Weekly Oxen Labs Update #264

Dev

This week the Session development team kept pushing forward on upgraded disappearing messages and closed groups, we also worked towards some bug fix releases which rolled out last week on Session desktop and hopefully later this week on Session iOS.  The Lokinet team continued making progress on libquic integration into liblokinet resolving some cryptographic library implementation issues which have been tricker than expected. The Oxen team continued working on ethyl aswell as developing additional high level cross chain communications designs. 

Session

Session Android

• Update Ukrainian translations (thanks to community member vlzuykov) https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/pull/1321

• Ongoing rebuild of disappearing messages https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/pull/1313 

• Ongoing rebuild of closed groups https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/pull/1033

• Fix issues downloading attachments in note to self https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/pull/1318

• Fix permissions issues on different API versions https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/pull/1314 

Session Desktop

• Update Ukrainian translation (thanks to community contributor vlzuykov) https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/2918

• Rename attachments appropriately when downloading multiple attachments (thanks to community contributor RubenGarcia) https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/2917

• Add cmake installation requirements into contributing docs https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/2915

• Ongoing rebuild of closed groups https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/2873

• Ongoing rebuild of disappearing messages https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/2660

• Update PGP signing keys https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/2914

• Fix usage of network time for emoji reacts syncing https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/2911

• Fix menu Emoji reacts menu positioning after upgrade of dependencies https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/2908

• Fix issue where sent messages would sometimes not be synced on desktop https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/2901 

Session iOS 

• Ongoing rebuild of closed groups https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/894

• Ongoing onboarding overhaul https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/891

• Fix a number of issues with Push notifications  https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/902 

• Fixed an issue where call control messages wouldn't be properly marked as read in a conversation  https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/901

• Fixed an issue where tapping “All media” screen wasn’t working as expected https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/900

• Fixed a bug where quote preview width was too small https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/898 

libSession-util

• Final pieces of new closed group support https://github.com/oxen-io/libsession-util/pull/42

• Helper functions and tests for dealing with protobuf-wrapped config messages https://github.com/oxen-io/libsession-util/pull/51

• Onion request helper methods for C++ and Python https://github.com/oxen-io/libsession-util/pull/54

Oxen Core  

• Fix zlib dependency source (thanks to community contributor martin-braun) https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1653

• Fix caching when looking up multiple ONS names (thanks to community contributor saravananp-001) https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1655 

• Ongoing work on ethyl communications library https://github.com/oxen-io/ethyl/commits/master

• Ongoing work on cross chain communication design

Lokinet

• Libquic TLS handshaking via direct use of service node public keys https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-libquic/pull/39

• Better callbacks in libquic for connection open/closed callbacks https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-libquic/pull/40 

Marketing: 

Last week the team’s resources were split between continuing work on the Session Token rebrand and smashing out a whole bunch of content.

 Cam and Alex continued writing strategy documents needed for the rebrand. These documents are specifically designed to outline much of the direction and vision for Session Token and will be important for informing our stakeholders. 

Speaking of the community, Tom filmed an ORC 8 update video (featuring Kee and Chris), designed to touch base, answer any of the big questions flagged on GitHub, and chat more about the direction of the rebrand.. This video will be dropping very shortly on the Oxen YouTube channel. 

Content wise, Wes and Cam filmed a couple of videos last week which, once edited, will be disseminated across all our social media channels. At the moment we are working to better understand where our users sit in their consumer journey, and create content that is more purposely mapped to their needs. Both these videos are designed to appeal to users at the beginning of their privacy journey. Keep an eye out over the next couple weeks for the content —I hear the first one explains why not all private messengers are made equal. 

We’ve also started setting out strategy plans for our social platforms and first-party content for Q4. This means that we’re able to hit the ground running with decisions informed by past results and clear strategy. All the team was involved in this one, as each member brings an insight that results in the highest quality of campaigns being run. 

And finally we finished writing the updated copy for the OPTF website that will better reflect the project post relaunch. 

See you next week folks, thanks for tuning in!