that polished again... Currently (alpha.4), you pull down on the contact selection and manually enter a phone number. Enter it as a local phone number (without intl. prefix), and make sure you have set your country code in the Whisperfish settings.
I might release alpha.5 this weekend to get rid of that issue.
objectifnul
Thu, 2020/11/19 - 17:09
Permalink
Logged in successfully, thanks!
PawelSpoon
Tue, 2020/11/17 - 22:10
Permalink
Start, login successfull
predator2019
Fri, 2020/05/22 - 15:08
Permalink
Ok, great.
predator2019
Mon, 2020/05/18 - 18:48
Permalink
Thanx for your work! Sailors need this app really! I am liitle unsure to install 0.6. on my mobile. Is it safe to install it? Any experience on an Inoi R7?
rubdos
Tue, 2020/11/17 - 17:52
Permalink
At this point, you may be interested in trying it out! If you never installed Whisperfish 0.5 before, and if you don't have any recent groups (groupv2, later than October 2020), it may work out very well for you.
rubdos
Mon, 2020/05/18 - 19:03
Permalink
No. Please do not install it yet, it's a work in progress. I will update the app description when it becomes safe. Feel free to join us on Matrix for further discussion (or on Freenode #whisperfish)!
Nokius
Sat, 2020/05/02 - 10:46
Permalink
Is there anyway to support you?
do you need testing devices or some clubmate?
Thanks for you work!!
rubdos
Sat, 2020/05/02 - 16:32
Permalink
When I reach 0.6-alpha, I'll install a coffee-donate-button (maybe even in the App) :-)
I've got a nice Xperia 10 here to work on, no need for devices at this point. What does help is nagging me now and then, here, on Gitlab, on IRC (I made #whisperfish on Freenode) or Matrix (#whisperfish:rubdos.be).
EDIT, I've made a [Liberapay profile](https://liberapay.com/rubdos/), where you can sponser said coffee. I'll start advertising that in the main description when I reach alpha :-)
nephros
Fri, 2020/04/24 - 15:27
Permalink
Yes, reliably backing up the data would be very useful, I have repeatedly lost media and conversation history through reinstall/re-registrering.
rubdos
Fri, 2020/04/24 - 16:13
Permalink
No promises, but I've noted it on the bug tracker.
nephros
Sun, 2020/04/19 - 12:40
Permalink
Hey, nice to see some activity in this area. Would it be possible to enable co-existence with the 0.5 version? It ia working ok for me but I would like to test your version as well.
rubdos
Sun, 2020/04/19 - 18:08
Permalink
I don't think I'm going to do that, since that would introduce two migration paths. I'm also quite confident that protocol-wise, it'll be impossible to "downgrade" an account at a certain point.
Either way, I'll clearly state so in here and on Gitlab while it's alpha or beta quality. I don't plan to release anything called "stable" if it's
onnot on par (feature wise) with the original! I'll also provide instructions on how to back-up your 0.5 data if you would want to alpha/beta-test.Pages