Blink

Chat application in gtk4, written purely in C++.

Windows

• See releases for windows build

Building on Windows

• Windows build is possible using MSYS2 UCRT64
• Run MSYS2 UCRT64 as administrator
• You will need to install following packages:
• pacman -S git make unzip mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gtkmm-4.0 mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-libsodium mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain
• Hopefully, you will be able to build it with make win command in src and consequently make install_win to install it

Linux

Dependencies

Shared

• make,libsodium, g++ with c++23 support

Client

• unzip and gtkmm4 for GUI

Server

• docker and docker-compose optionally for server

Client

Build

git clone https://github.com/Hikari03/Blink.git && \
cd Blink/src && \
make && \
make install

Usage

blink

or launch from your desktop environment as an app

• then follow instructions
• to exit in connected chat, type /q and then enter

Screenshots

Server

• Uses Port : 6999
• If you want to change it you can do so in server/main.cpp and src/App.cpp

Use Docker

With scripts

You can get the docker-update-start.sh, docker-attach.sh and docker-shutdown.sh. With them, you can control the server with ease.

• docker-update-start.sh will automatically update the image if needed and start the server
• docker-attach.sh will attach you to server console. Use help to print available commands. When you want to exit console, use CTRL + P, CTRL + Q.
• docker-shutdown.sh will shutdown the container

Manually

• download the docker-compose.yml
• docker compose up -d or docker-compose up -d
• to control the server use docker attach blink-server
• docker compose down or docker-compose down

From Source

Build

git clone https://github.com/Hikari03/Blink.git && \
cd Blink/server && \
make

Usage:

in Blink/server

./blink-server

Controls

• help help
• q quit server
• list list all connected clients
• kick <name> kick out client with name
• ipban <name> ban client with name
• ipunban <name> unban client with name
• ipbans list all banned clients

Attributions

• Blink icons created by kawalanicon - Flaticon
• Catppuccin mocha mauve theme
• MSYS2 dlls

TODO

•  better resource management
•  better server terminal
•  fix kicking out users
•  sending only last n messages so everything is stable
•  ability to see online users
•  better syncing of chat when someone connects or leaves
  • this is when new user connects and doesn't see the chat history or when someone leaves and the chat history is not updated
•  fix server having unexpected behavior when closing server with clients connected
•  implement code for graceful stop in docker
•  transfer ncurses static build to librender that will make static library
•  make communication encrypted
•  remake client to use gtkmm4
•  fix duplicate messages that show only sometimes
•  port to windows
•  make default theme (probably catppuccin)
•  build catppuccin theme in makefile and not store it in repo
•  make persistent storage for server
•  make persistent storage for client
•  fix ncurses branch client
•  implement notice when client gets kicked out