Chat Feature

[Doublemme]

Updating this ticket based on investigation to date and listing AC.

As a user
Id like to be able to get message updates directly from X2E dapps I like,
So that I can stay informed when major updates about the dapps are made.

Further investigations:

• Can the sdk support device to device push notifications.
• If you reinstall the app - entire history is lost and channels are lost. A potential workaround could be to store the messages to gdrive / iCloud.
• How to manage the difference in message ID and title when reinstalling the dapp.
• Do X2E dApps want to receive messages back? Workload/issue resolution vs getting good user feedback.
• as iCloud is not implementable on extension, should we backup to gdrive. This may not be a nice flow for iPhone users.

AC:

• Entry point for users to "subscribe" to X2E dApp updates.
• Ability to send 1 to 1 messages but to n wallets - from the dApp side.
• Ability for users to respond - tbd based on X2E dApp input.
• Users must accept the sender prior to receiving messages.
• Users can block/delete the chat if they so wish, so they do not
• When moving to a different device or reinstalling, reconstruct the message state.

[BenMVeChain]

Based on discussions and conversations with XTMP, there is a limit on group chats to 400. They are exploring extending this and releasing a subscription, one way only chat with bigger limits, but it's not planned.

• Investigate the strategy we discussed to combine various chats in the BE to one coherent chat in client. To investigate, how complex it is, does it scale well? Also, how hard would it be migrate over once XTMP extend limits.

[Doublemme]

I did some more investigation on Coinbase Wallet implements the subscriptions channels and here's what if find out:

Subscriptions Channel do not allow users to chat between them. It's like a 1 to 1 chat.

I created, in two different devices, a wallet and made the subscription to the same channel. I tried to send messages to the channel but I never received it on the other device.

Network requests inspect

As you can see from the screenshot down here there are multiple requests where the client requests metadata for the subscribed channel, add it to my subscripted channels, or remove it. There is also an api call that lists all the channel available for a subscription.

So in the end I would say that these channels are handled with a BE and there is only one address (Admin) that can send messages to the users.

[BenMVeChain]

Thanks @Doublemme for the investigation. So to unlock subscriptions - a BE is needed. TBH, blocking users from posting to a channel, wont achieve a discoed like feature, but would reduce scams/hacks in channel.

So essentially, one to one wallet messages can be unlocked now but it's a feature that may not be used.

I would park it as a PoC @Doublemme and maybe we pick it up in the new year with Hugh to see if a BE is something we want to support subs.

[BenMVeChain]

Feature was discussed today on a call with @grenos @Doublemme @daithihearn @sebaseek @hughlivingstone . As the full implementation of a subscribed channel with one ways comms from X2E dapps w push notifications is not trivial, we will not prioritise this feature for now. The write up can be found : https://vechain.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/VEV/pages/1061945360/Chat+-+XMTP+Feature

We would need to index message events, have a mapping between device id and wallets, stand up a dashboard & BE for X2E users to send messages, its a lot for a feature we are not sure will offer much impact. @Doublemme did good work on the PoC and has plenty of knowledge, so if it's required later, even to support validators, it's something we can look into further.

We plan to release one signal as a way to start with pushing comms for X2E dapps and gauge engagement before investing considerably more effort on this feature.