Guide: Run more than one instance of Chatty

If you want to run Chatty more than once at the same time, you may need to know how it saves it's settings. By default the settings are saved in your user-directory in the subfolder .chatty (where it is exactly is system-dependant, enter /dir in Chatty to show it's location). When you run the program, it loads the settings and when you exit the program, it saves them, overwriting the file with no regard to possible changes (to the file) that may have occured in the meantime.

This means that when you run more than one instance on the same computer, the last one you close always overwrites the settings.

Seperate settings

You can change the default settings directory by using the -cd commandline paramter, which changes the settings directory to the current working directory, meaning the settings are loaded and saved in the same location you specified as working directory.

This means you can easily run more than one instance on the same computer with completely different settings, just by using that commandline parameter and specifying different working directories (e.g. in Windows in the shortcut settings).

You can also use the -d <dir> parameter to specify the directory directly. For example if you create two different shortcuts like this:

Of course you have to change D:\Chatty\Chatty.jar to where your Chatty.jar is actually located. You also need to first create the settings folders you specify.

See also: Create Shortcut.

Sharing login data

When you want to run several instances with different settings, but want to use the same account, you run into problems. Everytime you request login data (token), the old login is invalidated, so you have to share the login data you already have between different instances. This may or may not be the case anymore.

You can do this by simply copying the login settings file which contains the login data. Make sure you closed the Chatty instance you requested the login data with at least once, so it's actually saved to the file.

You could also try to play around with symbolic links to point to a shared login file.

Using Chatty on different computers

If you want to run Chatty on different computers with the same account, you run into the same problem as mentioned under Sharing login data: You can't have more than one access token with the same account for the same app at the same time.

To use Chatty on more than one computer with the same account, you'll have to transfer the login data, either by copying the login file or by entering the access token manually (/get token displays the token, /changetoken <token> changes it).