> Do any IRC clients support inline media upload/viewing, profile pictures, voice/video calls, or replies/threading? These are the things I would consider the core essentials of IM. Any serious platform has all of this plus a whole lot more.
Media upload is purely on the client side. If IRCCloud lets you to drag-and-drop an image, uploads it to some server, and then sends the URL, then that's still entirely IRC (I will receive the URL), but IRCCloud is making it easier for you.
Same for viewing content: I send a URL, and your IRCCloud will show a preview (image/video), while my client won't. That's purely on the client side.
For voice and video calls, IMO I don't want it in my messaging app. I can use my browser for that, or a dedicated app. And again, share a link to my videoconference over IRC.
Replies/threading are a tricky one. I hate the replies in Discord, and I don't really get threads. I see Slack channels where the rule is "answer only in threads", which to me says that they want a forum (like Discourse), not an instant messaging app.
> But in this case also users not using the same client or same server as I am get to see those things.
Pretty sure that if you use replies or threads in Matrix when talking in an IRC channel, then people on IRC won't see them as replies or threads.
> Pretty sure that if you use replies or threads in Matrix when talking in an IRC channel, then people on IRC won't see them as replies or threads.
Replies are rendered to IRC with a prefix indicating what they're responding to, but people from IRC cannot "reply" (though maybe some ad-hoc protocol could be devised for this). I don't know if threads are handled the same way, but I assume they are. Of course you can't really bring either of these features to a platform that doesn't support them without modifying the platform.
By "other servers" I meant other Matrix servers, as it is the system that natively supports the features.
> Do any IRC clients support inline media upload/viewing, profile pictures, voice/video calls, or replies/threading? These are the things I would consider the core essentials of IM. Any serious platform has all of this plus a whole lot more.
Media upload is purely on the client side. If IRCCloud lets you to drag-and-drop an image, uploads it to some server, and then sends the URL, then that's still entirely IRC (I will receive the URL), but IRCCloud is making it easier for you.
Same for viewing content: I send a URL, and your IRCCloud will show a preview (image/video), while my client won't. That's purely on the client side.
For voice and video calls, IMO I don't want it in my messaging app. I can use my browser for that, or a dedicated app. And again, share a link to my videoconference over IRC.
Replies/threading are a tricky one. I hate the replies in Discord, and I don't really get threads. I see Slack channels where the rule is "answer only in threads", which to me says that they want a forum (like Discourse), not an instant messaging app.
> But in this case also users not using the same client or same server as I am get to see those things.
Pretty sure that if you use replies or threads in Matrix when talking in an IRC channel, then people on IRC won't see them as replies or threads.