UI Feature Config: Matrix-iOS does not appear to honor the UIFeature.voip setting in element-config.json, call buttons show even when set to false.

[robin24]

Steps to reproduce

1. On an Element server, edit element-config.json and add the following:
   "setting_defaults": {
   "UIFeature.voip": false,
   }
2. Sign into that server using Element-iOS.
3. Open a room / 1:1 conversation and check for the Video and Audio Call buttons.

Outcome

What did you expect?

The buttons to start a call should no longer be present with UIFeature.voip set to false.

What happened instead?

Call buttons are still visible in the UI and can still be used to initiate a call.

Your phone model

iPhone 13 Pro

Operating system version

iOS 15.6

Application version

Element v1.8.22 (22020713143628)

Homeserver

matrix.bvipilots.net

Will you send logs?

No

[robin24]

This is working as expected with the Element-Web client, which no longer shows call buttons following the config change.
Sadly this isn't true on iOS, however, which for our community server is an issue as we'd like to get rid of Jitsi which by default uses an external service.

[stefanceriu]

These are web client specific features that we don't support on Element iOS - https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/blob/develop/docs/config.md#ui-features

[robin24]

@stefanceriu Thanks for clarifying and tagging this as an enhancement request.
Just to clarify, this means there's no way of disabling call support in the app on a per-server basis at all then?

[stefanceriu]

There are build settings to remove the buttons but nothing available to the end user or for configuration through the well-known files unfortunately https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/blob/develop/Config/BuildSettings.swift#L215

[robin24]

Alright, not the answer I was hoping for but at least now I know what I'm dealing with :-).
For the community server I'm currently setting up, this just unfortunately means I probably won't be able to avoid setting up a TUN server although the functionality isn't needed / desired in our case, as otherwise calls will still seem to work but will likely fail to establish resulting in user support overhead.
Would really appreciate some more flexibility in this area at some point in the future, certainly I'm not the only person out there who would like to set up Matrix as a text message-only chat platform.

[stefanceriu]

One way to go about it would be to raise a talking point here https://github.com/vector-im/element-meta/discussions and try get some traction on it

[robin24]

Thanks, great idea!
Just started a new discussion for this here: element-hq/element-meta#517.