AmiMatters 2.0 -- 9.10.2026
WHAT IT IS
A native client for Mattermost, the team chat server. It talks to a real
server over the ordinary REST API, so the channels, direct messages and
people are the same ones your colleagues see from a desktop or a phone.
It is an AmigaOS program, not a port: ReAction gadgets, a proper menu
strip, online help in AmigaGuide, a settings window that saves where
AmigaOS expects, and a German translation -- interface and manual both.
It runs in a Workbench window or on a public screen of its own.
AmiMatters supports notifications via Herald - get it at:
https://aminet.net/package/util/cdity/Herald
WHAT IT DOES
* Reads and writes channels, direct messages and threads; your own
messages can be edited or deleted afterwards
* Shows who is online, and your own status; your own name,
nickname and position can be edited here too
* Unread counts per channel, and a "new messages" mark in the transcript
* Markdown rendering: bold, italic, struck, code, links, lists,
quotes and headings
* Message priority: mark one Important or Urgent, and see what
other people marked
* A compose box with formatting keys: an @mention completes on Tab,
and a further Tab offers the next matching name
* Reactions, with colour emoji artwork (OpenMoji) where the screen
can carry them, and shortcodes where it cannot; rest the pointer
on one to see who gave it
* Author pictures, when you want them
* Attachments: send a file, save one, open one from Workbench
* Inline previews: attached pictures draw right in the transcript,
and a bare web link grows a card with the page's title
* Notifications with a page of their own: direct messages, mentions
of your name, or every message; and whether one may sound while
the window has the keyboard or the screen is in front. Any sound
the machine has a datatype for, two supplied
* Browse and join public channels; switch teams, leave either
* Mute a channel, close a conversation, or leave a channel
* Searching, within the channel list and within a channel
* An ARexx port: scripts post, read, search and change messages,
send files and connect -- with scripts to try in the Rexx drawer
* Pop-up notifications through Herald
* English and German throughout, chosen from your locale; the
CatComp description is in the archive for further translations
WHAT IT NEEDS
AmigaOS 3.2 and a TCP/IP stack (AmiTCP, Miami, Roadshow ...). 3.2 is a
hard floor, not a recommendation: utility.library is asked for at V47 at
start-up, and the ReAction classes are asked for at V44. An older system
is told which one it is missing and stops there rather than half
running.
For https, AmiSSL. This is worth reading twice if your Amiga is small:
AmiSSL is by far the largest thing on the machine while it runs, and on
a 4 MB machine the TLS handshake may simply not fit. Plain http to a
server on your own network works comfortably in far less. The program
says how much memory was free when a handshake fails, so you can tell
that case from a configuration problem.
Four builds are supplied -- 68000, 68020, 68040 and 68060 -- and the
Installer picks the one for your processor. The 68020 build is what the
program is developed against.
INSTALLING
Unpack, open the drawer and double-click Install. It asks which processor
you have (already answered from what it detects), where to put the
program, and whether to install the German catalog and the emoji artwork.
Both manuals are installed either way; the HELP key opens whichever one
matches your preferred languages.
HISTORY
2.0 (9.10.2026)
Basically all features of the original Mattermost webclient have been
implemented. This second Aminet release gathers twenty-nine releases'
worth of work since 1.0.
NEW
- Search Everywhere: a server-side search across the whole team,
with a date range; a hit opens its channel AT the message, and
scrolling from there loads older or newer posts until the channel
is live again
- Saved messages, with a window of their own, across teams
- Replies are shown in the channel where they were written, not only
inside their thread
- Mark a message Important or Urgent, and see what others marked
- Delete your own messages; mark text across messages and copy it;
an Edit menu with Cut, Copy and Paste
- Mute a channel, close a conversation, leave a channel
- An @mention completes on Tab, and a further Tab offers the next
matching name
- A formatting bar and a Format menu: headings in three sizes,
lists, quotes, links and the rest
- Reactions say who gave them; the emoji picker has a search box
and favourites that stay at the top
- "X is typing...", and unread counts, reads elsewhere and presence
arrive live rather than on the next poll
- Sound notifications with a page of their own: what is worth a
sound, and whether it may sound while you are looking. Any sound
datatype, two supplied
- Pop-up notifications through Herald
- An ARexx port -- post, read, search, change, send files, connect
-- with four scripts to try and a Rexx-Startup drawer
- Attachments: every file on a message, not just the first; a click
asks whether to Show or Download; a Files page in Settings says
where files come from and go
- Inline picture previews in the transcript, and a card with title
and description for a bare web link
- Online status from the Project menu, and your own first name, last
name, nickname and position editable here
- Project/Disconnect: leave the server and keep the program open
- A Teams window with each team's own icon
- Scrolling back keeps loading older messages as far as memory
allows, with a bar at the top leading back to the most recent one
- An emoji sent as a character -- from a phone, or a picker on the
web client -- is drawn or named instead of shown as a "?"
- A direct conversation shows where the other person is
IMPROVED
- Network and CPU load greatly reduced, above all while idle
- The message area redraws only what changed: no full repaints, no
blinking on graphics boards
- Scrolling is steadier -- pictures arrive a row at a time, and the
scroll bar moves the transcript while you drag it
- Colours are found properly on screens with few free registers, and
Picasso96 is opened only for a true-colour screen
- Text rendering follows the web client: paragraphs over several
lines, line breaks within one, long dashes, curly quotes, ellipses
- Settings grew three pages (Notifications, Tooltips, Files), fits
its tabs, can be resized and remembers its size
- Tooltips throughout, switchable as a whole or one place at a time
- Window and screen handling: sizes are remembered truthfully, and
the program keeps to its own screen when it has one
FIXED, where 1.0 had it too
- a machine-freezing crash when pasting into the compose box
- a crash when changing servers
- long posts arriving truncated
- the message area on a screen font other than Topaz: lines too
close together, wrapped too early, left-overs when scrolling
- a colour picked in Settings coming out approximated, and presence
lamps grey where free registers were short
- the bold and italic buttons leaving their style in the screen
title bar, Workbench's included
- a remembered window growing by a border at every start, and a
maximised one covering the screen title bar
- a quick channel switch showing the previous channel's messages
- one wrong server address leaving every later connection say Busy
- the New Messages line moving down to each message that arrived
- the installed manual's drawers having no icons, so Workbench
could not show them
1.0 (30.8.2026)
- first release
LICENCE
The program is free software and may be distributed freely, including on
Aminet CDs and coverdisks. The emoji artwork is from the OpenMoji project
and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the emoji shortcode names are from gemoji
and are licensed MIT. Both licence files travel in the Emoji drawer and
must stay there.
THANKS
To Gerben van Kesteren for testing on real hardware, to Martin "Mason"
Merz for the GlowIcons, to the OpenMoji project for the emoji, to
gemoji for the names they go by, and to everyone who keeps AmigaOS
development possible in this decade.
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