We should have a default_server_name config.json property that defaults homeserver url and identity server url via .well-known

[lampholder]

My matrix homeserver runs at https://matrix.lant.uk. The server name is lant.uk.

config.json:

{
    "default_server_name": "lant.uk"
}

Then, when you go to https://riot.lant.uk (don't, it doesn't exist), you'll see the nice and simple UX:

i.e. no server picker three-way option box, everything looked up via https://lant.uk/.well-known/matrix/client

[lampholder]

We should also ignore default_hs_url and default_is_url if default_server_name has been set

[lampholder]

And, because I wasn't explicit in the above, we should reject default_server_name if it's prefixed with http:// or https://. It's a server name (which we'll use to construct a .well-known request), not a URL.

[lampholder]

It's been suggested that 'Create your lant.uk account' might itself be confusing - if lant.uk were a large organisation it's likely they would already have something they think of as a lant.uk account.

It's also been raised that whilst lant.uk is the most sensible domain part for their mxids, they might prefer to be represented in the UX by their full company name, or similar.

Two possible independent mitigations for this:

• Change the 'Create your ________ account' wording to read 'Create your _______ matrix account' (making it more obviously distinct from whatever other accounts/infrastructure exist on lant.uk)
• Perhaps also support a server's "Display Name" via a .well-known option (deferred to Support HS display names defined in .well-known client metadata #8826)

    {
        "m.homeserver": {
            "base_url": "https://matrix.lant.uk",
            "display_name": "Lant ltd."
        },
        "m.identity_server": {
            "base_url": "https://vector.im"
        }
    }

[lampholder]

Also just another bit of context to dump on this - for .well-known to work properly in almost all useful cases, you need to be able to serve it with appropriate CORS headers

[turt2live]

Was this feature accidentally removed in 1.0?

[jryans]

Was this feature accidentally removed in 1.0?

Thanks for the reminder, as it looks like something similar was added in matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#2327. I think a combination of spots of unused properties plus the mockups I saw caused me to misunderstand and remove some portions of the previous work here. Sorry about that!

Anyway, I'll get to work reassembling the pieces.

[turt2live]

Also just a reminder that the display name is something I fought hard on last time due to phishing concerns.

[jryans]

Also just a reminder that the display name is something I fought hard on last time due to phishing concerns.

I am fairly sure the display name bit will be deferred anyhow, so we can revisit the discussion before proceeding down that road.

[jryans]

I have deferred the more controversial display name idea to #8826.

[jryans]

no server picker three-way option box

I am not entirely convinced that simply defining default_server_name should be a trigger to hide the 3 column selector. Doesn't seem like it would be a bit mysterious?

At the moment, I'm thinking we should leave the 3 column selector alone here and handle it separately. For example, in #8824, we might add a mode which disables custom HS for registration only, and that would also hide the 3 column selector as well.

@lampholder, any thoughts?