You can find us on Discord: https://discord.gg/QafRarw25u

Usage

The fastest way to give it a go is at https://app.openbonfire.dev/! Note that at the time it will most likely require a token to login! This is because everything in the web version is proxied, so Discord requires captcha (which isn't implemented in Bonfire quite yet).

We now offer nightly builds! Please check out the github actions for the latest builds. You must be logged into to GitHub to view these builds.

NOTE: Bonfire is in it's very early stages of development. It is absolutely NOT ready for regular usage.

Bonfire

About

A modern alternative to the Discord client. Use Discord without ever having to touch the mobile Discord client.

Platform Targets

• 🟩 Android
• 🟩 iOS
• 🟩 Windows
• 🟩 MacOS
• 🟩 Linux
• 🟩 WearOS (All major android smartwatches)
• 🟩 Web

Because we are using flutter instead of react native, it's possible to cross-compile to platforms other than mobile! The build currently runs on Windows, MacOS, Android, Linux, and now Web! I am unable to test on MacOS and iOS, so consider those builds very experimental.

General Goals / Ethic

To start, lemmie outline a few things.

• This is not a seperate platform. You login with Discord, you are using all of Discord's features, but through the interface we've made instead of through Discord's.

• This is against TOS. Don't do use this unless you have some risk tolerance. I have never gotten banned in the development of Bonfire, but that isn't to say it can't happen.

• Our goal here isn't to undermine Discord's monetization- we understand that Discord is a company with bills to pay and employees to feed. Our goal is to create a client that just doesn't suck. It's easy to take a platform like Discord for granted. Yes it has it's problems (I know that more than anyone), but they really have created a cool product, and it's something I'd like to improve as a user.

• Are you a mobile client? Desktop client? Sort of both. Bonfire is a mobile-first client. All of the features we are adding right now are 100% intended for mobile, but because we are using Flutter it's possible to build Bonfire on other platforms. In fact, it currently works just about the same on Windows / MacOS / Linux / Web as it does on mobile (it just needs to be re-themed and re-formatted to look nice).

• Perhaps, extensions? Well yes (in the future). The goal is that Bonfire can be modified to your liking, much like using Vencord and such. It would work very different from a developer standpoint, but having a built-in plugin marketplace would definitely be cool, although yes, quite difficult. It won't be a focus until the client is at a point I'd consider release-ready.

Why not the BetterDiscord / Vencord Approach?

Mobile is just a different beast due to the difficult nature of modifying packed binaries. While the Desktop client can be fixed relatively easily because it's possible to inject javascript directly into the application, mobile would require modifying the binary ahead of time to patch in your changes. This is extremely difficult due to the locked-down nature of apps (if you'd like to see an example of this approach, check out ReVanced). Instead of trying to hack together patches for an already broken and slow client, we have decided to tackle creating a full re-implementation of the Discord client using the flutter framework!

Usage Samples - Note: The app changes fast! These experiences may have improved / changed recently.

• Scrolling Demo
• Channel Switch Demo
• Messaging / General Usage

Developing

General Info

I'm pretty new to managing public projects, so you'll have to bear with me here. For starters, there's a few projects that OpenBonfire uses and maintains, which can be found in our org. Let's just talk about the big ones.

• firebridge: A fork of nyxx (a bot API for Dart) that allows the usage of user tokens. This is very unfinished, and needs a load of work to be done.
• fireview: A cross-platform webview API that combines multiple webview frameworks. Again, this is not very great and needs a lot of work. This one is a much easier implementation though, I just haven't had the time.

Progress not exhaustive, there's a lot of stuff to do

• 🟨 Login
  • 🟩 Authenticator Login
  • 🟥 SMS Login
  • 🟥 No MFA Login (captcha appears when there's no authenticator)
• 🟨 Messaging
  • 🟩 Sending Messages
  • 🟩 Cache Messages
  • 🟨 Message View
  • 🟨 Context Actions (edit, delete, etc)
  • 🟨 Event Actions (edit, delete, etc)
  • 🟨 Embeds
    • 🟩 Youtube embeds
    • 🟩 Tenor videos
    • 🟩 Attachments
      • 🟩 Image Attachments
      • 🟩 Video Attachments
      • 🟩 Audio Attachments (with actual mobile playback)
  • 🟥 Offline Message Scheduling
  • 🟥 Unreads
  • 🟥 Threads
  • 🟨 Member List
    • 🟩 Base View
    • 🟩 Networking (handled in firebridge, tricky due to Discord's sharding)
    • 🟥 Member Search
• 🟨 Friends
• 🟨 Guilds
  • 🟩 Guild List
  • 🟩 Guild Networking
  • 🟩 Guild Organization
    • 🟩 Guild Order
    • 🟩 Guild Names
    • 🟩 Guild Folders
• 🟥 Voice Chat
• 🟥 Camera Chat
• 🟥 Screen Sharing

Building

• Clone Bonfire
• Run flutter pub run
• Run dart run build_runner watch in a seperate terminal
• You are on your way!

Build issues (mostly linux)

You may encounter issues on Linux (usually with packaging)

1. libmpv cannot be found: Download libmpv / libmpv-devel (package name varies per distro). If you get an issue in adjacent to libmpv cannot be found and it is installed (particuarly on Fedora), run sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libmpv.so.2 /usr/lib64/libmpv.so.1. This issue also appears when running the release varient from GitHub. I will eventually bundle the depend or apply this fix in the library itself. This issue is tracked at #3.
2. various media kit build errors: You need mpv / mpv-devel. Fedora will require you to follow the fix for build issue 1.

Don't forget to run dart run build_runner watch before developing! This is required when using freezed and riverpod.

A quick note for contributors.

We are looking for contributors! I would absolutely love to get this project completed, but it's pretty difficult time-wise. The pacing when I have time to work on it goes pretty fast though, so more people pitching in would be fantastic!

Some of my code might not be great. This is the largest Flutter app I've made by far, so you'll have to bear with me here. Some of the code (looking at you repositories/messages.dart) may not be the best. I am absolutely not opposed to full restructuring if it's reasonable, just bring it up with me first.