what to pair with rad chat for a chat application

Hello John,

I appreciate your interest in our RadChat component for WinForms.

I will start with that our RadChat is just a UI control and all the functionalities described in your post are a subject of an application development (like FB Messenger for example), not functionality that comes out of the box from a single UI control like RadChat. However, using custom code you could implement your requirement. I will start with the Authors (left part of the chat application). Here you could use RadListControl to list all the Authors (Users) to whom you are talking. The control is highly customizable, thus giving you the option to create custom visual items for each author. You can place a symbol, image, custom element, etc. at the end of each visual item. That element can indicate if you have unread messages. You can check the Visual Data Representation for more information.

Now when the user selects an item from the RadListControl (you can use the selection change events of the control to be notified for this operation) you can store the current typed text messages in a Dictionary or any other collection. Clear the current messages in the control and load the messages for the currently selected author (user from the RadListControl). You will need to synchronize the message notification element (In my case I have used Glyph) in the custom RadListControl visual item with its collection in the Dictionary. This way when a message collection of a user is updated, you can show the notification message element.  

As you mentioned that you are new to our Telerik components, my recommendation above could not be so clear. That is why I have created a sample project which demonstrates what I have in mind. Keep in mind that this is a custom code and may not work in all scenarios. For example, the current implementation supports only text messages. I need also to point out that the messages are stored in a Dictionary. In a real-life scenario, probably you will need to use a different approach. The messages could be stored in a database and raise a notification when a given user table is updated with a new message.

For the purpose of the example, I have added two buttons to simulate the incoming message. Check the following GIF file.

I think that the project will be a good starting point to implement your chat requirement in your application.

Regards,
Dinko | Tech Support Engineer
Progress Telerik