Chat Client

WPF encrypted chat app in C#, with a console server, RSA encryption, async TCP networking and a custom packet protocol.

Features

Core

• 🔐 End‑to‑end RSA encryption — automatic keypair generation and real‑time public key sync
• 🔑 Public Key Monitor — live view of all known keys, drives encryption state
• 📦 Length‑prefixed packet framing — no desync, no corrupted packets
• ⚡ Async TCP networking — clean connect/disconnect cycle.

Client

• 👥 Real‑time user list updates automatically on login/logout
• 😀 UTF‑8 encoding for emoji-compatible messaging
• 🔌 Configurable TCP port — choose the port before connecting
• 🏠 Local mode — runs locally if no IP address is provided
• 🪟 System tray integration — minimize/close to tray
• 🎨 Theme toggle — light/dark themes switchable at any time
• ✏️ Adjustable input field — resize or shift it horizontally to match your layout preferences
• 🎞️ Subtle WPF animations using xaml storyboards and UI polish
• 🌐 Localized in English, French and Spanish.

Coming soon

• 💬 Bubble‑style message display
• 🎨 Custom color for outgoing message bubbles
• 🌗 Adjustable brightness for bubble backgrounds
• 🌓 Automatic text‑contrast switching for optimal readability
• 🔄 Toggle to switch back to the classic layout (side roster + raw text mode)
• 🆔 Public‑key verification with visual identity marker

Server

• ⚙️ Async TCP engine — handles multiple clients concurrently with non‑blocking I/O
• 📡 Broadcast & routing logic — distributes messages to all connected clients.
• 🌐 Auto‑localized server messages — automatically switches between French, Spanish or default to English, based on the OS language.

Architecture

• 🧩 MVVM‑light — clean separation of UI and logic
• 🔧 Custom packet reader/writer — opcode‑based routing.

How to Run

• Clone the repository with Git
• Open the solution file (.sln) in Visual Studio 2022
• Build the entire solution with Ctrl+Shift+B, then run it.

In Debug mode, a console window is attached to the client at startup for debugging purposes, but you can freely minimize it.
To avoid this, run the application in Release mode.

🚧 Work in Progress

The new UI is still evolving. Some elements — especially the input area — may be unstable. For a fully reliable version, download the latest stable release just below or check out the v1.0 tag in Visual Studio after cloning the repository.

Download

Go to the Releases section.

Technical documentation (5 pages):

• English — ChatClient-documentation.pdf
• Français — ChatClient-documentation-fr.pdf.