Telegram Client - Rust TUI

A fully functional Telegram client in the terminal, written in Rust for maximum performance and responsiveness.

Features

Complete Implementation

• Split View System: Split screen vertically/horizontally into multiple panes
• Multi-Chat Support: Open multiple chats simultaneously in different panes
• Click-to-Focus: Click on panes to activate them, click on chats to open
• Reply System: Reply to messages with full context and quoted text
• Message Formatting:
  • Color-coded messages (green for outgoing, cyan for incoming)
  • Red highlighting for replies to your own messages
  • Emoji support and URL shortening
  • Reaction display
• Display Toggles:
  • Ctrl+E: Reactions
  • Ctrl+O: Emojis
  • Ctrl+T: Timestamps
  • Ctrl+G: Line numbers
  • Ctrl+D: Compact mode
  • Ctrl+S: Chat list (show/hide sidebar)
  • Ctrl+Y: Toggle borders
• Pane Management:
  • Ctrl+V: Split vertically
  • Ctrl+B: Split horizontally
  • Ctrl+K: Toggle split direction (vertical ↔ horizontal)
  • Ctrl+W: Close pane
  • Ctrl+L: Clear pane
  • Tab/Shift+Tab: Cycle focus between panes and chat list
  • Ctrl+Left/Right: Switch directly between panes
  • Alt+Enter: Multi-line input
• Commands: /reply, /search, /media, /edit, /delete, /alias, /filter, /new, /newgroup, /add, /kick, /members, /forward
• Persistence: Saves layout, settings and aliases between sessions
• Mouse Support: Click to select panes and open chats

Project Structure

telegram_client_rs/
├── Cargo.toml           # Dependencies and project configuration
├── src/
│   ├── main.rs         # Entry point, event loop and mouse handling
│   ├── app.rs          # Main application, UI logic and pane management
│   ├── config.rs       # Configuration management
│   ├── telegram.rs     # Telegram API integration (grammers-client)
│   ├── widgets.rs      # ChatPane, MessageData structures
│   ├── split_view.rs   # Split view tree structure and rendering
│   ├── commands.rs     # Command parser and handlers
│   ├── formatting.rs   # Message formatting, wrapping and URL handling
│   ├── persistence.rs  # Layout, settings and alias persistence
│   └── utils.rs        # Utility functions and desktop notifications

Dependencies

• ratatui (0.29): Modern TUI framework
• crossterm: Cross-platform terminal manipulation and mouse events
• tokio: Async runtime
• grammers-client: Telegram MTProto client
• grammers-session: Session management
• serde + serde_json: Serialization for config and persistence
• chrono: Timestamp handling
• anyhow: Ergonomic error handling

Installation & Running

# Clone repo
cd telegram_client_rs

# First time: requires Telegram API credentials
# Add api_id and api_hash to telegram_config.json

# Build
cargo build --release

# Run
./target/release/telegram_client_rs
# or
cargo run --release

Usage

Navigation

• Up/Down: Navigate in chat list or input history
• Tab: Cycle between chat list -> Pane 1 -> Pane 2 -> ... -> back to chat list
• Shift+Tab: Cycle focus backwards
• Ctrl+Left/Right: Switch directly between panes
• Enter: Open selected chat (in active pane) or send message
• Alt+Enter: Insert newline in input box
• ESC: Cancel reply mode, or return to chat list

Mouse

• Click on pane: Activate that pane (green border) and focus input box
• Click on chat: Open chat in active pane

Pane Management

• Ctrl+V: Split active pane vertically
• Ctrl+B: Split active pane horizontally
• Ctrl+K: Toggle split direction (switch between vertical and horizontal)
• Ctrl+W: Close active pane
• Ctrl+L: Clear active pane
• PageUp/PageDown: Scroll messages
• Click on pane: Activate pane and focus input box

Display Settings

• Ctrl+E: Toggle reactions
• Ctrl+N: Toggle notifications
• Ctrl+D: Toggle compact mode
• Ctrl+O: Toggle emojis
• Ctrl+G: Toggle line numbers
• Ctrl+T: Toggle timestamps
• Ctrl+S: Toggle chat list (sidebar)
• Ctrl+Y: Toggle borders

Commands

Type in the input field:

• /reply <N> or /r <N>: Reply to message #N (set reply mode or inline reply with /r N text)
• /search <query> or /s <query>: Search messages in active chat
• /media <N> or /m <N>: Download and open media from message #N
• /edit <N> <text> or /e <N> <text>: Edit message #N
• /delete <N> or /d <N>: Delete message #N
• /alias <N> <name>: Set display alias for sender of message #N
• /unalias <N>: Remove alias for sender of message #N
• /filter <type>: Filter messages (photo, video, audio, doc, link, sticker, or sender name)
• /filter off: Disable filter
• /new @username: Open a DM with a user by username
• /newgroup <name>: Create a new group chat
• /add @username: Add a user to the current group
• /kick @username or /remove @username: Remove a user from the current group
• /members: List members of the current group
• /forward <N> @username or /fwd <N> @username: Forward message #N to a user/chat

Shortcuts

• Ctrl+Q: Quit
• Ctrl+R: Refresh chat list
• Ctrl+I: Input focus toggle (legacy)

File Formats

telegram_config.json

{
  "api_id": 123456,
  "api_hash": "your_hash_here",
  "session_file": "telegram_session.session"
}

telegram_aliases.json

{
  "123456789": "Alice",
  "987654321": "Bob"
}

telegram_layout.json

Automatically saves split layout and pane configuration between sessions.

Planned

• Typing indicators
• Online status
• Message search pagination

Development

# Debug build with logging
cargo build

# Release build (optimized)
cargo build --release

# Run tests
cargo test

# Check code without building
cargo check

# Format code
cargo fmt

# Lint code
cargo clippy