Vector/Web
Vector is a Matrix web client built using the Matrix React SDK (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk).
Getting started
- Install or update
node.js
so that yournpm
is at least at version2.0.0
- Clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/vector-im/vector-web.git
- Switch to the vector directory:
cd vector-web
- Install the prerequisites:
npm install
- If you are using the
develop
branch of vector, you will probably need to rebuild one of the dependencies, due to npm/npm#3055:(cd node_modules/matrix-react-sdk && npm install)
- Start the development builder and a testing server:
npm start
- Wait a few seconds for the initial build to finish (the command won't terminate: it's running a web server for you).
- Open http://127.0.0.1:8080/ in your browser to see your newly built Vector.
With npm start
, any changes you make to the source files will cause a rebuild so
your changes will show up when you refresh. This development server also disables
caching, so do NOT use it in production.
Configuring
Configure the app by modifying the config.json
file:
default_hs_url
is the default home server url.default_is_url
is the default identity server url (this is the server used for verifying third party identifiers like email addresses). If this is blank, registering with an email address or adding an email address to your account will not work.
You will need to re-run npm run build
after editing config.json
.
Deployment
On a Unix-based OS, run npm run package
to build a tarball package. Untaring
this file will give a version-specific directory containing all the files that
need to go on your web server.
The package script is not supported on Windows, so Windows users can run npm run build
, which will build all the necessary files into the vector
directory. Note that the version of Vector will not appear in Settings without
using the package script. You can then mount the vector directory on your
webserver to actually serve up the app, which is entirely static content.
Development
For simple tweaks, you can work on any of the source files within Vector with the setup above, and your changes will cause an instant rebuild.
However, much of the functionality in Vector is actually in the
matrix-react-sdk
and matrix-js-sdk
modules. It is possible to set these up
in a way that makes it easy to track the develop
branches in git and to make
local changes without having to manually rebuild each time.
[Be aware that there may be problems with this process under npm version 3.]
First clone and build matrix-js-sdk
:
git clone [email protected]:matrix-org/matrix-js-sdk.git
pushd matrix-js-sdk
git checkout develop
npm install
npm install source-map-loader
# because webpack is made of fail (webpack/webpack#1472)popd
Then similarly with matrix-react-sdk
:
git clone [email protected]:matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk.git
pushd matrix-react-sdk
git checkout develop
npm install
rm -r node_modules/matrix-js-sdk; ln -s ../../matrix-js-sdk node_modules/
popd
Finally, build and start vector itself:
-
git clone [email protected]:vector-im/vector-web.git
-
cd vector-web
-
git checkout develop
-
npm install
-
rm -r node_modules/matrix-js-sdk; ln -s ../../matrix-js-sdk node_modules/
-
rm -r node_modules/matrix-react-sdk; ln -s ../../matrix-react-sdk node_modules/
-
npm start
-
Wait a few seconds for the initial build to finish; you should see something like:
Hash: b0af76309dd56d7275c8 Version: webpack 1.12.14 Time: 14533ms Asset Size Chunks Chunk Names bundle.js 4.2 MB 0 [emitted] main bundle.css 91.5 kB 0 [emitted] main bundle.js.map 5.29 MB 0 [emitted] main bundle.css.map 116 kB 0 [emitted] main + 1013 hidden modules
Remember, the command will not terminate since it runs the web server and rebuilds source files when they change.
-
Open http://127.0.0.1:8080/ in your browser to see your newly built Vector.
When you make changes to matrix-js-sdk
or matrix-react-sdk
, you will need
to run npm run build
in the relevant directory. You can do this automatically
by instead running npm start
in each directory, to start a development
builder which will watch for changes to the files and rebuild automatically.
If you add or remove any components from the Vector skin, you will need to rebuild
the skin's index by running, npm run reskindex
.
Enabling encryption
End-to-end encryption in Vector and Matrix is not yet considered ready for day-to-day use; it is experimental and should be considered only as a proof-of-concept. See https://matrix.org/jira/browse/SPEC-162 for an overview of the current progress.
To build a version of vector with support for end-to-end encryption, install
the olm module with npm i https://matrix.org/packages/npm/olm/olm-0.1.0.tgz
before running npm start
. The olm library will be detected and used if
available.
To enable encryption for a room, type
/encrypt on
in the message bar in that room. Vector will then generate a set of keys, and
encrypt all outgoing messages in that room. (Note that other people in that
room will send messages in the clear unless they also /encrypt on
.)
Note that historical encrypted messages cannot currently be decoded - history is therefore lost when the page is reloaded.
There is currently no visual indication of whether encryption is enabled for a room, or whether a particular message was encrypted.