Andy Balaam from Andy Balaam's Blog
(Background: Matrix is the awesome open standard for messaging that I get to work on now that I work at Element.)
The Extensible Events (MSC1767) Matrix Spec Change proposal describes a new way of structuring events in matrix that makes it easy to send events that have multiple representations (e.g. something clever like an interactive map, and something simpler like an image of a map).
The main purpose of the change is to make it easy for clients that don’t support some amazing new feature to display something that is still useful.
Since there is an implementation of this change out in the wild (in Element), it seems reasonably likely that this change will be accepted into the Matrix spec.
I really like this change, but I find it hard to understand, so here is a simple example that I have found helpful to think it through.
An old event, and a new event
Here is an old-fashioned event, followed by a new, shiny, extensible version:
{
"type": "m.room.message",
"content": {
"body": "This is the *old* way",
"format": "org.matrix.custom.html",
"formatted_body": "This is the <b>old</b> way",
"msgtype": "m.text"
},
... other properties not relevant to this, e.g. "sender" ...
}
{
"type": "m.message",
"content": {
"m.message": [
{"mimetype": "text/plain", "body": "This the *new* way"},
{"mimetype": "text/html", "body": "This is the <b>new</b> way"}
],
}
... other properties not relevant to this, e.g. "sender" ...
}
Notice that in the new extensible events, the property within content is the same as the message type (here: m.message).
The point is that as well as the primary event type (here, m.message) we can other representations of the same message, such as an image, location co-ordinates, or something completely different. The client will render the primary event type if it understands it (and is able to show it), but if not, it can look for other types that it does understand.
For example, in Polls when you send a new poll question, it could look like this:
{
"type": "m.poll.start",
"content": {
"m.poll.start": {
... The actual poll question etc. ...
},
"m.message": [
... A text version of the question ...
]
},
... other properties not relevant to this, e.g. "sender" ...
}
So clients that don’t know m.poll.start can still display the poll question (if they understand extensible events), instead of completely ignoring event types they don’t know about.
An abbreviated form of the new event
Of course, life is not quite as simple as that.
Because this is a lot of typing:
{
"type": "m.message",
"content": {
"m.message": [
{"mimetype": "text/plain", "body": "This the *new* way"},
{"mimetype": "text/html", "body": "This is the <b>new</b> way"}
],
}
... other properties not relevant to this, e.g. "sender" ...
}
We have an abbreviated form:
{
"type": "m.message",
"content": {
"m.text": "This the *new* way",
"m.html": "This is the <b>new</b> way"
}
... other properties not relevant to this, e.g. "sender" ...
}
These two are exactly equivalent.
m.text is an abbreviation for an m.message containing an entry with "mimetype": "text/plain" and the relevant body. Similarly, m.html is an abbreviation for an m.message containing an entry with "mimetype": "text/html" and the relevant body. If you declare both, they effectively get squashed together into one m.message with both entries.
Those 2 are the only abbreviations listed, so they are special cases.
Backwards compatibility
Of course, life is way more complicated than that, so what we’re likely to see around if/when this gets widely adopted is some kind of mashed-together event like this:
{ "type": "m.room.message", "content": { "msgtype": "m.text", "body": "Hello World", "format": "org.matrix.custom.html", "formatted_body": "<b>Hello</b> World", "m.text": "Hello World", "m.html": "<b>Hello</b> World" } }
Note that the type here is m.room.message, where extensible events says it should be m.message. The idea is that an extensible-events-aware client will see "msgtype": "m.text" and know to look for m.message as the primary type. (This is further complicated here by the fact that there isn’t actually a m.message property – this is because m.text and m.html are abbreviated forms of it.)
Also, clients that want to display old events will need to preserve their code that parses the old event types in perpetuity.