hey... glad you did that... i have been a matrix user for a few years but i have only heard about "bridges" but never really understood it. does a discord bridge mean i give my login/oath to matrix bridge from my discord and i can access those contacts in matrix without having 2 apps? that is my general assumption.
what about whatsapp for example? do i have to have an existing whatsapp account which constantly remains online and interacts on behalf of my matrix?
Bridges allow you to use other external accounts through your Matrix Homeserver. So with the Discord Puppet Bridge[1] I am using I can log into my Discord account from Matrix and handle all my Discord DMs and group chats using a Matrix client. So yes, bridges allow you to use Matrix for all your other chat applications.
The general workflow is after you install bridges that you configure your bridge to your existing account on the other platform. So for Signal, you open a chat with the Signal Bridge bot and issue a command to link to your account and then it walks through that process. Once the bridge is configured with your external account any new DMs and group chats from those external accounts will show up as DMs in Matrix.
what about whatsapp for example? do i have to have an existing whatsapp account which constantly remains online and interacts on behalf of my matrix?