Looks like a nice project, but why wouldn't one use http://pidgin.im, which also supports XMPP and as far as I know is pretty solid, works well, and is also cross-platform?
Last time I checked, Pidgin lacked proper support for multi device by not supporting Message Carbons (XEP-0280, required to receive messages on multiple devices when both are online at the same time) and Message Archive Management (XEP-0313, required to catch up with messages received while only another device was online).
There is probably also other examples of XMPP features that Pidgin does not and likely will never support, due to its nature of being multi-protocol (basically limiting features to the smallest common feature set).
If you are interested in Pidgin, the lead developer has a Twitch stream (rw_grim). He is always open to ideas, and onboarding new contributors. There is a new version of Pidgin being written that significantly improves the user, and developer, experience. If you check out the stream, you could get some swag too (I have some Pidgin stickers). That said, I am also interested in Dino, and supporting other projects. It's unfortunate that chat has become more proprietary, instead of more open.
As I understand it, Pidgin's XMPP feature hasn't been maintained for some time now. It doesn't do many core features well or at all. If you like it and it suits you, great :)
Pidgin can be very hit-and-miss with which parts of the protocol it implements. It is also a multi protocol client so a lot of the functionality is presented in a protocol agnostic way, which may not be what you're looking for if you're using it for XMPP alone.
For a desktop XMPP client, check out Gajim. It's stable and implements all that a user would expect (server side history, omemo).
I had the same question. This seemed to be their answer:
> A number of clients already exist for the XMPP protocol, however Dino sets a different focus. Existing clients target tech-savvy power users. The XMPP ecosystem lacks a client that is enjoyable to use while providing the features people expect from a modern chat application.
I'm sure one needs to be more tech-savvy to use Dino than to use Pidgin :), but I understand they were likely not thinking about Pidgin, but it does exist.
I'm not super familiar with the details, but I think Pidgin has little/no support for encryption (OMEMO & OpenPGP). This probably has support for other XMPP features that Pidgin doesn't as well.
What I don't know is how this is different than gajim.
Pidgin intentionally stores them in plain text. The logic, I believe, is that "light encryption" is worse than no encryption since it gives a false sense of security.
So rather than a reversible cypher they leave it plain so that their users will freak out and /not/ share their files with folk and will properly lock down their creds file.
Every recent graphical OS has support for key management though, whether it is the key store on mac, the credential store on Windows or the key management tools that come with KDE or Gnome (I believe both share somewhat of an API).
It might be due to Pidgin's age but in modern programs storing this data in plain text should be a last resort for systems that don't do secret management for you.
The enormous selection of Pidgin plugins (e.g. Discord, Office365, IRC, etc) also makes it really hard for me to give it up for a prettier program like Dino. I hope Dino supports at least OTR encryption.
That sounds unlikely. Now that OMEMO is the hotness the interest in OTR has dropped pretty much to zero in the XMPP world. The Conversations client used to support OTR but that support has been discontinued.
What advantages does this have over Pidgin?