Dude, just tried this thing out and so far I'm liking it (haven't put it through an actual chat, just some chat messages).
Some feedback for you...
- In the colors area, even though it's accepted, $broadcaster isn't listed as an option.
- Add option to apply nick colors to the nick list
- Add option to hide the nick list (per channel or as default)
- Tab coloring options (highlight on/off setting per channel and as default for all channels, color to highlight with when enabled)
- For nick list, feature to either dim out or remove names of inactive users (with option to set time of inactivity). This would be particularly useful for those using v3 to connect with, so if a user hasn't talked in say 30 mins, then perhaps they left? Would help clear out the user list.
- Small issue, if you don't start it in the chatty folder, then when in the sound options and you try to change the location, it just reports an error, it doesn't let you change it at all. you have to exit the program and restart it in the right folder for it to work.
Something that I think you could do, either as a separate tool or an 'advanced' option of this tool, a plugin for OBS that would let the streamer include a chat in their stream. It would more or less be a stripped down version of Chatty...
- No nick list on side (show chat only) and no input bar.
- Most (if not all?) options would be in the plugin and the plugin would mainly handle how content is displayed.
- Options (in plugin)
--- Reload previous chat or start fresh.
--- Show the current number of (viewers, followers, subscribers) at the top/bottom of the chat.
--- Show joins/parts/mod/unmod and subs/follows/timeouts
--- Show stream uptime (basically how long the plugin has been active)
--- Twitch name to load chat for, size, opacity
--- Tab for actual displaying of content (colors, etc)
--- Deleted content - either hide entire line or grey it out so the name and "<deleted>" appear.
- Would be similar to Twitch's popout chat, in that the content conforms to the size of the window and data automatically scrolls as new chat text comes up. Though, no scroll bar should ever be visible.
- sound options (just like you have in chatty, except standalone for this if someone isn't running chatty directly)
- option to play a video or display an image for certain events (new followed, subscriber, donation, etc) (and oh yeah, when a donation is detected, add it to the chat even though it's not provided by twitch)
- timestamps (same options as you have in chatty, outside of letting a person choose the separating character (. instead of : for example), I can't think of anything to do different with how you made this. truly, thank you for being smart with this, it's usually an under developed feature with chat programs/sites/etc.)
What I'm thinking is that when the plugin goes active, the chatty 'core' would handle making all the content available, but the plugin itself would handle what to show and how to display it. To put it in another way, imagine reading an html file where there is no real formatting other than div's and span's. the plugin would, in essence, assign the formatting options to the classes (item becomes deleted, it would be changed to include name and the fact that it was deleted, but the plugin might choose to do 'hidden' to it so it doesn't appear). I hope that makes sense, as I believe that would make for a VERY powerful in-stream chat option. I know I would definitely make use of it. I'm already using clr browser to load up a few instances of the popout chat, so that as i switch scenes, i have the chat available but in different sizes. A plugin that is essentially 'Chatty' would make things so much simpler. Could use just one chatty plugin per scene and have it user fewer resources and be smooth.
I hope you'll consider the plugin idea. :)
Again though, Chatty = awesome so far. Might help me to cut down on CPU usage by being able to close the browsers while streaming. That's a definite PLUS in my opinion.
