README.md

CS262 Chat Application

Welcome to our chat app, a PyQt6-based client with a dark theme UI and a Python server for real-time messaging!

Our application is built with a client-server architecture, supporting multiple clients connecting to the server from different machines. We have implemented two wire protocols: JSON and our custom protocol (SAMIRA🔥).

Features

Our application implements the below functional requirements:

✅ Account Management

• Create account with unique username, nickname, and password
• Log in with existing account
• Delete account
• List/search accounts with wildcard support

✅ Messaging

• Real-time message delivery
• Offline message storage
• Configurable unread message to be delivered at any time
• Message status tracking (number of unread messages)
• Individual and bulk message deletion

✅ Multi-Machine Support

• Tested server-client communication on different machines
• Server accessible from any client on the network
• Tested with two wire protocols: JSON and our custom protocol (SAMIRA🔥)

For more details on features, high-level design, and implementation, see our High-Level Design & Implementation Plan.

Demo

Open Me! 🎬

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• pip (Python package manager)
• make (build tool)

Quick Start

1. Clone and install:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/cs262-chat.git
cd cs262-chat
make install && make install-dev

2. Start server:

make run-server

3. Start client

   1. On the same machine as server (new terminal):

      make run-client-gui

   2. Connecting from a different machine (replace SERVER_IP with server's IP):

      make run-client-gui CLIENT_ID=YOUR_DESIRED_ID SERVER_IP=SERVER_IP

Note

SERVER_IP will be displayed on the machine where the server is running with other server details (e.g. what wire protocol is being used, port, etc.). YOUR_DESIRED_ID can be any string you want to use as your client ID.

Documentation Structure

Our documentation is organized for easy navigation:

• Client Documentation

  PyQt6-based GUI application covering:

  • UI components and pages
  • Implements our User journey diagrams
  • Client code communication with server

• Server Documentation

  • API endpoints
  • Database schema
  • Server setup code

• Protocol Documentation

  • Wire protocol specifications
  • Message format details
  • Protocol Implementation (JSON vs Custom)

Note

Engineering Notebook For our other documents, especially engineering notebooks, see the notebook.md file and the Issues Page

Testing Coverage

Our test suite coverage report can be found by clicking on the badge below:

Also, you can run the test suite locally with:

make test

Project Structure

.
├── Makefile
├── design/
├── src/
│   ├── client/         # Client-side & UI implementation
│   │   ├── components
│   │   └── pages
│   ├── protocol/       # Protocol definitions and handlers
│   └── server/         # Server-side implementation
└── tests
    ├── client
    ├── protocol
    └── server

Development

Code Style

• Follows PEP 8 guidelines
• Auto-formatting available:

make fix-style

Tip

For other development make commands, simply run make to see the available options.