Thoughts / Roadmap to make Delta Chat attractive for "ordinary" users [rich text, image compression quality]

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Howdy Delta chatters :tada:

At first a BIG thank you to all who have contributed to Delta Chat over the last years. It has really evolved since I tested it for the first time two or three years ago.

Features like the easy transfer of profiles from one device to another, the speed improvement introduced by chatmail relays in comparison to email servers, the mandatory E2EE and the rising number of functionalities in mobile and desktop clients makes the messenger “ready for the masses”. :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

So I want to help spreading the word about Delta Chat and help it to become more popular amongst “ordinary” people.

What prevents me from doing this right now is, that some missing core features and human psychology are still “in the way”.

Let me explain, what I mean by this.

UI/UX & psychology

People are used to messengers like WhatsCrap, Telegram and Signal. And the UI/UX of these is what people learned by just using it every day. If there is no good (technical) reason to do things different Delta Chat should copy this behaviour to make people feel like “at home” when they start using the messenger intuitively for the first time.

To give a simple but negative example:
Telegram on Android used to have swipe to the left to archive a chat.
Signal on Android implemented it THE OTHER WAY ROUND and you have to swipe to the right.
Threema on Android immitates Telegram and you swipe to the left to archive a chat.

As far as I remember Telegram was the first who implemented archived chats so from my perspective Signal should have just copied this behaviour instead of changing this without good (technical) reason.

Regarding Delta Chat this is already merely the case, but…

…talking about some “core features” of messaging apps I don’t really understand why they are being postponed for so long.

Markup in messages

One of them is the missing Markup functionality in messages. I’ve read through the discussions from here (2018) and here (2024) and have also seen this GitHub issue from 2023. So technically it seems to be not that easy to implement a “one-size-fits-all” Markdown parser solution. But having absolutely no solution at all is much worse than having a “to be improved” solution. :sweat_smile:

I’m sure people also stopped using SMS because of the missing markup functions. People are just used to have this feature (at least XMPP or ICQ had this). Maybe not MarkDown (which I personally love, but it’s still “nerd stuff”) but to a simple function which ables them to render text BOLD, ITALIC, UNDERLINED, STRIKETHROUGH, add an URL and puts text in CODE BLOCKS.

Unfortunately none of this is possible in 2026 – apart from the implementation in the third-party client ArcaneChat (which is just a client for one single mobile OS).

Image compression

Another frustrating feature is the image compression. As I described here the default image compression “balanced” is showing visible compression artifacts (from a viewers perspective) and there’s no option to choose a less destructive compression level (apart from sending the original probably oversized file producing other problems). So “Ordinary” people will send pictures of their loved ones or last vacation using Delta Chat and quickly recognize that the quality of the image received on the other side is worse. Then they stop using Delta Chat because they are frustrated about that and I totally understand them.

And here is where the psychology kicks in. People give Delta Chat A SINGLE chance after they get “nagged” by someone to install it. If “core features” are missing (Markup) or don’t satisfy them (image compression), people just leave and the name “Delta Chat” is linked to “broken / nerd software”. I would really like to help preventing that.

So please help me to better understand why those two topics are not highly prioritized. They might be serious showstoppers for “ordinary” people using Delta Chat and don’t seem to be too difficult to implement as almost every other messenger has this functionalities.

Success & Users as multiplicators

A word about growth and marketing. I’m a Telegram user since 2014 and my personal opinion on why Telegram succeeded, is, because they had their focus on UI/UX and useful features from day one. Unfortunately these times have passed and Telegram is becoming a playground for “virtual gift lovers” but I’m sure Delta Chat can learn from the early Telegram days how to do it right. Just build an excellent CLIENT which makes FUN while using it and which provides me strong, useful core functionality, is as fast as possible and does not bug me with technical stuff. At the end every happy user will be a multiplicator for Delta Chat – with zero marketing budget needed. :folded_hands:

Naming

Currently there are three terms out there which can lead to great confusion amongst people:

  • Delta Chat
  • Chatmail (relay)
  • ArcaneChat

I (as a techie) totally understand the difference between these – “ordinary” people won’t. For them Delta Chat and ArcaneChat are two different things. Mixing Chatmail as a term into this makes the confusion perfect. My proposal would be to streamline the communication to only talk about Delta Chat and use the term Chatmail as rare as possible. People don’t care about technical terms either – they might have never heard about SMTP or IMAP but are using these protocols every day. And it’s OK that they don’t have to mess with these words to use tools relying on this technology.

Talking about the third-party Android app (ArcaneChat) – I would say its existence is making thinks worse by trying to make things better when we talk about marketing. I know there are also many Mastodon apps out there which bring in the same issue. I don’t have an easy solution here – but I’m sure this kind of fragmentation is not helpful as long as theres no significant user base which can help reduce confusion on this topic.

To sum up my questions:

  • Please help me to better understand why the two topics (Markup & Image compression) are not highly prioritized.
  • Is there a roadmap for Delta Chat where people can see which topics are on the dev priority list (maybe with arguments why this is the case)?
  • Would it be possible to have some kind of “feature rating system” like Telegram implemented years ago with bugs.telegram.org? So people can show the devs which features they miss and others can vote for it? Not to put pressure on the devs but to have a clear understanding of what the users need most.

Thanks for reading. I’m really looking forward hearing some thoughts on these topics because I’m sure other perspectives will make the overall picture more clear :folded_hands:

Christian

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The quality of outgoing media is Maximum [new compression option]
Ideas for image compression feature [add more quality options]
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(Moved to separate topic)

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A bit embarrassing and I don’t mean to offend anyone here, but I regularly talk to lots of “normal” people of which almost nobody uses markup on chat and just a few know how to do it.

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Sad that the first comment on my concerns is something like this.

You might not know that but I personally follow a strict “No AI” policy. So I would never post such a text written by an AI without being transparent about this.

Just to clarify this crystal clear: This text was written in over one hour of my personal time and there was absolutely NO AI involved. Not even for translating single words.

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Sorry for the false accusation then. I’ve recently seen a guide about text analysis in this subject. Elements of the writing style applied and the verbosity of this post seems different from other posts of yours and almost any other post from the tens of thousands I’d already seen on this forum.

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I’ve already answered one part of the question. Additionally, you can already vote on feature requests posted by others on this forum and then see which ones are most wanted. See also:

Sometimes, blog posts also hint about future plans:

The last update is probably this snippet:

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Sorry, you tick almost all boxes in how to recognize chat bot content,

After reading your comment I was aware of that too – haven’t thought about that while writing my text because I’m used to write longer texts (I’m an AI free blogger too).

Anyway – now you know that it’s 100% human content you were and are reading and I really want to help bringing Delta Chat forward.

Back to topic:

Thanks for the links and your thoughts on that. :folded_hands:

I also found the blog post about future plans during my research before but as the last post linked there is from 2023 (which is a decade from an internet perspective) I decided to ask again. I think it’s always good to let people know what’s going on in the background and if they can expect features / bug fixes in the near or far future.

Your last link explains already, that stuff will be communicated when it is released, so theres no “Roadmap” like I thought about. :+1:

Regarding your other point:

but I regularly talk to lots of “normal” people of which almost nobody uses markup on chat and just a few know how to do it.

I won’t say I talked to a “representative group of persons”. I raised this concern because of the other relevant points like “only one chance before getting uninstalled” and “people are used to it because every other messenger has it”. And Delta Chat will definitely be compared to other messengers before people start using it.

And while I was thinking about your point some other pro points for Markup in messages came up:

  • It helps to keep messages structured. If people use the messenger as kind of “notebook” (I for example do this) with different groups for different topics or just the “Saved messages” channel there’s currently no way to structure the content in any way. Not even code snippets are possible.
  • Source code snippets or command lines look like :poop: in Delta Chat just because you can only send plain text messages.
  • The focus of Delta Chat is small groups, family and friends. And especially there it’s of great importance to be able to structure content or commands to prevent errors, like when you give Linux support or help them with their webhosting.
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There is no written roadmap, not even a private one. It is not hidden, we just don’t do this sort of planning.

We can probably install topic voting plugin and enable it in feature proposal category. This is not a good metric for prioritizing what to work on because there are negative effects of some features (feature bloat, preventing adding another feature in the same place, annoying other users in group chats) and some features are difficult to implement for technical reasons.

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well, each user has its own “without this and that, Delta Chat is unusable for the many” :slight_smile:

we are a small team - and Markup and Image compression is in competition with other things.

eg. there is reliable secure messaging, decentralisation, working in bad networks - to mention the ground. and UI wise, there are also things as easy onboarding, calls, pinned messages, edit messages, reactions, link preview, accessibility, voice messages etc. … and sticker! :slight_smile:

so much on the meta-level only.

as there are already lots concrete topics with the proposed features, i suggest to continue discussion there, so we do not need to repeat everything. this kind-of-meta-and-mix-topic would then better fit to “Unsorted”

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The base for my question primarily was a simple comparison to other messengers being widely used while focussing on a higher adoption rate for “ordinary” users.

Markup and Image compression is in competition with other things

For me as a user and multiplicator it would really help to know what really hinders these from being implemented.

I already know that the team working on Delta Chat is small and it would really help to have a sheet / thread where one can find all (older) feature requests with reliable information on why this is not implemented (yet). I would also offer my help to create such a document. I think the forum is not a good place for that and I tell you why:

Regarding the Markup feature request (and the Markdown parser issues coming out after the team tried to implement this) currently there are three (!) threads mentioning and discussing this. Where should someone like me follow up? In the most recent one? And isn’t it getting annoying for the devs if such a topic comes up again and again?

When it comes to the image compression request I’ve not found any reasons why another compression level is not implemented / implementable.

The “we are a small team” argument indeed is a valid argument – but more from a capacity then from a technical perspective. As open source software can be improved by anyone at any time the capacity issue can probably be solved more easily than a technical one.

Again: I would offer my help to structure the current data and build up a “feature request table” with arguments / reasons / relevant threads giving every user a quick overview on the current situation and probably existing discussions.

What do you think about this?

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I’d like to see markdown too, and since the Arcane dev is one of the Delta devs I’m hoping it makes it into Delta soon. Images likely pose an issue as email attachment size is low, but that’s what the webXDC apps are for.

As for terminology, “normals” aren’t here learning it anyway. I’ve got both my mom and my dad on it now, just sending the “invite friends” link has been enough (though my dad wanted a Swiss relay so I walked him through that one, normally I just let them use the default. But that request puts him slightly outside of “normals” anyway.) Neither of them know anything beyond “Delta Chat” as is, for a bit I was even using Arcane and they never knew the difference, I’m also using a weird unlisted relay and they are none the wiser.

You are the “brand ambassador” to your “normals,” just tell them “go to app store, download delta chat, follow instructions for creation, and here’s my contact link” or send that invite link from the menu, if they hear about relays and arcane etc they hear about it from you, just don’t tell them unless they request a relay from X country, then help do that.

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+1 for using Telegram as a crazy success story. They were up against insane odds and succeeded anyway. I agree that UX played a huge role in that.

Looking at the first 2 years of UI implementation of Telegram for what feature sets to prioritize is a good strategy IMO.

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Image compression is a big issue for adoption. Sending family photos and such is a key use case.

How could webxdc help with this? Maybe use the iroh p2p for transfer?

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and it is working already today!

see below for how to send images in original quality (the faq was just revised, also as a result from forum discussions)

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I think it is better to discuss the feature related stuff in the according issues like you already proposed, so I posted my answer in the most recent topic about the image compression: