29 Jun
2025
29 Jun
'25
5:13 a.m.
Hi,
The current specification was definitely not written with the intention
that one would use it to reply to multiple messages at once. I checked
existing implementations and they all seem to only be suited for a
single reply element and will either only take the first one if there
are multiple or ignore all. So if we are to add this, it would need to
be done with a namespace bump.
Given that this is not the first time I hear people mention this idea
(although I have yet to see a compelling usecase), I can see this being
added.
As Dave mentioned, the whole arrangement thing is making things rather
complicated and given that ordering is already preserved in XML, we can
make use of it. I do see a motivation though to not do this for direct
stanza child elements (as these could interleave with other child
elements), my idea would thus rather be to go with something along the
lines of:
<message to='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org'
from='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org/yuri' id='groupchat-id3'
type='groupchat'>
<body>Excellent ideas! Let's get right to it!</body>
<reply xmlns='urn:xmpp:reply:1'>
<to id='groupchat-id1' from='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org/anna'
/>
<to id='groupchat-id2' from='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org/max' />
</reply>
</message>
This also makes it syntactically more clear, that this is a single
reply to multiple messages, rather than multiple replies sent within a
single message (which is what we often do in emails when replying to
multiple messages).
Does this sound reasonable to everyone?
Marvin
On Sun, 2025-06-29 at 11:14 +0100, Dave Cridland wrote:
Does anyone know what existing clients do when faced
with multiple
reply elements in a single message? Do they pick the first, last, or
do anything with both? My guess is that they'll vary, giving us the
XMPP equivalent of Undefined Behaviour - we saw that with MUC codes a
few years back when clients often only picked one. Discovering the
answer to this will indicate if this would need to be a spec bump or
not.
There's nothing I noted in the existing spec that stipulates only one
reply element can exist in a single message, so it's possible some
clients are doing this kind of thing already.
Final comment - XML is ordered, so the arrangement attribute is
redundant - and prone to other exciting UB, like if there's two at
the same rank, or gaps, or...
(I have no opinion on whether we should do multi-replies,
incidentally - though to be clear, no objections either)
On Sat, 28 Jun 2025 at 23:16, Greatsword <gs(a)greatsword.xyz> wrote:
I've seen some IM platforms (namely Revolt and Guilded) have the
ability to let the user reference multiple messages in a single
reply, which might be a useful feature. I think with the XEP as it
currently is, it could be fairly simple to add support for this
feature.
I think an addition like this would be good.
"""
Section 3.2 - Multi-Message Replies
A user may want to reply to multiple messages with a single
message. This can be done by including many reply elements.
Ordering is important, so the reply element MUST include an
"arrangement" attribute that counts up from 0, with 0 being
displayed at the top in the client UI.
EXAMPLE 5. Yuri replies to both Max's and Anna's messages in a MUC.
```
<message to='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org'
from='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org/anna' id='groupchat-id1'
type='groupchat'>
<stanza-id xmlns='urn:xmpp:sid:0' id='groupchat-id1' />
<body>A fort will keep us safe!</body>
</message>
<message to='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org'
from='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org/max' id='groupchat-id2'
type='groupchat'>
<stanza-id xmlns='urn:xmpp:sid:0' id='groupchat-id2' />
<body>Adoring blue flags for style!</body>
</message>
<message to='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org'
from='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org/yuri' id='groupchat-id3'
type='groupchat'>
<stanza-id xmlns='urn:xmpp:sid:0' id='groupchat-id3' />
<body>Excellent ideas! Let's get right to it!</body>
<reply to='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org/anna' id='groupchat-id1'
arrangement='0' xmlns='urn:xmpp:reply:0' />
<reply to='knightsguild(a)muc.example.org/max' id='groupchat-id2'
arrangement='1' xmlns='urn:xmpp:reply:0' />
</message>
```
A fallback for this would work in the same way as the previous
section, the main difference is that the fallback would include all
referenced messages.
"""
I think it also might be worth considering having some kind of
limiter in how many messages can be referenced by one reply -
perhaps MUCs that advertise support for replies could indicate in a
data form how many references may be one message, and if clients
don't self-enforce this, then the MUC could throw a policy
violation error and drop the message.
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