Whisper Feature

Getting started / Settings | Usage | Troubleshooting

It is recommended that you read and understand this whole section before enabling this feature.

Chatty implements the new /w command that Twitch Chat provides, allowing you to send private messages in chat to other users. However, it is disabled by default, since it has a few problems:

Twitch is planning to move Whispering to a whole different system soon, which means in the current state it is not really encouraged to be used by third-party applications. It is unclear what the new system will be and whether it will be possible to implement it in Chatty. Also, due to these circumstances, not too much development time will be put into the Whisper feature in Chatty at this time.
Whispering currently runs on the Group Chat servers, so Chatty can't just use irc.twitch.tv to connect as for regular chat. Since there is no easy official way to get the server data automatically, you have enter the IP and port yourself if you want to use this feature.

Getting started / Settings

You have to change a few settings in order to use this feature (all under Main - Settings - Advanced):

Required settings

Whisper Enabled: Connect to the given Group Chat server to send and receive whispers. Enable when you configured the server. Disable this it if you run into problems.
Server/Port: You can click on Select server.. and select a server from the list (all listed should work). This is using an unsupported Twitch API which is not guaranteed to stay the same.

Once these settings are correctly configured, Chatty will connect to Whispers when you connect to regular chat. It will disconnect when you disconnect from regular chat via the Main-menu. If the Whisper Feature is properly connected and ready to use, [W] will be shown in the titlebar and the /connection command will show the Whisper connection in addition to the regular chat connection.

If you were already connected when you changed these settings, either disconnect and connect again (via the Main menu) or restart Chatty.

If Select server.. is not working, configure the server manually:

Server: The Group Chat server IP to connect to. You can check:
- Twitchstatus.com (unofficial site) at the bottom of the page, "Group Chat" tab, "irc" Protocol (not "ws_irc")
- Get an IP from the Twitch API using this guide (you will need a token and be member of a Group Chat, you won't need to get a channelname)
Port: The port for the Group Chat server you are using (you should get it along with the IP).

Optional settings

Whitelist: If enabled, only users that have the Addressbook category whisper will be able to send whispers to you. Messages from other users are discarded. Alternatively you can also blacklist users by adding them to the blockwhisper category (which makes most sense with the Whitelist setting disabled).

In addition, you can also add users to the Ignore List by right-clicking on them in chat to open the context menu and choosing Miscellaneous - Ignore (whisper). Unlike the Blacklist or Whitelist using the Addressbook, this will not completely discard the messages, but instead add them to the Ignored Messages dialog and possibly output some other messages about it, depending on the Ignore settings.
Display: Changes where the whispers are displayed.
- Active Chat - Show in the chat window you are currently having active in Chatty.
- One Window - Show all whispers in one separate window. In that window you will be able to respond to whispers by just typing <name> <message> instead of having to use the /w command. To be sure you actually provide the user to send it to you can only whisper to users that have already whispered to you (so e.g. Hey how are you? :) wont't be send to the user named Hey). The tab for collecting all whispers is named $[whisper].
- Per User - Open an extra tab for every user that whispers to you. You can respond to whispers by just typing the message in the tab for that user. The tab will be named $<username>.
Auto-respond to ignored/non-whitelisted users: If enabled, sends an automatic reponse to users that you have ignored (or not whitelisted if you have the whitelist enabled), if they whisper to you. This does not apply to messages that are ignored due to the regular ignore list, just the separate user ignore list (changeable through the Settings, commands or the User Context Menu) or the special Addressbook categories for whispers (see above).
The message being sent is [Auto-Message] This user has not allowed to receive whispers from you.. The message is only sent once per session to each different user that whispers to you and is also spam protected.

Usage

When the Whisper Feature is connected ([W] appears in the titlebar) you can receive and send whispers:

When you receive a whisper, it will be displayed depending on the Display setting and will be indicated by the nickname being marked like this: -[name]-
When you send a whisper via /w <name> <message>, then this will be indicated in chat by the nickname being marked like this: >>[name]
In both cases the name is the name of the person you are talking with, not your own name.
When you click on the name, you will be able to see your conversation, with your own messages marked with a asterisk in front (*), which is usually used to mark action messages (/me).

Troubleshooting

If you get a lot of errors like Whisper feature: Disconnected this may be due to different reasons:

A temporary problem with Twitch or your internet connection, in which case just wait a while.
Wrong server/port entered, follow the Getting Started guide to check if the data you entered is still correct.
Twitch changed the system and it is not working as implemented in Chatty anymore (in which case you should disable the feature).

How to proceed:

Check Twitchstatus.com (mainly Group Chat Tab), @ChattyClient and other usual places to find out if the problem lies with Twitch. Disable the Whisper Feature if necessary.
If the [W] in the titlebar isn't there, but it also doesn't output errors anymore, it may have given up trying to connect, in which case you should connect to regular chat through the Main menu (disconnect first if necessary). Connecting to whispers is currently somewhat tied to connecting to regular chat. Disconnecting from regular chat from the Main menu will also disconnect from whispers.