element-call icon indicating copy to clipboard operation
element-call copied to clipboard

Element Call URLs are not super friendly

Open lampholder opened this issue 2 years ago • 2 comments

Element Call makes it as simple as Jitsi to create a new call by picking a probably-unique URL, but it is immediately translated to https://subdomain.domain.tld/room/#roomid:subdomain.matrixserver.tld which:

  • dilutes the simplicity,
  • introduces ambiguity and,
  • most importantly, diminishes the discoverability of the simple URL (which I think is one of Jitsi's greatest usability strengths)

If I'm sharing a link in an invite, I'll very likely copy+pasta the URL from the address bar, meaning others users' first exposure to the platform won't expose them to the Jitsi-like simplicity of creating conference calls by URL only.

lampholder avatar Apr 05 '22 09:04 lampholder

This is basically going to come down to a tradeoff between usability and openness, ie. the .matrixserver.tld bit is necessary because we support rooms on different homeservers rather than only supporting one. Sure, you could have a default, but then you're still penalised for not using the default. Meaningful URLs are certainly nice though.

dbkr avatar May 18 '22 09:05 dbkr

I think we could move from: https://call.element.io/room/#example:call.ems.host

To: https://call.element.io/#example

We already support redirecting from the second to the first. Maybe we should just show that route all the time so that it's easier to copy and paste?

For accessing rooms on another homeserver you could use this route scheme: https://call.element.io/#example:otherhomeserver.com

Also the #ptt feature flag should probably change to a query parameter ?ptt

We should also keep the old https://call.element.io/room/#example:call.ems.host scheme around so people's calendar links don't break.

robertlong avatar May 19 '22 16:05 robertlong