Multiple connected user accounts per profile

[fnetX]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. There's often a use-case where people want to set up multiple chat accounts (e.g. private / business). You can probably solve this via profiles at the moment, but their convenience is apparently limited (to the command-line), see #396.

Describe the solution you'd like Having an option for multiple accounts would probably solve most use-cases for the hot-profile-reload and also whether or not this is safe for development purposes.

Describe alternatives you've considered Of course, I think that hot-reload of profiles is a viable workaround, but it's a more convenient solution to support multiple accounts with some custom settings in the first place and leave the cli-option of profiles for different installations and development purposes.

[JackJeisly]

I like the way Fluffychat implements this. Or in the XMPP messengers Pidgin, Psi, Gajim. I think any of these options would be good. Matrix provides pretty decent privacy, so the multi-account feature is just must have.

[Perdellian]

There are couple other use cases that would benefit more from Fluffychat-style quick-switching (via input-bar button and/or prefix) than simply exposing the --profile switch as a gui option a la #396.

That said, it is worth noting that Fluffychat can also change the primary account similarly to (if not necessarily exactly like) the latter method, which has the benefit of allowing the multiple accounts to be in separate rooms and spaces without commingling them in the room list/sidebar, so these features requests should probably be considered complementary, not competing or duplicates.

1. Plural users[^plural]
   • a common solution on a Certain Other Platform is the PluralKit bot that replaces prefixed or bracketed posts from registered users with new posts from the bot, bearing the indicated system[^system] member's name.
     • From everything I've read/heard, I know that this approach is very much not feasible with the Matrix protocol. I mention it here for context only.
   • some systems switch fronters infrequently enough that a GUI version of --profile may be sufficient
   • other systems co-front or change fronters often enough that being able to quickly switch accounts without leaving/reloading the current room is essential
2. Chat-based role-playing games[^RPG]
   • players may wish to switch back and forth between a character account and their main account for out-of-character discussion
   • game masters may wish to make separate accounts for certain important non-player characters and switch between those and their main account.

[^plural]: A quick primer on plurality/multiplicity for those not familiar with the concept can be found at https://morethanone.info/. Quick summary: multiple people in one brain/body. Having gotten to know a fair number of plural folks in recent years, I can say that yes, they exist; no, they're not any more dangerous than any other group; no, healthy plurality is not uncommon; and yes, having features like this makes it much easier to properly converse with them. [^system]: or collective, group, etc. Different plural folks have different preferences about what they should be called collectively. I use "system" here for sake of brevity. [^RPG]: While my RPG experience is more tabletop-based than chat-based, I do know of some folks who use pluralkit for such purposes.

[comicsansgreenki]

multi_account = false

i cri T>T is this on the roadmap at all?