💬 IPC Chat System — WhatsApp-Style Desktop Messenger

A WhatsApp-inspired desktop chat application built with Python and Tkinter, developed as part of an Operating Systems course to demonstrate Inter-Process Communication (IPC) concepts including message passing, shared memory, and process synchronization.

📸 Screenshot

✨ Features

• 👥 Multiple contacts with switchable "I am" user selector
• 💬 Real-time text messaging with chat bubbles and timestamps
• 🖼️ Image sharing support (PNG, JPG, GIF)
• ↗️ Message forwarding with metadata tagging
• 🗑️ Delete for me / Delete for everyone
• ✅ Multi-select messages for bulk delete or forward
• 🚫 Block / Unblock contacts
• 🌙 Dark / Light mode toggle
• 🟢 Active now status indicator
• 🔇 Silent message drop for blocked contacts

🧠 IPC Concepts Demonstrated

• Message Passing — transactional send/receive between user processes
• Shared Memory — conversation histories and media caches
• Process Synchronization — mutex locks, semaphores, race condition handling
• Producer-Consumer Pattern — message queue management
• Atomic Operations — delete-for-everyone with consistency guarantees

🛠️ Tech Stack

• Python
• Tkinter (GUI)
• Pillow / PIL (image handling)
• Threading & concurrency primitives

🚀 How to Run

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/Manahil-debug/IPC-Chat-System.git

2. Install dependencies

   pip install pillow

3. Run the app

   python ipc.py

📄 Documentation

Full system design documentation covering IPC architecture, data models, security, performance, and scalability is included in the project report.

👩‍💻 Author

Manahil Ramzan — GitHub