Hellion Chat

Version 1.5.3 — Privacy-first chat plugin for FINAL FANTASY XIV / Dalamud, built on Chat 2 (EUPL-1.2).

Hellion Chat is a privacy-first plugin built on the Chat 2 foundation. The majority of the engine comes from Chat 2 (message store, channel logic, hook system), and most keyboard shortcuts continue to work as you'd expect. What changes: stricter privacy defaults out of the box, custom slash commands under /hellionchat, no web interface, and as of v1.1.0, a theme engine as a step toward a distinct UI look and feel.

The data-handling focus is on GDPR/EU, US, and JP regulations, as far as practically applicable for a chat plugin: per-channel retention periods, granular filters, and self-service data export. A full breakdown is available in PRIVACY.md.

This is a standalone repository, licensed under EUPL-1.2. With v1.0.0 the standalone cut is complete: own namespace HellionChat.*, own IPC channels, own source tree structure. Distribution via custom repo. Active upstream sync ended with the v1.4.x cycle: Chat 2 is undergoing a fundamental rework and cherry-picks are no longer portable. From here, Hellion Chat continues as an independent codebase — background and attribution in docs/UPSTREAM_SYNC.md.

Acknowledgements

Hellion Chat is built on Chat 2 by Infiziert90 (Infi) and Anna, who maintained the plugin for years before I ever saw the source code. The entire core architecture, the message store, the channel logic, the hook system, and much more all come from them. If Hellion Chat helps you, the credit for that belongs in large part to Infi and Anna. A full acknowledgement is in NOTICE.md.

Hellion Chat is developed under Hellion Forge, the specialized modding and plugin branch of Hellion Online Media.

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Tech Stack

Category	Technology
Platform	Dalamud Plugin (API Level 15)
Language	C# 13 / .NET 10 (net10.0-windows)
Build	Dalamud.NET.Sdk 15.0.0, DalamudPackager 15.0.0
UI	Dear ImGui (Dalamud bindings)
Database	SQLite (Microsoft.Data.Sqlite, MessagePack storage)
Localization	ResX (HellionStrings.resx, .de.resx; PR-based)
Font	Inter Light (SIL Open Font License 1.1, bundled)
Toolchain	dotnet 10 SDK, VS Code with C# Dev Kit
Deployment	GitHub Releases + custom repo (repo.json)

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Features

Privacy / Compliance

• Channel whitelist for database persistence with privacy-first defaults. Out of the box, only your own conversations are stored (tells, party, FC, linkshells, cross-world linkshells, alliance, ExtraChat). Public chat, NPC dialogue, system spam, and battle logs are discarded at the storage layer.
• Per-channel retention periods with a daily background cleanup. Tells: 365 days, own conversation channels: 90 days, global default: 30 days. The default is OFF — the plugin deletes nothing without explicit consent.
• Retroactive cleanup with preview and Ctrl+Shift confirmation. Applies the current whitelist to an existing database, runs in the background, and calls VACUUM afterward.
• Export to Markdown, JSON, or CSV via the Dalamud file dialog (GDPR Art. 15 right of access). Filter by channel, date range, or sender substring.
• Full privacy overview in PRIVACY.md and third-party components in docs/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md: what is stored, which two outbound calls exist (BetterTTV opt-out, Square Enix Lodestone font), an explicit no-telemetry statement, and the mapping of GDPR rights (Art. 15/17/18/20/21) to concrete plugin functions.

Onboarding

• First-run wizard with three profiles (Privacy-First, Relaxed, Full History) and a GDPR notice for the "Full History" option.
• Configuration migration seeds privacy defaults for existing users and shows a notification on the first plugin start after an update. With v1.0.0, users on config version 12 or older also receive a one-time tab layout reset; the old tab configuration is backed up as pluginConfigs/HellionChat.json.pre-v13-backup.
• Layout migration from Chat 2 moves configuration and database to pluginConfigs/HellionChat/ without data loss. Handles locked files gracefully (warns the user if Chat 2 is still loaded).
• Migrate3 recovery heals partially migrated databases from old Chat 2 installations.

Look & Feel

• Bilingual UI (English and German) with live language switching. Hellion-specific strings are in HellionStrings.<lang>.resx.
• Hellion HUD theme with cyan-teal accents, slate-violet tabs, and amber highlights for active states.
• Chat color presets (v0.6.0) with seven built-in bundles in Settings → Appearance → Chat Colors: Classic (Chat 2 default), High Contrast, Pastel, Dark Mode Tuned, Hellion (brand), plus bonus moods Night Blue and Indigo Violet. One-click apply, battle channels remain untouched.
• Window opacity slider for combat-friendly transparency.
• Bundled UI font (Inter Light, OFL-1.1) as an optional default instead of the system font.
• Hellion logo bundled in the plugin and displayed in the Dalamud plugin list.

Custom Themes (v1.1.0)

HellionChat ships a theme engine with ten built-in themes (Hellion Arctic, Hellion Spectrum, Chat 2 Classic, Event Horizon, Crystal Nocturne, Mint Grove, Night Blue, Indigo Violet, Forge Merchantman, Synthwave Sunset) and a JSON-based authoring format for custom themes. Schema and step-by-step guide in docs/THEME-AUTHORING.md. Hellion Spectrum is Deuteranopia/Protanopia-safe (red-green color blindness) based on the Wong/Okabe-Ito palette.

Plugin Integrations (v1.3.0)

• Honorific custom titles in the chat header. When the Honorific plugin is active and a custom title is set, it is displayed in the chat header above the message log. Auto-detect with silent fallback: without Honorific the slot is invisible. Toggle in Settings → Integrations → Honorific. First cycle of a multi-stage plugin integration roadmap (context menu, NotificationMaster, RP status, ExtraChat, and XIVIM to follow).

Pop-Out Convenience (v0.6.0)

• Input bar in pop-out windows as a global opt-in in Settings → Windows → Window Frame. When active, every pop-out window has a compact input at the bottom with a channel-colored icon button and text field. No more switching back to the main window for a quick reply.
• Per-pop-out independent text buffer and history cursor. Changing channels in a pop-out works globally like in the main window (FFXIV channel API), but half-typed input doesn't collide between the main window and pop-outs.
• Shared input history across all windows via singleton service. Up/Down arrow keys navigate the same list of the last 30 entries everywhere.

Stability

• BetterTTV cache crash fix (null key handling).
• Font atlas build fallback for missing system fonts.
• Defensive wrapping of all migration operations.

What's missing compared to Chat 2

The web interface was removed in Hellion Chat 0.2.0. It serves a different use case than the focus of this fork — remote access to chat from a second device — which conflicts directly with the privacy-first premise: a chat plugin that starts a local HTTP server is too large an attack surface for my threat model. So it's gone.

If you want the full Chat 2 feature set, the upstream plugin serves you better. Hellion Chat is deliberately the slimmer fork.

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Architecture

HellionChat/
├── Privacy/
│   └── PrivacyDefaults.cs       # Whitelist sets, per-channel retention table
├── Export/
│   └── MessageExporter.cs       # Markdown / JSON / CSV serializer
├── Resources/
│   ├── HellionStrings.resx      # Hellion-specific UI strings (EN)
│   ├── HellionStrings.de.resx   # German translation
│   ├── HellionStrings.Designer.cs # Hand-maintained accessor
│   ├── ChatColourPresets.cs     # Seven built-in color presets (v0.6.0)
│   ├── Inter-Light.ttf          # Inter Light static font (bundled UI font)
│   ├── Inter-OFL.txt            # OFL-1.1 license text (bundled with font)
│   └── Language*.resx           # Upstream localization (Crowdin)
├── Ui/
│   ├── FirstRunWizard.cs        # Three-profile onboarding
│   ├── HellionStyle.cs          # ImGui theme push (local and global)
│   └── SettingsTabs/
│       └── Privacy.cs           # Privacy tab (filters, retention, cleanup, export)
├── Ipc/                         # IPC channels, migrated to HellionChat.* in v1.0.0
├── ChatTwoConflictDetector.cs   # Blocks plugin load if upstream Chat 2 is active
├── images/
│   └── icon.png                 # Hellion logo (256×256)
├── HellionChat.csproj           # SDK Dalamud.NET.Sdk/15.0.0
└── HellionChat.yaml             # Plugin manifest (DalamudPackager source)

Rules

• Code namespace is HellionChat.*. Fully consolidated onto the plugin name since v1.0.0 — no remaining ChatTwo.* anywhere in the source tree.
• AssemblyName is HellionChat. Own slot in pluginConfigs/, own file manifest, no shared state with Chat 2. Parallel-loading upstream Chat 2 is actively blocked on startup (bilingual conflict message).
• IPC channels are HellionChat.*. Six channels for third-party plugin integration (Register, Available, Unregister, Invoke, GetChatInputState, ChatInputStateChanged). Details in docs/IPC.md.
• Hellion-specific strings in HellionStrings.*.resx, strings carried over from Chat 2 in Language.*.resx. The original Language.*.resx structure is preserved because the existing translations from the upstream Crowdin community remain valuable.
• No direct access to Plugin.Interface.UiBuilder.FontAtlas outside of FontManager. Font fallback and the Hellion font are managed centrally.

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Database

SQLite, schema inherited from upstream Chat 2 (migration level v3). Hellion extensions live in Configuration as fields, not in the DB schema:

Column	Type	Description
Id	BLOB	Guid
Receiver	INTEGER	Receiver ContentId
ContentId	INTEGER	Sender ContentId
Date	INTEGER	Unix timestamp (ms)
ChatType	INTEGER	XivChatType / LogKind
SourceKind	INTEGER	Player / NPC / Server / etc.
TargetKind	INTEGER	Player / NPC / Server / etc.
Sender	BLOB	MessagePack List<Chunk>
Content	BLOB	MessagePack List<Chunk>
SenderSource	BLOB	MessagePack SeString
ContentSource	BLOB	MessagePack SeString
ExtraChatChannel	BLOB	Guid
Deleted	BOOLEAN	Soft-delete marker

Path: pluginConfigs/HellionChat/chat-sqlite.db. WAL mode, Synchronous=NORMAL.

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Installation

Hellion Chat is distributed via a Dalamud custom repository.

Fresh install (no prior Chat 2)

1. Open Dalamud Settings (/xlsettings) → Experimental.
2. Add a new entry under Custom Plugin Repositories:

    https://gitea.hellion-forge.cloud/JonKazama-Hellion/HellionChat/raw/branch/main/repo.json

3. Save, then go to /xlplugins → All Plugins → Refresh.
4. Hellion Chat appears in the list — install it like any other plugin.

Migration from Chat 2 (with existing history)

Chat 2 and Hellion Chat share the database file until Hellion Chat moves it to its own path on first start. Order matters:

1. Disable Chat 2 in /xlplugins (do not uninstall, just disable).
2. Fully close FFXIV so SQLite releases the file lock. A plugin reload alone is not enough.
3. Restart the game.
4. Add the custom repo as described above.
5. Install Hellion Chat. On first start, the configuration file and the entire database directory are moved into the HellionChat layout.
6. Verify under Settings → Privacy → Refresh preview that the message count looks plausible.

Troubleshooting

Hellion Chat shows 0 messages, even though Chat 2 was active before:

Migration was blocked by a locked file. Close the game and move the files manually:

Linux / XIVLauncher Core:

mv ~/.xlcore/pluginConfigs/ChatTwo/chat-sqlite.db \
   ~/.xlcore/pluginConfigs/HellionChat/chat-sqlite.db
[ -d ~/.xlcore/pluginConfigs/ChatTwo/EmoteCacheV1 ] && \
  mv ~/.xlcore/pluginConfigs/ChatTwo/EmoteCacheV1 \
     ~/.xlcore/pluginConfigs/HellionChat/

Windows / XIVLauncher:

Move-Item "$env:AppData\XIVLauncher\pluginConfigs\ChatTwo\chat-sqlite.db" `
          "$env:AppData\XIVLauncher\pluginConfigs\HellionChat\chat-sqlite.db" -Force

Start the game, enable Hellion Chat, and your history is back.

Updates

Updates appear automatically in the plugin list once a new vX.Y.Z tag with a GitHub Release is published. No reinstall needed.

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Distribution

Hellion Chat is distributed via its own Dalamud custom repository (repo.json in the repo root). Pushing a vX.Y.Z tag triggers the release.yml workflow, which attaches the build output (HellionChat/bin/Release/HellionChat/latest.zip) along with the matching changelog block from HellionChat.yaml to the GitHub Release. Manual recovery path if the auto-trigger is missed: gh workflow run release.yml -f tag=vX.Y.Z.

An optional submission to the Dalamud main plugin repo (in addition to the custom repo) is on the roadmap.

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Project Status

Version 1.5.3 — Localisation Wave + Bundled-Font Overhaul. Twenty-four selectable UI languages (Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norsk bokmål, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese); dropdown sorts alphabetically by endonym, "None" pinned first. Non-native translations are AI-assisted and flagged for community native-speaker review. The bundled UI font swaps from Exo 2 to Inter Light (SIL OFL 1.1, 343 KB) for wider Latin Extended-A/B, Greek polytonic and Cyrillic Supplement coverage. NotoSansCjkRegular joins as a third merge layer so Hangul and Simplified-Chinese glyphs the FFXIV Japanese game font does not ship now render correctly. First-frame HITCH dropped from ~74 ms (v1.5.2 baseline that held since v1.4.x) to a median of ~20 ms (5-reload sample 17.9-23.6 ms, Linux/Wine) as a side effect: the bundled-font path was silently falling back to the FFXIV Axis game font for the entire v1.5.x series because of an early-return in Plugin.cs:937. The fix routes RegularFont through draw whenever either FontsEnabled or UseHellionFont is on, and lands the defer-pattern win v1.5.1 was reaching for. ExtraGlyphRanges auto-activates the matching flag on language change; two new flags (LatinExtended, Greek) join the existing set. A WarningText under the language dropdown notes that FFXIV's own chat input only fully supports EN/DE/FR/JA — other languages may garble when typed in-game. Migration v17 stays.

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Project status (pre-v1.5.3, kept for context)

Version 1.5.2 — First-Run Wizard Rework. The single-page wizard becomes a four-step staged-commit flow (Welcome → Privacy → Power Settings → Done). The privacy picker becomes a 2×2 grid with a fourth profile "Roleplay" that extends Privacy-First with Say and both emote types under a 30-/90-day retention window. A power-settings stage surfaces six previously-hidden Configuration defaults in one place without introducing any new settings. The wizard window shrinks to 720×480 default (was 900×560, MinimumSize 600×400) after smoke feedback and Step 1 keeps the fox banner in a folded TreeNode so the onboarding copy stays primary. Existing v1.5.1 users see the new flow once on first v1.5.2 boot via a new WizardLastShownVersion config marker. Under the hood: a WizardStateSmokeStep joins /xlperf, the Build Suite gains twelve pure-helper xUnit Facts pinning all four privacy profile sets and the new Roleplay retention overrides. Migration v17 stays — Configuration only grows one optional string field.

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Project status (pre-v1.5.2, kept for context)

Version 1.5.1 — FontAtlas Refactor and Hellion Forge Signature. The FontManager moves from the inherited Chat 2 anti-pattern (null! fields + a separate BuildFonts method) to a hybrid model where the game fonts and FontAwesome are init-only handles and only the user-configurable delegate fonts stay mutable. All five handles register inside a single IFontAtlas.SuppressAutoRebuild block in the ctor, so the font atlas builds once per plugin load instead of four to five times. FontAwesome itself is now Dalamud's UiBuilder.IconFontFixedWidthHandle rather than a custom delegate slot. Live font-setting changes go through RebuildDelegateFonts() and no longer require a plugin reload. Plus an embedded Hellion Forge signature (drawn by Julia Moon) appears as a fox-head silhouette in the /xllog bootstrap banner and a full fox in the First-Run Wizard and Settings → Information tab.

The Honorific full-gradient port that was originally scheduled for v1.5.1 was dropped: Honorific 3.2 exposes no IPC for the rendered gradient frame, and an in-plugin port of the colour palette was declined. The integration stays at the v1.4.7 glow-only shape.

The 10× HITCH cut targeted from the v1.5.0 cross-plugin baseline (Lightless / XIVInstantMessenger defer their font-atlas build to land at ~7 ms; Chat 2 + HellionChat were ~75 ms) did not land — the cost lives in the UiBuilder first-frame render path, not in the atlas build. A first-frame render investigation is reserved for a later cycle.

Version 1.5.0 — DI Foundation and Service Refactor. Major architecture cycle: the plugin bootstrap moves to a generic-host DI container (Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting + IServiceCollection) modelled on Lightless Sync. All 18 instance-class services migrate from a static Plugin.LogProxy locator to Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ILogger<T> via constructor injection, with a custom DalamudLogger bridging the framework over to Dalamud's IPluginLog. The proxy stays for the eight buckets ctor-injection cannot reach (static helpers like EmoteCache, Dalamud-reflected Configuration, the Message data class, and static methods inside FontManager / GameFunctions). Plugin.cs finishes the cycle at 1012 lines — virtually identical to the pre-cycle 1013 — because the new Phase-1 host build and Plugin.X bridge wiring trade out exactly the service and window allocations that left LoadAsync. Cross-plugin baseline confirms no performance penalty vs Chat 2: HellionChat first-frame HITCH 77 ms median, Chat 2 74 ms. Lightless and XIVInstantMessenger sit around 7 ms by deferring their font-atlas build past Finished loading — that pattern is the v1.5.1 follow-up item. One user-visible fix bundled in from upstream: pasting a slash command into the chat input (Friend List "/tell" action, plugin-driven inserts) now replaces the existing input instead of concatenating onto whatever the user was typing. Migration v17 stays (no schema bump).

Hellion Chat is a standalone plugin, no longer a fork in the repository sense. Fully completed:

• Privacy filters (whitelist, retention, retroactive cleanup, export)
• First-run wizard with three profiles
• Plugin identity: own HellionChat slot, layout migration from Chat 2, Migrate3 recovery
• Bilingual UI (EN and DE) with live language switching
• Hellion theme, Hellion logo, bundled Inter Light font
• Custom repo pipeline with automated GitHub Release distribution
• Slash commands consolidated to the /hellionchat family
• Web interface removed (v0.2.0)
• Audit hardening (path traversal, retention race, DbViewer consistency)
• About tab in Hellion branding, localized EN and DE, with license and disclaimer
• AI disclosure documented (see docs/AI_DISCLOSURE.md)
• Standalone cut: namespace HellionChat.*, IPC channels HellionChat.*, source tree restructure, conflict detection against upstream Chat 2, SQLite CVE hardening (3.50.3)
• Theme engine with ten built-in themes plus JSON authoring format (engine v1.1.0, catalog extended in v1.2.3, including CVD-safe Hellion Spectrum; Synthwave Sunset in v1.4.1)
• ABGR cache on theme records: HellionStyle.PushGlobal reads pre-computed ABGR instead of converting RGBA→ABGR per slot per frame (v1.4.1, ~13% render-time recovery)

In progress: incremental modernization of UI look and feel beyond the theme engine. What's planned next and what's on the long-term list is in docs/ROADMAP.md. Concrete scheduled items are also tracked in the Gitea issue tracker under the roadmap label.

On Release Cadence

Anyone looking at the repo for the first time will notice a lot of releases and a high commit count in a short time. Both are deliberate. The full reasoning — four factors behind it — is in docs/LEARNING-JOURNEY.md, section "How I release this fast".

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Community & Support

• Hellion Forge Discord (community for HellionChat and other Hellion Online Media plugins and tools): discord.gg/X9V7Kcv5gR
• Bug reports and feature requests: Gitea Issues
• Discord DM: @j.j_kazama
• Further contact options (security, privacy, quick questions): see SUPPORT.md

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License

EUPL-1.2 (same license as upstream Chat 2). Full text in LICENSE, copyright notes with dual-holder block in COPYRIGHT, personal acknowledgement to the upstream authors in NOTICE.md.

© 2023–2026 the Chat 2 authors (Infi, Anna, and upstream contributors) for the engine, IPC, and storage layer. © 2026 Hellion Online Media for the Hellion Chat extensions.

Acknowledgments

• Infi and Anna (ascclemens) for the Chat 2 engine, without which this fork would not exist.
• Dalamud team for the plugin framework.
• Chat 2 Crowdin community for the upstream string translations (see Settings → Info → "Chat 2 community translators").

FFXIV Disclaimer

FINAL FANTASY XIV © SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All rights reserved. Hellion Chat is an unofficial, fan-made plugin and is not affiliated with, supported by, sponsored by, or approved by Square Enix.

AI Assistance

See docs/AI_DISCLOSURE.md for the pair-level disclosure.

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Project Documents

Standard repository documents live in the repo root; deeper documentation lives under docs/.

Repo Root

Document	Contents
PRIVACY.md	Privacy overview: local storage, outbound calls, telemetry status, GDPR rights and their plugin equivalents.
SECURITY.md	Vulnerability reporting via private advisory, scope, and disclosure window.
SUPPORT.md	Guide for bugs, security, privacy, and quick questions.
CONTRIBUTING.md	What I accept and decline, workflow, EUPL-1.2 confirmation.
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md	Behavioral expectations and reporting path.
NOTICE.md	Attribution to upstream maintainers and component credits.
COPYRIGHT	Copyright notes with dual-holder block.
LICENSE	EUPL-1.2 full text.

docs/

Document	Contents
docs/ROADMAP.md	Planned cycles, mid-term and long-term topics.
docs/CHANGELOG.md	Curated version overview with references to GitHub release pages.
docs/CONTRIBUTORS.md	Testers, translators, and code contributors on the Hellion side.
docs/LEARNING-JOURNEY.md	Development history: from web stack to C# / Dalamud, lessons learned from the fork.
docs/IPC.md	IPC channel reference, tuple payload fields, migration diff for third-party plugins.
docs/THEME-AUTHORING.md	Theme engine authoring guide (EN): JSON schema, color and layout slots, channel identity rules, validation.
docs/UPSTREAM_SYNC.md	Upstream sync status: cherry-pick pipeline closed since v1.4.x, attribution intact.
docs/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md	NuGet dependencies with licenses, bundled assets, network status per component.
docs/AI_DISCLOSURE.md	Disclosure of AI assistance in the development process.

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Developed under Hellion Forge, the modding and plugin branch of Hellion Online Media | Bad Harzburg | hellion-media.de