🚀 AWESOME Chat App

A real-time terminal-based chat application built with Rust. Features a beautiful TUI (Terminal User Interface) client powered by Cursive and an async TCP server using Tokio.

✨ Features

• Real-time messaging - Instant message delivery using TCP sockets
• Beautiful TUI client - Clean terminal interface with colors and panels
• Multi-user support - Multiple clients can connect and chat simultaneously
• Server notifications - Join/leave messages when users connect or disconnect
• Timestamps - Every message shows when it was sent
• Easy launcher - Interactive menu to start server and clients

📁 Project Structure

chat-app/
├── src/
│   ├── main.rs          # Launcher menu
│   └── bin/
│       ├── server.rs    # Chat server
│       └── client.rs    # Chat client (TUI)
├── Cargo.toml
├── .env                 # Optional: HOST and PORT config
└── README.md

🛠️ Prerequisites

• Rust (1.75 or later recommended)
• Cargo (comes with Rust)

🚀 Quick Start

Using the Launcher (Recommended)

The easiest way to run the app is using the built-in launcher:

cargo run

This will show an interactive menu:

╔════════════════════════════════╗
║      🚀 CHAT APP LAUNCHER      ║
╠════════════════════════════════╣
║  1. Start Server (new window)  ║
║  2. Start Client (new window)  ║
║  3. Exit                       ║
╚════════════════════════════════╝

1. Press 1 to start the server (opens in a new terminal window)
2. Press 2 to start a client (enter your username, opens in a new window)
3. Repeat step 2 to add more chat participants!

Manual Execution

You can also run the server and client directly:

Start the server:

cargo run --bin server

Start a client (in a separate terminal):

cargo run --bin client <username>

Example:

cargo run --bin client Alice
cargo run --bin client Bob

⚙️ Configuration

Create a .env file in the project root to customize the host and port:

HOST=127.0.0.1
PORT=8082

Default values if .env is not provided:

• HOST: 127.0.0.1
• PORT: 8082

🎮 Client Controls

Key	Action
Enter	Send message
Esc	Quit client
/help	Show available commands
/quit	Exit the chat

📦 Dependencies

Crate	Purpose
tokio	Async runtime for networking
cursive	Terminal UI framework
serde / serde_json	Message serialization
chrono	Timestamps
dotenv	Environment configuration

🏗️ Architecture

┌─────────────┐     TCP      ┌─────────────┐
│   Client    │◄────────────►│   Server    │
│   (TUI)     │              │  (Tokio)    │
└─────────────┘              └─────────────┘
                                   │
┌─────────────┐     TCP            │
│   Client    │◄───────────────────┤
│   (TUI)     │                    │
└─────────────┘                    │
                                   │
┌─────────────┐     TCP            │
│   Client    │◄───────────────────┘
│   (TUI)     │
└─────────────┘

• Server: Accepts connections, broadcasts messages to all connected clients
• Client: Connects to server, displays messages in a beautiful TUI

📝 License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.

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Made with ❤️ and Rust 🦀