Rusty Chat - TUI Chat Application

Chat application with Rust using Ratatui for TUI interface.

Initializing

Inicie o Servidor

# Terminal 1 - Servidor
cargo run --bin chat-server

You may see:

INFO rusty_chat_server:  Rusty Chat Server started
INFO rusty_chat_server:  Listening on 0.0.0.0:4556

After Initialize the TUI client

# Terminal 2 - Cliente
cargo run --bin chat-tui

# Or from chat-tui directory
cd chat-tui
cargo run

Using the TUI Client

Connection Screen

1. Enter your username
2. Press Tab to navigate between fields
3. Press Enter on the "Connect" button to connect

Chat Interface

Keyboard Controls:

• i - Enter editing mode (to type messages)
• ESC - Exit editing mode
• Enter - Send message (in editing mode)
• n - Next room
• p - Previous room
• ↑/↓ - Scroll messages
• q - Quit (in normal mode)
• Ctrl+C - Force quit (any time)

Commands

While in chat, you can use these commands:

• /join <room> - Join a room
• /rooms - List available rooms
• /users - List users in current room
• /whisper <user> <message> - Send private message
• /help - Show help
• /quit - Disconnect

Development

Building

# Build everything
cargo build

# Build only server
cargo build --bin chat-server

# Build only TUI
cargo build --bin chat-tui

Testing

# Run all tests
cargo test

# Test specific package
cargo test -p chat-core
cargo test -p chat-tui

Logs

Server logs are sent to stderr and won't interfere with the TUI.

To see server logs:

cargo run --bin chat-server 2> server.log

Common Problems

Erro: "Connection Refused" (10061)

Cause: Server not running

Solution: Try initializing the server (chat-server) first:

# Terminal 1
cargo run --bin chat-server

# Terminal 2 (depois que o servidor iniciar)
cargo run --bin chat-tui

Port 4556 already in use

Solution: Kill the process which is using this port:

netstat -ano | findstr 4556
taskkill /F /PID <PID>

Other problemas

Try contacting me via github or my social medias and I can try helping you.

Architecture

• chat-core: Pure server logic, no terminal output
• chat-tui: TUI client using Ratatui, connects to server via TCP
• Both use async/await with Tokio
• Messages are parsed from server responses