Overview

💬 ChatZ is a sleek, real-time chat application for Android, built using Kotlin and traditional XML layouts. Powered by Firebase, ChatZ delivers smooth, reliable messaging with a modern, minimal design.

Key Features

• Real-Time Chat
  Instantly send and receive messages with Firebase Realtime Database.

• User Authentication
  Sign in or sign up securely using Firebase Auth.

• Clean UI
  XML-based layouts with Material Design 3 support.

• Timestamps
  Messages show accurate time sent and received.

• User Profiles
  View and update profile details.

• Custom Edits to User Profile
  Show your profile status and username with personalized profile picture.

🛠️ Built With

• Kotlin – Primary development language
• XML Layouts – Classic UI building approach
• Firebase – Backend for Auth and Firestore DB
• Cloudinary - For Image hosting
• ViewModel + LiveData – MVVM architecture
• Glide – Image loading
• Material3 – UI theming and styling
• Navigation Component – For screen transitions

🧰 Tech Stack & Tools

📸 Screenshots

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Android Studio Hedgehog or newer
• Kotlin 1.9+
• Android SDK 34+
• Firebase Project with Authentication and Firestore Database enabled

Steps

1. Clone this repo:

   git clone https://github.com/Krtonia/ChatZ.git
   

2. Open the project in Android Studio

3. Sync Gradle and resolve dependencies

4. Run the app on your emulator or real device 🚀

🧩 Architecture

• MVVM pattern with clean separation of UI, ViewModel, and Repository
• Uses StateFlow / LiveData for reactive updates
• Organized modular code (UI → ViewModels)

🤝 Contributing

• Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome!

• Fork the repo

• Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/new-feature)

• Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add new feature')

• Push to the branch (git push origin feature/new-feature)

• Open a Pull Request