Tutorial - How to Setup ZENChat

What is ZENChat?

ZENChat is a messaging application that ultilizes the ZEN blockchain to provide a fully secure, private, and anonymous way to send messages up to 340 bytes. It is also UTF-8 compatiable, meaning you can send emojis over the blockchain.

This tutorial will help you get started in setting up ZENChat.

Setting up zend for ZENChat

You can find zen.conf in the following locations:

- Windows < Vista: C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Zen
- Windows >= Vista: C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Zencash
- Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Zen
- Unix: ~/.zen

Currently, ZENChat works by perfoming RPC calls to zend. As such, zen.conf (the configuration file for zend) needs to contain the following:

## server=1 tells zend to accept RPC Calls
server=1
rpcbind=127.0.0.1
rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
rpcport=8233

You will also need to setup a username and a strong password for the RPC server. Edit your zen.conf file again to include these lines:

rpcuser=MY_USERNAME_HERE
rpcpassword=MY_VERY_STRONG_PASSWORD_HERE_3276782193

Getting ZENChat

The official and latest releases for ZENChat will can be found on github. You can grab them here.

Download the files relevant to your operating system and extract them, there should be an executable within the folder. Run the executable, and you should be greeted with the following:

Setting up ZENChat

The host, port, username, and password should be similiar to what was specified in the previous steps while setting up zen.conf.

If you're getting “connection failed” on step 2, double check and make sure your zend is running and all the settings provided are correct.

The next page determines which address will be used to send messages, and the handle/nickname given to the address (only visible by you and defaults to ‘Me’). It costs 0.00000001 ZEN to send a message, choose an address that has some funds. If you don't have any zen, get some at https://getzen.cash.

Once thats done, you should be greeted with the following page:

If you would like to change any settings in the future, simply click the ‘settings’ button.

Using ZENChat

To get started click the ‘new chat’ button.

Enter in a secret phrase to generate your room. Anyone who has the same secret phrase can also join the chat. Make sure the secret phrase is strong.

If you forgot your secret code and the chat is still there, you can click the ellipsis beside the chat name and get the secret code.

There's also some additional features such as setting the nicknames of the participants in thet chat if you click on the ‘chat info’ button located on the top right.

Summary

This is only an alpha version of ZENChat, expect more functionality in the future :-) (such as file/image sharing!)

Kendrick