Coded Messages App

Windows desktop chat app with account auth, friend requests, persisted direct and group conversations, coded-message display, optional plain-text sending, profiles, presence, and file attachments.

Current Status

This project has a working Windows release with desktop install and Firebase-backed multi-device chat.

Email-based account features are temporarily out of scope for the current public release.

The current public release is focused on:

• account creation and login
• friend management
• coded/plain-text chat
• multi-device sync
• Windows install experience

The desktop app now uses Firebase Auth and Cloud Firestore directly for accounts, profiles, friends, blocks, reports, conversations, messages, and group invite links.

Features

• Email/password register + login
• Profile updates with local image picker + avatar display
• Friend requests by username
• Accept incoming requests
• Decline incoming requests
• Cancel outgoing requests
• Remove friend
• 1:1 conversations with persisted message history
• Group chats with friend invites
• Group invite links with 24-hour or never-expiring options
• Turn off all current group invite links
• Leave group chat
• Per-message send mode: Encoded or Plain text
• Message timestamps in chat
• Background multi-device message synchronization
• Online and last-seen presence
• Cloud-synced profile pictures
• Image, PDF, and text-file attachments
• Block and report controls
• Active-session management and remote logout
• Decrypter tab (paste coded text -> English)
• Firebase-backed multi-device sync

Download For Windows

Use the installer from the GitHub release page, not the green Code button on the repository.

1. Open the repository on GitHub.
2. On the right side, click Releases.
3. Open the latest release.
4. Under Assets, download the newest Coded Messages Setup ...exe installer version listed there.
5. Run the installer.
6. If Windows shows a warning, click More info and then Run anyway if you trust the release source.
7. Finish installation and open Coded Messages from the Start menu or desktop shortcut.

If there is no published GitHub Release yet, the installer has not been posted publicly yet.

For Testers

• The first request can be slow if the free cloud server is waking up.
• Password reset and welcome emails are not part of the current public release target.
• Existing local-only test accounts do not automatically appear in the cloud database.
• Attachments are limited to supported image formats, PDF, or plain text and a maximum of 2 MB.

Tech stack

• Desktop: Electron
• Cloud data: Firebase Cloud Firestore
• Auth: Firebase Auth
• Email: deferred for the current public release

Project structure

• main.js: Electron main process
• preload.js: Secure renderer bridge (codedApi, codedMessages)
• server/index.js: legacy local/server API kept in the repo for reference and tests
• server/index.test.js: legacy API authorization and security regression tests
• server/start.js: legacy standalone backend entrypoint
• server/mailer.js: deferred email provider integration kept for future account-email work
• docs/EMAIL_SETUP.md: email provider overview and hosted setup notes
• docs/GOOGLE_MAIL_WEBHOOK.md: setup guide for the Google Apps Script mail webhook
• docs/FIREBASE_MIGRATION.md: Firebase migration plan and project notes
• renderer/index.html: UI markup
• renderer/styles.css: UI styles
• renderer/app.js: frontend logic
• shared/codec.js: obfuscation encode/decode logic
• data/app.sqlite: local app database (created at runtime in local mode)