Rustrix

Repository: https://github.com/TumRedSun/rustrix

A Matrix client for Linux built with Rust + Qt 6 / QML, focused on maximum visual customization and the everyday chat feature set.

Features

Protocol & connectivity

• Token-based auto-login: the last session's access token is stored on disk under ~/.local/share/Rustrix/session.json and reused on the next launch — no password is ever stored.
• Manual login with username + password (against the homeserver's /login endpoint).
• Manual token entry for users who already have a working access token from another client (Element, FluffyChat, Cinny, etc.).
• Flexible homeserver field: the login form accepts a domain, an IPv4 address or an [IPv6] literal (port optional) — happy-eyeballs resolution tries both A and AAAA records.
• End-to-end encryption via matrix-sdk-crypto (Olm/Megolm). Keys are persisted in a SQLite store under ~/.local/share/Rustrix/sqlite/.

Chat

• Send and receive text messages (Markdown supported via the SDK).
• Receive formatted messages (HTML).
• Replies — pick "Reply" in the message menu; the quoted original is rendered inside the reply bubble.
• Emoji reactions — pick "React…" (searchable emoji picker), toggle your own reaction by clicking a chip, right-click a chip to see who reacted.
• Send and receive images — inline preview in the bubble, click to open full-size.
• Send and receive videos — inline player with controls.
• Send and receive audio and arbitrary files — tiles with name, size, mime, and Download button.
• Multi-file attachments — queue multiple files + text, send them all together on Enter (Discord-style).
• Hidden files (dotfiles) are visible in the file picker.
• Download any attachment with a single click — files land in ~/Downloads/Rustrix/ with collision-safe naming.
• Live unread badges & highlight counts on the room list.
• Per-room last-event preview.
• Incremental timeline updates — incoming syncs patch the message model in place (insert / update single rows), so the chat never flickers.

Spaces & rooms

• Hierarchical Spaces → Rooms view on the left sidebar (indented children, space/room iconography, unread counts).
• Flat Rooms list view for direct messages and standalone rooms.
• Each entry shows avatar, name, last event, and unread counter.
• Member list panel for the open room.

Profile

• View & edit display name.
• Upload & set avatar (any image format supported by Qt).
• Set presence (online / unavailable / offline) with a status message.

Appearance settings, WYSIWYG

The dedicated Appearance page in the settings overlay is built around a live preview and human-readable controls; everything is saved to ~/.config/Rustrix/theme.json and restored on the next launch:

Card	Contents
Theme presets	Material Dark, Solarized Dark, Tokyo Night, Nordic, Dracula, Gruvbox, Catppuccin Mocha, Sunset, Matrix Green — clickable cards with color dots, plus Export / Import / Reset
Preview	a miniature chat (bubbles, avatar, timestamps, composer with the real 📁 / 😀 / ↑ controls) bound to the live theme
Interface colors	window bg/fg, sidebar bg/fg, accent, accent-fg, border, muted, danger, success, warning
Messages	bubble bg/fg for both sides, corner radius, padding, max width %, tail on/off
Text	base & monospace font family; five text sizes with human labels and live "Aa" demos
Avatars	three sizes, corner radius, shape (circle / rounded / square)
Interface	compact mode, show timestamps, show avatars, animate bubbles, animation duration
Advanced (collapsed)	fine-grained radii, paddings, gaps, scrollbar width/radius

Every color row has a swatch (click it for a color dialog) and a hex field, sizes are sliders with the current value — change anything and the entire UI updates live, no restart required.

Interface language

Russian and English out of the box (more languages listed in Settings → Language); switching applies immediately, no restart.

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Project layout

rustrix/
├── Cargo.toml            # dependencies & build profile
├── build.rs              # Qt discovery helper
├── src/
│   ├── main.rs           # entry point, qrc resources, registers QML types & singletons
│   ├── matrix_client.rs  # central QML-facing MatrixClient singleton + sync loop
│   ├── auth.rs           # client construction (homeserver normalization)
│   ├── room_model.rs     # QAbstractListModel for joined rooms
│   ├── message_model.rs  # QAbstractListModel for a room's timeline (incremental updates)
│   ├── member_model.rs   # QAbstractListModel for room members
│   ├── spaces.rs         # SpaceModel: spaces → rooms tree
│   ├── profile.rs        # ProfileManager: display name / avatar / presence
│   ├── file_transfer.rs  # upload & download of files/images/videos/audio
│   ├── media_provider.rs # image://matrix/ QML image provider (E2EE-aware)
│   ├── theme.rs          # Theme singleton with all visual knobs
│   ├── translations.rs   # Tr singleton: ru/en dictionaries, dynamic switch
│   ├── pending.rs        # Tokio → Qt event bridge (poll-based)
│   ├── avatar_cache.rs   # on-disk caches and downloads dir helpers
│   ├── singleton.rs      # QtSingleton helper storage
│   └── errors.rs         # shared error type
├── qml/
│   ├── main.qml          # root window + MainView (4-pane layout)
│   ├── LoginPage.qml     # password + token login forms
│   ├── LoadingScreen.qml # splash while the first sync runs
│   ├── ChatPage.qml      # header + message list + composer
│   ├── MessageBubble.qml # themed bubble for every event kind
│   ├── SpacesPage.qml    # spaces → rooms tree
│   ├── RoomsSidebar.qml  # flat room list
│   ├── MemberListPanel.qml # room member list
│   ├── SettingsOverlay.qml # settings: profile, appearance, connection, language
│   ├── EmojiPicker.qml   # searchable emoji grid (reactions + insert)
│   ├── ReactionSendersPopup.qml # who reacted to a message
│   ├── FileBrowserDialog.qml   # custom file picker with hidden-file toggle
│   ├── ProfilePage.qml   # display name / avatar / presence editor (legacy)
│   ├── SettingsPage.qml  # legacy, superseded by SettingsOverlay
│   └── AppearancePage.qml# legacy, superseded by SettingsOverlay
├── assets/
│   ├── RustRix.png       # application icon
│   ├── rustrix.desktop   # desktop entry for system launchers
│   ├── logo.svg
│   └── default-avatar.svg
└── scripts/
    ├── build.sh          # release build helper
    └── run.sh            # debug run helper

---

Build prerequisites

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install -y \
  build-essential pkg-config \
  rustc cargo \
  qt6-base-dev qt6-declarative-dev qt6-svg-dev \
  libssl-dev libsqlite3-dev \
  qmake6

Fedora

sudo dnf install -y \
  rust cargo \
  qt6-qtbase-devel qt6-qtdeclarative-devel qt6-qtsvg-devel \
  openssl-devel sqlite-devel

Arch

sudo pacman -S --needed \
  rust \
  qt6-base qt6-declarative qt6-svg \
  openssl sqlite

NixOS (ephemeral shell)

nix-shell -p rustc cargo qt6.full pkg-config openssl sqlite

---

Building

# From the project root:
cargo run                          # debug build + run
cargo build --release              # optimized binary at target/release/rustrix

If qmake is not on PATH, point the build at it explicitly:

QMAKE=/usr/bin/qmake6 cargo build --release

The scripts/build.sh and scripts/run.sh helpers wrap these for convenience.

---

Desktop icon & launcher

The QML and assets (including assets/RustRix.png) are embedded into the binary via qrc, so the running app already has its window/taskbar icon.

To also get Rustrix in your system application menu:

install -Dm755 target/release/rustrix ~/.local/bin/rustrix
install -Dm644 assets/RustRix.png ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/rustrix.png
install -Dm644 assets/rustrix.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/rustrix.desktop

(For a system-wide install use /usr/local/{bin,share/...} instead.)

---

First run

1. Launch the binary.
2. The login window appears. Either:
   • enter homeserver + username + password, or
   • switch to the Token tab and paste your access token (and user ID).
3. Click Sign in.
4. The session is stored on disk; subsequent launches auto-login.

Where things live

Path	Contents
~/.local/share/Rustrix/session.json	Homeserver URL, user ID, device ID, access token
~/.local/share/Rustrix/sqlite/	Matrix SDK state (E2E keys, room state)
~/.local/share/Rustrix/avatars/	Downloaded avatar thumbnails
~/.config/Rustrix/theme.json	Custom appearance settings
~/Downloads/Rustrix/	All downloads from chats

Removing the saved session / logout

Either click Logout in the Settings page, or simply delete ~/.local/share/Rustrix/session.json. The SQLite store remains, so E2E keys survive a re-login.

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Architecture notes

Rust ↔ QML bridge

qmetaobject provides pure-Rust Qt bindings (no C++ glue). All #[derive(QObject)] structs are exposed to QML via register_type (instantiable) or register_singleton_type (globally-available) under the MatrixClient module URI.

Async

A single Tokio runtime is owned by the Backend singleton. Every QML-callable method on MatrixClient spawns a future onto it; results are returned via Qt signals (logged_in, sync_done, file_downloaded, last_error_changed, …) or through the poll-based pending-events bridge (src/pending.rs). The UI thread never blocks.

Homeserver addressing

auth::normalize_homeserver() accepts a domain, an IPv4 address or an [IPv6] literal (with optional port) and builds the client's homeserver URL from it. Standard happy-eyeballs resolution tries both A and AAAA records.

Theming

The Theme singleton is a #[derive(QObject)] Rust struct whose state is mirrored to a ThemeState (serde). Every setter writes through to ~/.config/Rustrix/theme.json. QML reads properties via the standard property binding, so changes propagate instantly. Derived sizes (columns, headers, buttons, dialogs) are computed from the live window size (Theme.scale), so the layout adapts when the window is resized.

Inline media

The image://matrix/<media_source_json> QML image provider fetches media bytes through the Matrix SDK (which transparently decrypts E2EE files), caches them under <cache_dir>/Rustrix/media/, and serves them to QML Image components. Videos are played inline with MediaPlayer + VideoOutput.

Translations

Tr.tr(Theme.language, "Source string") looks the string up in a compiled-in dictionary (Russian is fully translated). Because Theme.language is a notifying property, switching the language re-evaluates every translated label live.

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Known limitations / TODO

• Sliding Sync is not wired up; we use plain /sync. For large accounts, switching to matrix_sdk_ui::sync_service is recommended.
• No voice / video calls (MSC3401).
• No message editing UI (the edited flag is rendered; composing an edit is not implemented yet).
• Chat history back-pagination is limited to the initial window of recent messages.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later.