Sharing via integrated forum?

[CallenDV]

I think Columba is an excellent app, made well and based on a good idea. However, it falls short in a very specific way: the userbase. I live in a fairly rural area, and due to such, there isn't really anyone else who even lives in the same town as me and uses Columba, as far as I know. I still want to use the app, but it is very difficult to do that when the biggest feature cannot be used due to my specific circumstances.

Because of this, I was wondering, would it be possible to, say, integrate a forum in to share user accounts, or (in more populated areas) find other Columba users based on similar locations, without the whole announce system? Thanks!

[CallenDV]

Okay, so I made this before I connected to the Beleth RNS Hub, and it is great seeing the app as alive as it is now. I still believe that my original point stands, though. Until the Beleth relay discovers your device (or the other way around), everything is radio silent. It still could be useful to have regional discovery, opt-in of course, without a global connection.

[torlando-tech]

Thank you for the kind words! The announce mechanism is fundamental to Reticulum networks. Without announces, there are no paths, there are no connections, there is no network.

But, still, it would be great to discover regionally relevant users (who are willing to disclose their approximate location). Reticulum does have a new feature built in that is adjacent to this: Interface Discovery. You can find this feature in Columba under Settings -> Network -> Manage Interfaces -> Interface Discovery. Once enabled, Columba will listen for a special announce type which contains interface connectivity configuration, and optionally, GPS coordinates. There is not yet any way to announce your own interfaces from Columba, but I have thought about adding an opt-in feature for announcing location in this way.

There are also literal forums on the global Reticulum network in NomadNet. It is seeming more and more like I should add a nomadnet browser to Columba.