The Discord terminal client you never knew you wanted.

Last update: Jan 7, 2023

Comments: 16

I AM CLOSING DOWN THE CORDLESS PROJECT

Hey, so I know this is somewhat of a bummer, but I got banned because of ToS violation today. This seemed to be connected to creating a new PM channel via the /users/@me endpoint. As that's basically a confirmation for what we've believed would never be enforced, I decided to not work on the cordless project anymore. I'll be taking down cordless in package managers in hope that no new users will install it anymore without knowing the risks. I believe that if you manage to build it yourself, you've probably read the README and are aware of the risks. I'll keep the repository up, but might archive it at some point. And yes, you'll still be able to use existing binaries for as long as discord doesn't introduce any more breaking changes. However, be aware that the risk of getting a ban will only get higher with time!

Cordless

Overview

How to install it
- Using prebuilt binaries
- Building from source
Login
Quick overview - Navigation (switching between boxes / containers)
Extending Cordless via the scripting interface
Troubleshooting
FAQ
This project isn't for you, if
Similar projects
Credits

WARNING: Third party clients are discouraged and against the Discord TOS. There have already been cordless users that got banned, including me (Bios-Marcel, the maker and maintainer)

Cordless is a custom Discord client that aims to have a low memory footprint and be aimed at power-users.

The application only uses the official Discord API and doesn't send data to third parties. However, this application is not an official product by Discord Inc.

Installation

Using prebuilt binaries

If you don't want to build the application yourself or use some kind of package management system, you can get the latest binaries for the three major systems in the release overview:

https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless/releases/latest

Building from source

In order to execute the following commands, you need to install go 1.13 or higher. You can find golang packages at https://golang.org/doc/install. On top of that, you need to have git installed. It can be fund at https://git-scm.com/downloads.

UPDATES HAVE TO BE INSTALLED MANUALLY

Open a command line and execute the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless.git
cd cordless
go build

This will create an executable file called cordless or cordless.exe depending on whether you are on Windows or not. Move that file anywhere that your terminal can find it. I recommend adding a bin folder to your user home and adding it to your systems PATH variable. Please search the internet, using your favourite search engine, for how to set an environment variable in XXX in order to update your PATH variable correctly.

For updateing you simply have to delete the folder you downloaded last time and repeat the instructions.

Note:

X11 users need xclip in order to copy and paste.
Wayland users need wl-clipboard in order to copy and paste.
Mac OS users need pngpaste in order to copy and paste images.

Login

YOUR PASSWORD IS NEVER SAVED LOCALLY.

Logging in works via the UI on first startup of the application.

If you are logging in with a bot token, you have to prepend Bot in front of the token.

If you need to find out how to retrieve your token, check the wiki.

Currently captcha-code login isn't supported. Thanks for your SHIT-API, Google

Quick overview - Navigation (switching between boxes / containers)

Shortcut	Action
`Alt` + `S`	Sets the focus on the servers (guilds) container
`Alt` + `C`	Sets the focus on the channels container
`Alt` + `T`	Sets the focus on the messages container
`Alt` + `M`	Sets the focus on the messages input field
`Alt` + `U`	Sets the focus on the users container
`Alt` + `P`	Opens the direct messages container
`Alt` + `.`	Toggles the internal console view

Further shortcuts / key-bindings can be found in the manual on the internal console with the command manual.

If any of the default commands don't work for you, open the keyboard shortcut changer via Ctrl + K.

Extending Cordless via the scripting interface

Check the wiki

Troubleshooting

If you happen to encounter a crash or a bug, please submit a bug report via the projects GitHub issue tracker. Bugs reported via Discord will probably be forgotten or overseen.

For general problems faced by cordless users, check out the wiki at: https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless/wiki/Troubleshooting

If you need help or have questions that you don't want to create an issue for, just join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/fxFqszu

FAQ

In order to find answers to common questions, check out the FAQ in the wiki:

https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless/wiki/FAQ

This project isn't for you, if

You like fancy GUI
You want to see images, videos and whatnot inside of the application itself
You need the voice/video calling features
You need to manage or moderate servers

Similar projects

Here is a list of similar projects:

Hit me up if you have a similar project, and I'll gladly add it to the list.

Credits

Big thanks to JetBrains for providing the cordless project with free licenses!

This project was mainly inspired by Southclaws Cordless, which he sadly didn't develop any further.

Owner

Marcel Schramm

https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless

Comments

Token length isn't checked.
Is your source up to date

[x] Yes

[ ] No

What happened

If you choose token way of authorization and input wrong length token, it'll be stored in config.json, so that every time you try to login, it tries authorization with token saved in config. So that, you have to clear token field in config.

What did you expect to happen

Token lengths must be checked before storing them in config

How do you reproduce this bug

Error output

How to fix

I'll make pull request

System information

| Key | Value | | - | - | | OS | Mint 19.1 | | Architechture | amd64 |
Respect the users terminal color-set

What do you want

The application should use the users color-set. This should be enabled by default, but be optional.

Why

Some users might have chosen their color-set out of a specific reason. One of those reasons might be their lack of ability to differentiate between low-contrast colors. Therefore the application should respect the users settings.
[Linux Mint] Dysfunctional Copy and Paste
How have you installed cordless

[ ] Arch User Repository

[ ] Snap

[ ] scoop

[ ] brew

[ ] go get

[ ] git clone & go build .

[X] Releases

What happened

After installing xclip (also attempting with xsel), and attempting the copy bind, the said text was not copied to the system clipboard

How do you reproduce this bug

Use Linux Mint 20 Install cordless via releases attempt to copy a segment of text after highlighting attempt to paste in a multitude of different programs fails to copy

Error output

Not Appliciable

Hints on what could've happened

Possible mixup/conflict between system and xorg clipboard

System information

| Key | Value | | - | - | ???

| OS | Linux Mint Version 20 | | Architecture | amd64 |

Note

This is likely vague and unhelpful (I really do not know what to tell you guys to help), but I am always open to giving new information
Refactor to support a future new chat view

Hi Marcel,

As per discussion on #212, I'm raising the PR for you to take a look at. Unfortunately, I can't raise this against a new branch on your repo :( so I know you won't merge this PR as it stands. If you create a new branch, I'll happily update my PR to point at it; or you can update it, I'm not fussed.

The PR introduces some refactoring to introduce a new ui.ChatViewInterfaceinterface on which both ui.Window and ui.ChatView can rely. That should make it easier to introduce a new implementation of the chat view in the future. It makes a not-insignificant amount of small changes to the ui.Window type in order to decouple it from the internals of ui.ChatView.

It also starts to decouple ui.Window from other UI components by introducing the ui.Focusable interface which describes UI components which can focus themselves. I've done this because ui.Window was coupling itself to the internals of other components, by directly referencing their internal implementations. The replacement method is implemented like a [visitor] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visitor_pattern), and allows the UI components to decide how they should take focus for themselves.

I hope this is helpful to you, but I also won't be offended if you choose to not to merge it in.

Thanks, Andy
Can't Navigate Containers with Arrow Keys in st
How have you installed cordless

[x] Arch User Repository

[ ] Snap

[ ] scoop

[ ] brew

[ ] go get

What happened

I can't seem to navigate containers using Alt+arrow from st

How do you reproduce this bug

I am using st as my terminal, which seems to relate to the issue. When I try on urxvt it works fine. I assume this has something to do with the way the keycodes are sent for compatibility purposes.

This issue occurs both with an unmodified install of st as well as with my somewhat customized one.

Error output

No output

System information

| Key | Value | | - | - | | OS | Arch Linux | | Architechture | 5.5.2-arch1-1 |
Release for Linux/ARM

Add a release for Linux/ARM devices.

I want a Linux/ARM release.

Why

It would be easy to do, and very helpful so that I wouldn't have to download the source and all the deps just to compile it.

Implementation hints

When making releases, just run GOOS="linux" GOARCH="arm" go build
Setting background color to tcell.ColorDefault doesn't repaint the background
How have you installed cordless

[ x] Arch User Repository

What Happened

I used the tools/theme/theme.go method to set PrimitiveBackgroundColor to tcell.ColorDefault, which makes the background match my terminal's background color (I'm using termite), which is a semi-transparent blue. This actually works great and Cordless looks really nice:

The problem is that when you navigate around, text stays on the screen and doesn't get cleared out right away, so there's this smeary-garbled look:

If you resize the terminal window it repaints everything and it all looks good again. I don't know if this is a limitation of tcell or if Cordless just isn't repainting cells to the background color if it's set to default. Any ideas? I'm not that familiar with Go, but I'd be happy to help out regardless.
Cordless discards colours/negatives if TERM is vt (e.g. vt320)
How have you installed cordless

[X] Arch User Repository

[ ] Snap

[ ] scoop

[ ] brew

[ ] go get

What happened

If TERM=vt320 for example, cordless returns bare text without any sort of colour or even attributes (despite the DEC VT series terminals supporting them), thus rendering the application unusable.

How do you reproduce this bug

env TERM=vt320 cordless

Error output

N/A

How to fix

If TERM=vt***, use attribute escape codes instead of colour ones. (I tried to fix this myself, but the problem lies deep within tview's TreeNode lacking attribute functions.)

System information

| Key | Value | | - | - | | OS | GNU/Linux 5.4.2-arch1-1 | | Architechture | x86_64 |

Workaround (for now)

Use cordless in tmux. There won't be indications of e.g. new messages in channels because of colour attributes, however background colours will be converted to negatives.
Bot Auth Error
How have you installed cordless

[ ] Arch User Repository

[ ] Snap

[ ] scoop

[ ] brew

[ ] go get

[Yes] git clone & go build .

What happened

Tried to login by bot token Error showed up. I'm sure that token is valid

Error output

Error during last login attempt: websocket: close 4014: Disallowed intent(s).

How do you reproduce this bug

Just launching ./cordless, chosing Login via BotToken (Auth Token)

System information

| Key | Value | | - | - | | OS | Ubuntu | Architecture | linux/amd64 | Terminal | Putty? | Go version | go version go1.13.8 linux/amd64
Vim mode

What do you want

Would it be possible to implement a vim mode? Or at least the possibilty to use hjkl instead of the arrow keys?

Why

This feature would be very convenient for all vim users. And it is really unconvenient to move to fingers to the arrow keys, instead of using keys in the homerow
Command completion

This is a start for adding command completion in the CommandView. If this is something other people than me want and this implementation is satisfactory, i'll add completion to more commands
This project cannot die. Not like this.

The whole point of free software is to resist these proprietary companies and be free. However, when a company like Discord is able to shut down a FOSS project contradicting them, it's extremely bad.

Isn't the whole point of free software to take away control from the companies and put it in the hands of people? If Discord can just shut down the project like this, then that means that they took control. And that we as a community, have failed in our efforts.

This cannot be the end of cordless. One of the best 3rd party Discord clients just getting shut down by Discord for violating ToS. The project already violated ToS, and ToS is enforced. What were people thinking? If you use a 3rd party client, you get banned.

But we as a community need to take that risk. We're fighting for freedom in software, and we can't succumb like this. At least not this simply.

This project was the first step of the death of Discord, because Discord is in itself a proprietary platform. However, we know that most of our friends and relatives will stick to Discord no matter what, because of Discord's "gamer" attitude. This project was kind of a way out of that, not quite but still close.

A project like this can't end. At least not like this.
Can't use backspace
How have you installed cordless

[ ] git clone & go build .

How do you reproduce this bug

I can't delete characters while typing my message with the backspace key, but the Delete key still works

System information

| Key | Value | | - | - | | OS | Gentoo | | Architecture | amd64 | | Terminal | xterm vt340 | | Go version | 1.15.5 |
Add new feature: Vim mode

This feature adds a working vim mode, some bugs are already known and will try to fix them. For example, getting inside shortcuts menu inside vim mode will render focus unusable and require an app reset (quit with q and open again).
Feature request: implement the inbox

What do you want

An inbox feature, like the one currently seen in Discord. Allows you to see your most recent messages or mentions and mark them as read or jump to their channel.

Why

I use the inbox constantly to catch up on multiple conversations, and implementation in Cordless would be nice.

Implementation hints

I don't know what keys are still available, but you could probably toggle the inbox on/off in one of the existing panes. The only other keys needed are mark channel as read, mark all as read, jump to channel, and toggle messages/mentions
custom binds/handlers for links and other content

What do you want

It would be very neat if we had some w3m-esque configuration for handling links via binds. For instance, passing a youtube link to mpv or youtube-dl.

You could navigate to a link and hit a key that you had configured a bind to, and pass that link to youtube-dl, mpv or some other script.

Why

It hugely extend the flexibility of cordless, it'd be a gift that just kept on giving.

Implementation hints

I imagine some bash and pipes could do the job?