Elten status: June 2026

Hi!

In October last year, I posted a thread on this forum about the status of Elten. Almost a year has passed, a lot has changed, so it is time for a small update on where things stand.

I will start from the end, that is, with the situation on the English forums. There is no denying that I am not very active here and I do not notice much. I know that there has been some drama with users impersonating others' accounts and doing other things like so. The problem is, and I am making a strong request to the moderators here, that we rarely get reports, or we get them late. We have a whole range of tools to deal with such situations, such as banning IP addresses, HWIDs and so on, but often the whole drama passes us by until it is too late.

I mean situations such as users natan_44 and rambo, who started creating accounts impersonating other users, or Leander, who flooded us with multiple accounts and posts. I am simply asking the administrators of this group to let us know in such situations. We shall take action.

And now let us move on to nicer things. :)


Work on the new server API is complete. It is already fully used by the Eltenger app from beta 40 onwards. The iOS release has just gone out, and Android will follow soon. It is also used by the PC client from Elten 3.0 Beta 10 onwards. The website is next in line for full migration. To be honest, it was supposed to go live on Monday, but something broke in a rather spectacular way and I need to spend some time understanding what does not work and why. This gives us a very large shared codebase and makes developing the apps much easier.

From the 3.0 branch onwards, Elten has dropped the hated RGSS. From now on it is written in modern Ruby, in a way that is simply nice and understandable. It is available for Windows and MacOS, and Linux support will also be added. Developers from the Polish testing group have kindly promised to work on that as volunteers, and I am very grateful for it.

I expect that in the coming months all platforms will cover about 90% of the server's functionality. So, after many years of delay, Elten will finally become what it was meant to be from the very beginning. :)


Below I will group everything by category, give more details, and answer the most common questions.


1. Server (backend)

The server is written in Ruby, using the RODA framework and based on the standard JSON API. At the moment, I do not plan to release it as open source, but a client library and protocol documentation will be made available. This will make it possible to create your own clients and integrate Elten with other applications.

I should say straight away that, for security reasons, some features will remain reserved only for the PC client and Eltenger. I mainly mean account registration here, although accounts will of course also be possible to register through the website. Logging in from external applications will also only be possible through the website.

All other features, from forums to conferences, will be available. I will share more details after the full migration is complete.

Users have already reported that the client works much faster. After all optimisations are finished and we move to the new notification system, which should happen soon, the changes should be even more noticeable.

The old API written in PHP will first be turned into a light wrapper over the new API, and then it will be completely placed where it has belonged since the minute it was created, namely in /dev/null.


2. PC client

As I wrote above, the PC client has finally dropped RGSS and now works on the new API. There are still a few bugs, which are being fixed one by one. A completely new infrastructure for handling programs will be created for it for example.

It will be a cross-platform solution.

At the moment, the Elten 3.0 code is not public yet because the build process is quite sophisticated. Also, the build system and launcher use several tools which I wrote for my own commercial solutions. I need to rewrite everything, remove the unnecessary parts, and replace them with solutions that I will want to release as open source. For now, fixing bugs is the priority, so it will still take a little while, but in the end everything will be made available on GitHub.

Elten itself is written in Ruby, while the launcher is written in C++. Running Elten from code is very simple. It only requires the Ruby toolchain to be installed. Compiling it is a bit more complicated and, to be honest, I am looking for a way to simplify it, because at the moment it takes quite a lot of effort: copying files, changing dylib signatures on Mac, and doing other rather odd work. I would rather not write a manual with steps such as: "Then remove Ruby to make sure there are no leftover gems, install it from scratch, copy it with CTRL+C and CTRL+V into the build directory, and make absolutely sure you do not change the paths under any circumstances."

I know there will certainly be many questions about pull requests. More on that below.


3. Eltenger

Eltenger is written in C#, using the .NET MAUI framework. I also plan to release it as open source, but the process is a bit more complicated because, to be completely open, the code first needs quite a lot of cleaning, naming unification, and work which will probably need to be handed over to Codex or another LLM. This is because, at the beginning, Eltenger was a patchwork written in spare moments, and around the time of the API migration, a variable could be called Login once, Username another time, _Username another time, and sometimes be a tuple with login;token values. There are similar little treats too. Not to mention accessibility wrappers written on top of wrappers, which choose wrappers in order to set wrappers. In general, if someone likes design patterns, they could learn from Eltenger and then write a thesis called "How many builders, adapters, decorators and singletons can be written on top of one another before the programmer stops understanding his own code".

It is certainly not ugly code, and of course I am joking a little. It is not the old client. It is nicely split into the view and the API, but before it is ready to be shown to the world, it simply needs some work. Either way, I do plan to publish it, but probably quite a lot later than the PC client.


4. Website

Now that the hardest work on the clients is done, I will return properly to work on the website. In the next few days, it will be fully migrated to the new API, and then it will be developed with all the missing features. This development will certainly be quite dynamic, because I will not hide the fact that Claude makes layout work much easier, and layout was what blocked me the most in terms of time until now.


5. A few words about cooperation

Before I go further, I would like to address a fairly important issue.

I am aware of the growing popularity of AI and of what it can do. To be honest, I have the impression that the AI boom among blind people has been even stronger than among sighted developers. Artificial intelligence is a great assistant at work and makes annoying clean-up tasks, or routine but time-consuming tasks, much easier. Many times, both Polish and English-speaking users have asked about using AI in the development of Elten, and I know for sure that many people will feel tempted to use an LLM to fix bugs or add new features.

I must admit that I have some concerns here. Maybe I am a bit of an old-fashioned programmer, but the last thing we need is code that works, but... but... but...

I am not saying that all code created by AI is poor quality. Quite the opposite, it can be at the level of a capable junior or mid-level developer, and it often saves time, trouble and private life. I simply do not yet know how to approach this topic, because the last thing we need is a flood of pull requests whose quality is terrible. That would be a waste of both my time and yours. On the other hand, I would not want well-prepared fixes and new features to suffer because of this.

I work on several larger open-source projects and we have the same problems there. I still need to think this through and prepare reasonable guidelines and rules for Elten development.

I am definitely not closing the door on contributors using AI. I just want to make sure that the code quality, security and performance are right, and that we do not move from the misery of RGSS straight into the mess of poor-quality code.


6. Information about international communities

There is no denying that Elten, as a program, is popular mainly in Poland. The Polish forums are many times more active than all foreign forums combined. I know that there are places such as audiogames.net and similar sites, where I am not present at all, but which are activity hubs for the English-speaking community.

To be honest, I will say openly that I am not able to get involved in this area, either in terms of time or knowledge. Efforts to attract, or not attract, foreign users will have to be made by you on your own. I strongly encourage you, after the release of Elten 3.0 and Eltenger, to spread the word and invite new people. But naturally, as long as the Polish-speaking community is dominant here, it will remain our priority. I will certainly support all promotional efforts.

I am also open to creating new language groups, as there are not many of them for now. Translator activity has dropped a lot. For example, we have practically no Eltenger translations. Anyone who would like to get involved in this area is very welcome to contact me.


7. And finally

Thank you very much to everyone for reading this rather long post. Thank you for being here, for getting involved, and for your patience, because there is no denying that the work is not moving as quickly as we would all like.

I am leaving this thread open for you, and I will try to read it regularly. All questions, ideas about the broadly understood future of the EltenLink project, suggestions and grassroots initiatives are very welcome. You can freely mention this discussion to friends who may not follow this forum regularly, but who may be very interested in the subject.

Thank you.

May I ask what the future plan regarding premium packages looks like, given the current development? I'd be happy to consider sponsoring again, though I'm a bit unsure where the benefits currently lie.
For example, in the new betas, Eltenger, as well as the PC client now, transcriptions are freely available to everyone. What is your plan regarding that part moving forward?
Thanks again for the new informations and effort that is put into keeping this place a life.

Thank you for giving us an update and continuing to work on the platform, I am glad things are starting to move in a much better direction.

First of all, AI code. I notice that usually, the programmers who hide what AI is actually capable of the most are the ones who couldn't even live without it anyway. There are those programmers who try to maintain their own image by saying that AI is bad, AI knows nothing, so you should only code by hand. And here I am, a completely naive user who doesn't know how to program, sitting here nicely making a speech synthesizer engine for Android that is capable of language recognition based on Unicode and can even read in multiple languages at once. Also me, the same naive user, I have already made three-quarters of several video games accessible. I understand the problem, because for me, as a translator, I have the same issue with AI, that it takes away my job. That's exactly why I also try to make excuses for myself in the same way, and try to make myself believe that AI isn't that good after all, but... But unfortunately, yes, it is.
The second thing I really noticed while reading the post is that you are not willing to deal with acquiring new users, you are not willing to involve yourself in the English community, you completely pull yourself out of the life of other communities too, but you still want there to be users and for them to pay for the premium packages... Except it doesn't work like that. If someone sees that the way this community operates is terrible, they will leave. Out of our older users, I might be exaggerating if I say 20 percent of them stayed. Because everyone moved on. Nobody needs to participate in an unmoderated, disorganized kindergarten when there are other, well-structured communities out there, with the only difference being that they are not specifically for the blind.
The reason for the decrease in participation in translation is exactly this too. No one wants to get stressed and nervous over the fact that you cannot be reached. Because let's be honest, you can't be. Back in the day, when I was still a moderator and we had several problems in the community, you almost never answered me or my fellow moderators. The current team also has difficulties when they need to reach you. How do you expect, in this case, under such passive leadership, for new users to register and actually stay here?
What is also not very promising on the platform, and I have been voicing this for years, is Elten's open political stance. Of course, a lot of services, websites, and apps do this, but their budget isn't as small as Elten's. We, blind users, generally come from the most diverse backgrounds, from the most diverse countries, cities, and ethnicities. We don't need a greater division than what already fundamentally exists among us. Supporting Ukraine or Russia can be a personal opinion, but not necessarily publicly and so openly, especially if you are the developer of the program. Besides this, we surely remember the scandals when components were used that directly blocked Russian civilians' access to certain functions of Elten.
With this being said, I'd really want to wish good luck, but I don't know if it worths it anymore...

I just hope that things can turn out for the better, but we will just have to wait and see. Its for the reason you just said that I have not bothered to renew my sponsor package.

I am sorry if I miss anything, as you disputed many topics.

As for the premium packages, I do not know yet. This is something I need to think through carefully before the release of Elten 3.0. I have considered a few options, including dropping separate packages and replacing them with one shared sponsorship package. To be completely honest, at this point, with current formula the premium packages would have to become more expensive. This needs proper thought and a good strategy. I will certainly keep everyone updated.

Regarding Arctic's post, I will be completely honest: I do not know whether this discussion can stay constructive, because over the last few years you have become a hater of the project, and frankly I am not sure whether you actually want answers. You have said so often that Elten makes no sense that I am surprised you have not uninstalled it yet. Still, I want to keep the discussion focused, so I will respond to a few of the points raised, even though I do not know whether my answers will satisfy you.

On coding with AI, I separate two things: whether something works, and whether it is written well. The nice thing is that everyone can have their own view on this. In my post, I did not reject the idea of vibe coding as such at any point. I am looking for a compromise that will let us keep both code quality and functionality. This is not easy, and it is a challenge faced by every software project, whether open source or closed source.
I will only point out that if everything were the paradise you describe, all corporations would already be laying off their programmers. And yes, I am aware that jobs are being cut, because fewer programmers are needed now, AI is taking over many tasks, and it is very good at replacing juniors. That is true, and I can see it myself. In fact, AI is even more valuable for us as blind people, because many solutions are visual-based and inaccessible. I have seen how many NVDA add-ons and other tools have been created, tools which, let us be honest, would never have appeared without Codex and similar solutions.
In that sense, especially for small or non-critical apps, I think AI is an excellent tool, the kind we have not had for years. But believing that, at least at its current stage of development, AI-written code for something as large and important as Elten will simply be good is wishful thinking. That does not mean AI cannot help when prompted well. Quite the opposite: I am sure that the vast majority of Elten's bugs can be solved by giving the AI model the right instructions. But that is exactly the point: the right instructions. We need an approach where AI acts as an assistant that helps us, not something that leaves us with long-term code problems we will spend years trying to fix.

As for communication, unfortunately the current administration has not contacted me almost even once. For various reasons, I am flooded with private messages. And yes, I often do not reply to them. I do not have time for it, and it seems that half the users decided my inbox looked too empty and needed filling up. Yes, I sometimes receive dozens of private messages a day, so yes, I am hard to reach. But that is exactly why we appoint administrators and moderators: they should contact us when needed. That was the reason for my appeal. Charlie simply does not always remember to do this yet. It is something for me and him to sort out, not something to debate publicly.

As for political views, unless I am mistaken, you are the only person who regularly writes about this. I could list companies and projects that have expressed political views, but that would miss the point. Elten is run by the Prowadnica Foundation, of which I am the president. As a foundation, we never get involved in political disputes. A few years ago, there were parliamentary elections in Poland, followed by presidential elections. Almost nobody knows which party or candidate I or other members of the Board voted for, and that is how it will stay. We do not get involved in disputes within the European Union, we do not express views on raw materials agreements, or on the whole stream of political scandals.

But I will oppose Russia's crimes in Ukraine, just as I will oppose Israel's crimes in Palestine. If someone has a problem with that, they have two options: either separate the author's views from the software, or do not use the software. That is all I have to say on the matter.

Hello.

I can just agree with jonathan and Alex here, thank you for the post. As a really long time user of this program, I am really glat to see it move forward in a good direction again. I am right now typing this from my macbook air and it just is so awesome to be finally able to use the real elten experience here (not my app but the real one) without parallels or my shadow pc needed for this purpose. Also, i like to hear that thirt party clients will be allowed, so my eltswift still has a chance to live.

Regarding the administration contacts. I can a leat tell you why I was not contacting you in the time that I was moderating here. The reason is simple, ad this is an issue that has been going since I started working on eltens translation back in 2017, the lack of responses. Yes, I get that your inbox is ful and that elten is mostlikely not your main Job so time also plays a role. How ever, sometimes it just feels like there is jus never ever a response. Granted, the pm that i send you yesteday was maybe also one of these inbox floders how ever i thought it was important to say what i had to say. How ever your motivation to send anything of matter drops significantly when you just feel it will never be deld with. Also, I still don't get why when we as a groups team decide to ban someone this is not an IP ban by default. This make group level bans basicaly completely pointles because they can just be evaded by creating a new account with a bogus email. The emails don't even have to be verified for this purpos whic makes it even more pointles. That combined with the response speed of you but not only you, as far as i heard of the entire elders counsel, can really halt us if we have the wrong people in these forums. How ever, i am realy interested in resolving this matter and i am always open for discussions on this, so feel fre to contact me, or possible all the current english community staff, privately.

We do not use IP bans by default for one simple reason: quite often, at least in Poland, Elten is used in schools or similar places where lots of people share the same network. I haven't looked through the logs to see what this looks like abroad, but in Poland it's very common.
In general, we can ban by IP and HWID, and so far that has proved very effective - even more effective than email verification, since there are hundreds of 10-minute email services out there.
That said, yes, I do generally agree, and I understand that not being able to get in touch with me can be really discouraging. I'm sorry about that.

Alex, please don't start this here. Reseting the group was the best thing that could have happened to it, because you managed to start a riot in the group. That would not have easily been solved and you mostlikely also know this. The chaos you had to deal with was almost fully self inflicted because of your way of handling group matters. Besides this is not the point of this topic. That will be my first and only comment in regards to that situatin.

To Pajper, maybe in this case, we could at least limmet group joins from an already banned IP. So not everyone who has this IP gets kicked instantly but only new people have to be reviewed before joining and so on, or group joins could be tied to the HWID.

To clear a few things. I'm not a hater of the project, I'm just very disappointed to see the way it's going. I still would like to help as much as I can and my offer regarding hungarian translation still stands, I just don't think I would be able to invite new people due to the current problems. Whenever I suggest something on any of the platforms the Hungarian community is on, they usually consider me as a correct and reputable source. Recommending Elten in the current state would discourage people from staying there, and also would decrease my reputation of recommeding apps that work properly. Again, I don't hate Elten, I just lost hope because our suggestions are never listened to.
While I understand your stance on banning, (in Hungary it works the same way in terms of schools and IP addresses), nowadays banning by IP is the least effective thing you can do, considering the fact that anyone with a dinamic IP will get new address in a few days, and also anyone can create more and more accounts if needed. Banning from the forum also has no effect, since we can always leave the group before we think we would be banned and good luck for the administration letting you accept their invitation. The same with conferences, but even worse. You simply can't ban anyone from conferences if they haven't written a single message on the forum and they aren't in the group. But how many times shall we write about this? You know your own code the best, so you should be fully aware of this.

I agree here, and I just hope that he listens, but as I like to say in a lot of situations, we will believe it when we see it, so to speak.
-- (ArcticMoon):
To clear a few things. I'm not a hater of the project, I'm just very disappointed to see the way it's going. I still would like to help as much as I can and my offer regarding hungarian translation still stands, I just don't think I would be able to invite new people due to the current problems. Whenever I suggest something on any of the platforms the Hungarian community is on, they usually consider me as a correct and reputable source. Recommending Elten in the current state would discourage people from staying there, and also would decrease my reputation of recommeding apps that work properly. Again, I don't hate Elten, I just lost hope because our suggestions are never listened to.
While I understand your stance on banning, (in Hungary it works the same way in terms of schools and IP addresses), nowadays banning by IP is the least effective thing you can do, considering the fact that anyone with a dinamic IP will get new address in a few days, and also anyone can create more and more accounts if needed. Banning from the forum also has no effect, since we can always leave the group before we think we would be banned and good luck for the administration letting you accept their invitation. The same with conferences, but even worse. You simply can't ban anyone from conferences if they haven't written a single message on the forum and they aren't in the group. But how many times shall we write about this? You know your own code the best, so you should be fully aware of this.
--

Well, given that I have used Elten back in 2025, I can say that it's a pritty good program. All though some people, not nameing names, have caused problems witch made me consider archiveing my account, witch I did for a time, comeing back was something I wasn't thinking of doing, but at least I have had fun, looking at old stuff that was posted long ago. Espesoly meeting some of of the old users who came by to visit and whoom I have gotten to know through other platforms. And that's good that Linux support will be added, because I know most of my friends use linux, and with the way that Microsoft has handled there stuff with copilet, tbh I may think of switching to Linux. But then again, only time will tell.

The thing is though, the polish community has proper moderation. You engage in it, you answer them, it's the only community you interact with. So you see their problems, you see what's going on and they don't feel the sameway as the english community does. To be very honest with you, I feel like you are keeping the english community in financial hopes. Personally, for me, it seems like you would delete it entirely, but the hope that they might support the project finantially, doesn't allow you to do so.

It's quite funny, really, how the topic keeps coming back again and again to premium features. Let me answer it from two angles.

The first angle is that I work on Elten in my own private time. I do not get paid for it. To be honest, even simple thanks are rare, though I am smiling here at the people who really have thanked me or shown appreciation. Yesterday, for example, I got a very kind message from one of the users regarding Elten for Mac, thanks.
In a way, it should be the community that cares about keeping the project going, assuming, of course, that the project matters to them. This is not me saying: "Hey, I could not care less." But in a way, I could say that.
I do not know what finances look like in other countries. I know countries differ, and so does purchasing power. But from a Polish perspective, the yearly price of a sponsorship package is basically the price of decent sushi for two people. Or pizza for a group of friends. Not to mention the smaller packages, which now cost less than a fast food meal.
Of course, I am writing from a Polish perspective. I know the situation and purchasing power in other countries can be completely different. Also I do not or even had enforced anyone to pay a penny for the project.

The second angle is that, whichever way you look at it, the trend has actually been the opposite. Eltenger used to be part of the sponsorship package, and now it is not. Transcriptions used to be too, and now they are not. All in all, that is a rather funny route to take if I were greedy and only looking for ways to push premium packages. I have got a few decent ideas: mobile conferences behind a paywall. Or why not go straight for paid Mac testing?

When Elten was first released, it was in Polish. And only Polish. The first translations were an absolute disaster, translated from Polish by simple word replacement. Over the years, I have done everything I could to help the program become international: rewriting the client to use Gettext in version 2.0, writing Eltenger natively in English, and finally creating a new website, also in English.

I'm not saying premium features are something bad and you shouldn't have introduced them. Not at all. In fact, I'd also be very happy if someone paid for my work and what I do, so in that case I fully understand you, relate and agree. What I'm saying is that you keep certain communities just because you don't want to have a financial loss. Because even if the community is hard to deal with, most of the users are making only trouble, it still worths to keep them because of the money.
Also, another concern regarding bans. Elten is not only a forum, not only a social media. It's also a multifunctional program with the possibility to manage files, to watch youtube when it works, to manage playlists, etc. If you ban someone entirely who was relying purely on Elten's functions, maybe for which they have even paid, you are illegally taking the product away from them. Again, so you won't try to accuse me for hating paid features, I am and always was totally okay with them, except for free, user-created soundthemes which were paid for a while. And while I'm happy that you still continue developing Elten, in your place I'd think about what went wrong in the first place. Why aren't new users joining. Why people don't want to moderate communities. Why people don't want to translate the app into their native language. Why there's so a huge amount of spam in certain communities. Isn't it because you can't manage everything fully alone? Isn't it because you refuse to engage in communities other than the polish one?

But who says it's only for the money? He never said that in the 1st place. That's an assumtion you make on your own that never was confirmed, and tbh, that amount of money wouldn't be worth it in the 1st place.

If Epic Games bans me from playing fortnite, for example, because I keep going against the rules, or harm other players, even though I've bought ingame currency for skins, is that illegal? No, that's just how life works, and their terms of service. Same for the program. Also, a banned user can not interact with they community, write forum posts etc. They can still access thhe program such as YouTube, File Manager, read forum and blogs, etc.
-- (ArcticMoon):
I'm not saying premium features are something bad and you shouldn't have introduced them. Not at all. In fact, I'd also be very happy if someone paid for my work and what I do, so in that case I fully understand you, relate and agree. What I'm saying is that you keep certain communities just because you don't want to have a financial loss. Because even if the community is hard to deal with, most of the users are making only trouble, it still worths to keep them because of the money.
Also, another concern regarding bans. Elten is not only a forum, not only a social media. It's also a multifunctional program with the possibility to manage files, to watch youtube when it works, to manage playlists, etc. If you ban someone entirely who was relying purely on Elten's functions, maybe for which they have even paid, you are illegally taking the product away from them. Again, so you won't try to accuse me for hating paid features, I am and always was totally okay with them, except for free, user-created soundthemes which were paid for a while. And while I'm happy that you still continue developing Elten, in your place I'd think about what went wrong in the first place. Why aren't new users joining. Why people don't want to moderate communities. Why people don't want to translate the app into their native language. Why there's so a huge amount of spam in certain communities. Isn't it because you can't manage everything fully alone? Isn't it because you refuse to engage in communities other than the polish one?
--

If the user can still log in though, what's the purpose of banning even by HWID?
I have to point out though that the Fortnite analogy doesn't really hold up. Buying cosmetic skins in a purely online multiplayer game is very different from paying for functional tools in a software. Getting banned from a multiplayer game makes sense because your actions ruin the gameplay for others, but completely locking someone out of a utility tool (like a file manager or a media player) just because they misbehaved on a social forum would be a different story. It's like as if they banned you from Word or Excel just because you were being racist on Microsoft's forum. Sounds odd, doesn't it?

Huh? Them not being able to engage with the community and continue spamming? Are you that ignorant or just playing it?
-- (ArcticMoon):
If the user can still log in though, what's the purpose of banning even by HWID?
I have to point out though that the Fortnite analogy doesn't really hold up. Buying cosmetic skins in a purely online multiplayer game is very different from paying for functional tools in a software. Getting banned from a multiplayer game makes sense because your actions ruin the gameplay for others, but completely locking someone out of a utility tool (like a file manager or a media player) just because they misbehaved on a social forum would be a different story. It's like as if they banned you from Word or Excel just because you were being racist on Microsoft's forum. Sounds odd, doesn't it?
--

And since you apparently love the File Manager so much, that even works when you're logged out and offline, as well as all other Elten programs. You've been on Elten for so long, thought you'd know that by now...
Ok, I don't want this thread to turn into the next pointless sshit show, so I'm leaving it with that. @arctic please come back when you've leveled up your finding arguments skill, this is quite sad.