📡 Teleliter

A HexChat-style Telegram client for power users

Text-first. Keyboard-driven. No bloat.

Features • Installation • Usage • Commands • Philosophy • Building

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✨ Features

🎯 Text-First Design

• IRC/HexChat aesthetic — Messages displayed as clean text, not bubbles
• Monospace font — Perfect alignment, easy to scan
• Inline media indicators — 📷 [Photo], 🎬 [Video], 🎤 [Voice 0:15]
• Click to preview — Minimal popup, no clutter

⌨️ Keyboard-Driven

• Slash commands — /me, /clear, /query, /whois, /leave
• Quick navigation — Ctrl+PgUp/PgDn to switch chats
• Tab completion — Complete usernames with Tab
• Command history — ↑/↓ to recall previous messages

🚀 Blazing Fast

• Virtualized rendering — Only visible messages are drawn
• Lazy loading — Chats and history load on-demand
• Reactive architecture — No UI freezes, ever
• Native performance — C++ with wxWidgets

📨 Full Telegram Support

• All chat types — Private, groups, supergroups, channels, bots
• Media playback — Photos, videos, GIFs, stickers, voice notes
• Read receipts — ✓ sent, ✓✓ read
• Typing indicators — See who's typing in real-time
• Online status — 🟢 Green dot for online users
• Reactions display — See reactions from others (read-only by design)

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📦 Installation

Arch Linux (AUR)

yay -S teleliter-git

Ubuntu / Debian

# Install dependencies
sudo apt install build-essential cmake libwxgtk3.2-dev libssl-dev \
  zlib1g-dev libwebp-dev libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev libswscale-dev \
  libswresample-dev libavutil-dev libsdl2-dev librlottie-dev

# Build TDLib (see Building section)
# Then build Teleliter
git clone https://github.com/1ay1/teleliter.git
cd teleliter && mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. && make -j$(nproc)
./teleliter

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install wxwidgets tdlib ffmpeg sdl2 webp rlottie
git clone https://github.com/1ay1/teleliter.git
cd teleliter && mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. && make -j$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)
./teleliter

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🎮 Usage

First Launch

1. Run ./teleliter
2. Enter your phone number (with country code: +1234567890)
3. Enter the verification code from Telegram
4. Start chatting!

Navigation

Key	Action
Ctrl+PgUp	Previous chat
Ctrl+PgDn	Next chat
Ctrl+W	Close chat
F7	Toggle member list
F9	Toggle chat list
F11	Fullscreen
Ctrl+L	Login
Ctrl+E	Preferences

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💬 Commands

/me <action>     Send an action message (* You does something)
/clear           Clear the chat window
/query <user>    Open a private chat with user
/whois <user>    View user information
/leave           Leave the current chat
/help            Show all available commands

Example:

/me is excited about Teleliter
→ * YourName is excited about Teleliter

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🧠 Philosophy

Teleliter follows the Unix philosophy applied to messaging:

Do one thing well: Display and send messages.

What We Do

✅ Display all Telegram content beautifully in text
✅ Send messages quickly with keyboard
✅ Show reactions, edits, and read receipts
✅ Preview media with minimal UI

What We Don't Do

❌ Reaction picker (use official app)
❌ Message editing UI (use official app)
❌ Sticker browser (use official app)
❌ Voice recording (use official app)

This isn't a limitation — it's a feature. Teleliter is for reading and quick replies, not for composing elaborate multimedia messages.

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🔧 Building

Dependencies

Library	Version	Purpose
TDLib	1.8+	Telegram API
wxWidgets	3.2+	GUI framework
FFmpeg	5.0+	Media playback
SDL2	2.0+	Audio output
libwebp	1.0+	WebP stickers
rlottie	0.2+	Animated stickers

Building TDLib

TDLib must be built from source and installed to ~/.local:

git clone https://github.com/tdlib/td.git
cd td && mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
      -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/.local ..
cmake --build . -j$(nproc)
cmake --install .

Building Teleliter

git clone https://github.com/1ay1/teleliter.git
cd teleliter
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

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📄 License

MIT License — See LICENSE for details.

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🙏 Acknowledgments

• TDLib — The backbone of this client
• HexChat — Inspiration for the UI
• wxWidgets — Cross-platform GUI

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If you love keyboard-driven interfaces, give Teleliter a ⭐!

Made with ❤️ for power users who miss the days of IRC