matrix-org / matrix-org/matrix-spec

Grammar and disambiguation of display names (SPEC-392)

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feature
Dominant language
HTML
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330
Forks
150
Avg merge
2h 21m
Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Both users and rooms can have display names. I **think** we can apply the same rules to both users and rooms, so I am covering both under this issue.

The emphasis here is on human-readability - they are not really meant for machine interpretation (modulo highlighting of mentions). Display names must therefore support the full gamut of unicode: non-bmp characters, zalgo, RTL scripts, etc.

However, things are complicated by the desire to disambiguate users. Currently, if we have two "Matthew"s in a room, we disambiguate them by also showing the user id. So the question is: how do we determine if we need to disambiguate users, and can we design the grammar of them to make this easier. For instance: do we allow empty displaynames, or those containing only whitespace? Do we allow names to start or end with whitespace, or contain sequences of whitespace characters? Do we mandate a certain sort of Unicode normalisation?

(Imported from https://matrix.org/jira/browse/SPEC-392)

(Reported by @richvdh)

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
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Research direction

Start with the Matrix specification's existing display-name and mention rules, then review the imported SPEC-392 discussion linked in the issue. Define the agreed grammar, whitespace and Unicode-normalisation requirements for user and room names, including how disambiguation should work, and document the resulting rules.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
backend-api-design, internationalization
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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