Signal-desktop: Can Chat with self

[LarsKumbier]

I have myself in the contact list and can chat with myself. When entering the "verify identify"-menu, I even see the same public keys.

[2-4601]

I think this is intended as the Android client also allows sending messages to yourself.

[LarsKumbier]

What would be a usecase for that feature?

[liliakai]

The behavior is a bit different on Android though, in that messages to yourself never actually leave the phone. You'll notice that replying to yourself from Android _appears_ to work there, but the message doesn't show up on Desktop. That behavior was implemented some time ago though, and we might want to rethink it in this brave new multi-device world.

[LarsKumbier]

yeah, it's inconsistent at the moment - could you share some light on the intended use?

[2-4601]

Corresponding issue on Signal Android's issue tracker: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/issues/4844

[2-4601]

@LarsKumbier About intended use: Think of people who send emails to themselves. With Signal you can¹ e.g. send photos from your phone to your desktop. But compared to email you'll get all the benefits of Signal's encryption.

¹) after Android sorts it out

[LarsKumbier]

ok. Since this is a feature not a bug, I'll close this one, since the Desktop does indeed send Message out to Android as well. Thanks for the clarification.

[rcrogers]

why are both this and #834 closed? I went looking for this report because the asymmetric behavior (can send from Desktop to Android, but not from Android to Desktop) is very weird

[scottnonnenberg]

@rcrogers Are you sure that all messages aren't appearing on both sides? In my exploration of this behavior, I see that all messages are present on both Android and Desktop, but each client shows the 'from' messages differently. You may see only 'sent' messages or duplicated 'sent' and 'received' messages, but the messages are always there.

@LarsKumbier It's been a long time coming, but in the combined branch we've disabled access to the safety number screen representing communication with yourself. :0)

[Trolldemorted]

@scottnonnenberg Signal-Android's selfmessages are not sent to slave/sibling devices (see https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/pull/5905)

[scottnonnenberg]

@Trolldemorted ah yes, you are correct. Android does __not__ sync to Desktop. But Desktop does sync to Android. Thanks for the link to the Android issue. Changes will need to happen on the Android side if you'd like to see messages to yourself there show up on Desktop as well! :0)

[Trolldemorted]

A side note: The messages are not shown differently, Signal-Desktop is sending them twice (both direct and sync, #959 would fix that) because it fails to suppress the sync message.

[scottnonnenberg]

@Trolldemorted Thanks for the clarification. Seems that the conclusion is still that desktop will sit tight until the mobile apps decide to change what they require of us.

[Trolldemorted]

In https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/pull/5905, moxie stated that selfmessages should be sent w/o sync messages, and always be displayed on the sending side.

To summarize:
https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/pull/5905 would send selfmessages correctly (but moxie dislikes the UX)
https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/pull/6209 would display received self messages as sent

959 would send selfmessages correctly on S-D

I assume saving and displaying received selfmessages as sent isn't a huge deal on S-D?

It would be great to see some improvement here. Using two Signal-Desktop instances is really painful with duplicated messages on the receiving device.

[liliakai]

Why don't we just send the sync message and suppress the regular message?
Our sibling devices already know how to display synced sent messages as
outgoing so there would not need to be any special casing.

On Jul 20, 2017 11:57 AM, "Trolldemorted" [e-mail] wrote:

In WhisperSystems/Signal-Android#5905
https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/pull/5905, moxie stated
https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/pull/5905#issuecomment-269267737
that selfmessages should be sent w/o sync messages, and always be displayed
on the sending side.

To summarize:
WhisperSystems/Signal-Android#5905
https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/pull/5905 would send
selfmessages correctly (but moxie dislikes the UX)
WhisperSystems/Signal-Android#6209
https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/pull/6209 would
display received self messages as sent

959 https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop/pull/959 would

send selfmessages correctly on S-D
I assume saving and displaying received selfmessages as sent isn't a huge
deal on S-D?

It would be great to see some improvement here. Using two Signal-Desktop
instances is really painful with duplicated messages on the receiving
device.

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[Trolldemorted]

That would require more loc, on android libsignal-servie java does not support that and i am pretty sure i tried sending syncs w/o a "real" message on desktop too and it did not like it.

Given how often moxie reviews PRs for libsignal-service-java, we probably don't want to go this way.

[murpyslaw]

@liliakai This is still an issue ever since the last release. I cannot message myself, nor can I send messages, picture or otherwise from android to my desktop.

I'm not certain whether this is a issue or feature, but "Me" seems to be automatically a blocked user from the chrome-client. This was not happening before the update with "Scan Your Verification Barcode"

FYI

[amichair]

I was about to open an issue for this as well, since it's pretty weird. At the very least, behavior should be consistent between the android and desktop clients. What I experienced is:

• The extra 'self' contact appeared on the desktop client contact list by default, but not on android. It was added to the android contact list only after sending it the first message from the desktop client, which was received on android.
• The contact name is different on desktop vs android. one of them shows the country code for the number and the other just the area code, so there might be some duplicate contact for the same underlying self number causing this... but even so, I'd expect both clients to pick the same one and display the same variation of number+name.
• I sent a message form desktop, then replied to it from android. Result: on desktop I see one sent message, while on android I see a sent message and identical received message, plus the reply message both sent and received. i.e. the chat shows 1 message on the desktop, and 4 on android.

This is all awkward, unintuitive and confusing. After reading this issue here, I understand some people find it useful to send chat messages to themselves. But it should at least behave consistently across devices, otherwise it just feels like a bug, not a feature.

Also, you might want to add a settings option which determines whether the 'self' contact is shown or not, so people who find this weird/annoying can hide it from the contact list. Whether it should be enabled by default or not is then open to debate :-)

In any case, I think it would be nice if this issue was reopened, since being closed might leave it in limbo and never get it fully resolved...

[mat-ale]

@amichair , +1