News
A journal of what I am working on: the new BeeBEEP and WebMastro.
A locked screen is not a goodbye
Lock a Linux computer's screen, and BeeBEEP 6 vanished from the network. Why, and how its Core left the thread that draws the window.
A phone asleep on the table
BeeBEEP has no server to wake a phone. I left an Android phone on a table with the screen off and measured: what staying reachable costs, what a sleeping phone hides, and Bluetooth on real radios.
Faster on a phone
On a computer my sites appeared in less than a second, on a phone in more than three. Where those seconds went, and how WebMastro got them back.
Claude and me
I am rewriting BeeBEEP with an artificial intelligence. I asked it the questions everyone asks me: what it can do, where it goes wrong, what it thinks when I say no.
A voice cannot wait
Voice calls are coming to the new BeeBEEP. What was hard, what I chose and what we threw away: UDP or TCP, sound on a Linux desktop, the echo, and what Telegram does.
Four splash screens for BeeBEEP
The splash screen of the new BeeBEEP lasts two seconds. Four proposals for it, each in light and in dark: what each one shows, where it is strong, where it is weak. And a question for you.
Two ways to write a text
The texts of a WebMastro site live in files, never in PHP strings: HTML when you wrote it and trust it, a restricted Markdown that refuses what it does not know when the text comes from elsewhere.
A line under the text fields
On Windows every text field of BeeBEEP has a thin dark line under it: looking for why meant building the app with three styles of controls, and the dark theme showed something else.
Circles: choose whom you see
Circles replace the Workgroups of BeeBEEP 5: the idea behind them, how to use them well, and what happens when people who should see each other do not.
A BeeBEEP in the middle
When two computers cannot see each other, the new BeeBEEP passes the message through a colleague: sealed so the carrier cannot read it, and only if the carrier agrees.
A phone in your pocket, and no server
How a messenger with no server can notify a sleeping phone: a foreground service on Android, Bluetooth as a pager, and the open question of a small server for iPhone.
A home for plugins
The new BeeBEEP is becoming a platform: games, calls and tools as plugins on the same connection, with nothing of them inside the program.
Ready for large networks
Seeing someone on the network is not the same as reaching them: how the new BeeBEEP was measured and rebuilt to hold hundreds of users.
Groups by invitation
In the new BeeBEEP you are invited to a group, and joining is your choice: the invitation is a message, the answer is signed.
This site runs on WebMastro 4
marcomastroddi.com now runs on WebMastro 4, rewritten from scratch: every page checked for accessibility, a strict security policy, no cookies.
Who is on the other end
How the new BeeBEEP proves who wrote a message: a key that never leaves your device, a warning when it changes, a signature on what matters.
When the new BeeBEEP comes out
BeeBEEP 6.0.0 is planned for the beginning of December: Windows first, then the other platforms, and 25 languages from day one.
Talking to BeeBEEP 5
The new BeeBEEP speaks the language of the old one: chats, receipts and groups with BeeBEEP 5, and the import of an old installation.
Finally, the console
Many of you asked for it: the new BeeBEEP can be driven by scripts and tools through a console, with commands, live events and no windows needed.
The new BeeBEEP is coming
BeeBEEP is being rewritten from scratch: end-to-end encryption, Bluetooth, and for the first time Android and iOS.