Ferdi

🤴🏽 Hard-fork of Franz, adding awesome features and removing unwanted ones.

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Ferdi

What is Ferdi?

Ferdi is a messaging browser that allows you to combine your favorite messaging services into one application. It is based on Franz - a software already used by thousands of people - with the difference that Ferdi gives you many additional features and doesn't restrict its usage! Ferdi is compatible with your existing Franz account so you can continue right where you left off. Find out more about Ferdi and its features on getferdi.com.

Features

...and best of all:

Its completely free! There are no restrictions on features, no paywalls

What does Ferdi look like?

Toggle screenshots

"Keep all your messaging services in one place." "Order your services with Ferdi Workspaces." "Always keep your Todos list open with Ferdi Todos." "Supporting all your services."

Download Ferdi

You can download Ferdi for Windows, Mac and Linux on Ferdi's download page or you can find all variants in the latest stable release assets and all the other release here.

Or use homebrew (macOS only)

$ brew cask install ferdi

(Don't know homebrew? brew.sh)

Or use AUR (Arch Linux)

Ferdi has three separate AUR packages you can use:

ferdi: Uses your system electron version to run the latest release - this version will work best on most systems.
ferdi-bin: Uses the latest Fedora release and extracts it to Arch. Use this version if you are having trouble with the ferdi package.
ferdi-git: Uses your system electron version to run the latest commit from the develop branch and may be unstable but may also give you features that are not yet available in other versions. Please only use ferdi-git if you accept these risks.

If you use an AUR Helper e.g. yay, simply install it via yay -S ferdi.

What makes Ferdi different from Franz?

Removes unproductive paywalls and other other interruptions

Removes the counter-productive fullscreen app delay inviting users to upgrade
Removes pages begging you to donate after registration
Removes "Franz is better together" popup
Makes all users Premium by default (#15)

Adds features to increase your productivity

Adds features to improve your privacy

Adds option to change server to a custom ferdi-server
Adds option to use Ferdi without an account (#5)
Uses the Ferdi API instead of Franz's servers
Adds "Private Notification"-Mode, that hides message content from notifications (franz#879)
Adds Password Lock feature to keep your messages protected (#41, franz#810, franz#950, franz#1430)
Adds support for unlocking with Touch ID (#367)
Adds inactivity lock that automatically locks Ferdi after a specified amount of time (#179)
Adds local recipe repository that removes the need of downloading recipes from a remote server

Adds features to improve your experience using Ferdi

Removed bugs

Adds new platforms

Adds portable version for Windows so you can use Ferdi without even installing it, 💖 @Makazzz
Adds Arch Linux AUR packages, 💖 @AGCaesar
Adds Ferdi as a Flatpak on Flathub (#323), 💖 @lhw

Adds internal changes

Upgrades to Electron 8.1.1
Switches to electron-spellchecker to improve application size
Minifies build files to improve app size
Adds "npm run prepare-code" command for development to lint and beautify code
Adds "npm run link-readme" command to automatically add links to issues and users inside README.md
Fixes incorrect body closing tag (#330), 💖 @jereksel
Uses CrowdIn to improve i18n
Adds retry commands to flaky build steps (#498)
Runs utility scripts pre-commit instead of pre-push (#515)

Thanks to all our contributors who helped realize all these amazing features! 💖

Development

Install OS dependencies

Node.js

Please make sure you are running NodeJS v10 or above.

Git

The version 2.23.0 for Git is working fine for development. You can then use the console from Git to do the development procedure.

Debian/Ubuntu

$ apt install libx11-dev libxext-dev libxss-dev libxkbfile-dev

Fedora

$ dnf install libX11-devel libXext-devel libXScrnSaver-devel libxkbfile-devel

Windows

Please make sure you run this command as an administrator:

$ npm install --global windows-build-tools --vs2015

Clone repository with submodule

$ git clone https://github.com/getferdi/ferdi.git
$ cd ferdi
$ git submodule update --init --recursive

It is important you execute the last command to get the required submodules (recipes, server).

Install dependencies

Run the following command to install all dependencies, and link sibling modules with Ferdi.

$ npx lerna bootstrap

If you previously ran npm install it sometimes is necessary to delete your node_modules folder before running npx lerna bootstrap. If you encounter the gyp: No Xcode or CLT version error on macOS at this step, please have a look here.

Fix native modules to match current electron node version

$ npm run rebuild

Package recipe repository

Ferdi requires its recipes to be packaged before it can use it. When running Ferdi as a development instance, you'll need to package the local recipes before you can create any services inside Ferdi.

$ cd recipes
$ npm install && npm run package

Start development app

Run these two commands simultaneously in different terminals:

$ npm run dev
$ DEBUG=Ferdi:* npm run start

Optionally, you can run both commands in one terminal with misty (see misty.yml):

$ DEBUG=Ferdi:* npx misty

Note: please prefer debug() over console.log().

Packaging

$ npm run build

Deliverables will be available in the out folder.

Release

Create a new draft release that targets the release branch, then:

$ git checkout develop && git pull
$ git checkout release
$ git submodule update --remote --force
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Update submodules"
$ git merge --no-ff develop
$ git push

Once the draft release assets are uploaded (13 assets), publish the release. The last commit of the release branch will be tagged. You can then merge release into master and back into develop if needed.

Nightly

$ git checkout develop && git pull
$ git checkout nightly
$ git submodule update --remote --force
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Update submodules"
$ git merge --no-ff develop
$ git push

The draft release and assets will be available in getferdi/nightlies releases. You need to manually publish the draft release as a pre-release for now.

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

_Bennett 💻 🎨 📖 🤔 🌍 💡 🐛 🖋 🚇 📓 💬 📆 👀	_{Amine Mouafik} 💻 🎨 📖 🤔 🐛 🖋 🚇 📓 💬 📆 👀 🚧 📦 🔍 📝 🌍	_{Stefan Malzner} 💻 🖋 🎨 📖 🤔 🚇 📆 ⚠️ 🌍	_Makazzz 🐛 💻 🌍 🖋 📖 📦	_ZeroCool 💻 🤔	_rseitbekov 💻
_{Peter Bittner} 🤔 🐛	_{Justus Saul} 🐛 🤔	_igreil 🤔	_{Marco Lopes} 🤔	_dayzlun 🐛	_{Tobias Günther} 🤔
_AGCaesar 📦	_xthursdayx 💻 📖 🚇 📦	_Gaboris 💬 🐛	_Ce 🐛	_{Stanislav N.} 🐛	_{Patrick Curl} 🤔
_{Benjamin Staneck} 🎨	_ammarmalhas 🐛 🛡️	_{Steliyan Stoyanov} 💻 🤔	_{Bror Winther} 📖	_{Felix W. Dekker} 📖	_Sauceee 🎨
_{Lennart Weller} 📦	_{Andrzej Ressel} 💻	_{Daniel Peukert} 💻	_{Ali M. Shiple} 🌍	_elviseras 🌍	_J370 🌍
_Koen 🌍	_{Leandro Gehlen} 🌍	_Matthieu42 🌍	_{Nikita Bibanaev} 🌍	_Tatjana1998 🌍	_tinect 🌍
_{Wonsup Yoon} 🌍	_zutt 🌍	_n0emis 💻 🌍	_gmarec 💻	_127oo1 🌍	_ChTBoner 🌍
_{Johan Engstrand} 🌍	_{Marouane R} 💻	_Roman 💻 🤔	_{Mahadevan Sreenivasan} 💻 🤔 👀 🐛 📖 📓	_{Jake Lee} 🖋	_{Sampath Kumar Krishnan} 💻 👀 🤔 🐛 📖 📓
_saruwman 📖 💻	_dorukkarinca 🐛	_{Gautam Singh} 💻	_{Feiko Joosten} 💻	_2bdelghafour 🌍	_{Abderrahim Tantaoui} 🌍
_AndiLeni 🌍	_{Bruno Almada} 🌍	_{Catarino Gonçalo} 🌍	_{Edilson Alzemand Sigmaringa Junior} 🌍	_MAT-OUT 🌍	_mazzo98 🌍
_{paprika-naught-tiffin-flyspeck} 🌍	_{Patrick Valle} 🌍	_{peq42_} 🌍	_Pumbinha 🌍	_{Serhiy Dmytryshyn} 🌍	_SMile61 🌍
_tinect 🌍	_gega7 🐛	_tristanplouz 💻 🤔	_{Danny Qiu} 💻 🐛	_{Youssef Belyazidi} 💻	_{Gabriel Speckhahn} 📦
_{Nadiia Ridko} 💻	_{Jan Hohner} 📓	_{Kristóf Marussy} 💻	_{Juan Mora} 💻