Chatty is a desktop Twitch Chat client for Windows, macOS and Linux written in Java.
Yeah, Java — gross.
But Chatty has an ardent following. I know from recent comments on our Twitch articles that some of you not only use the app but really love it, too.
I’m still relatively new to Twitch (watching speed runs of old Sonic levels is currently my procrasti-jam) so many of the desktop tools familiar to the Twitch-erati are brand new to me.
This is why you’re seeing a post about Chatty about seven hundred and thirty-three years (give or take) after it was released.
GNOME Twitch has a built-in chat feature that offers pretty much everything I need: the ability to see messages and send messages.
But I can see the appeal of Chatty. It’s packed full of advanced options and IRC-esque styling, and while I won’t so much as scratch the surface of what it can do in this post, I figured I’d give it a quick mention anyway.
Chatty: Features
Chatty is a desktop Twitch chat app that lets you chat without needing to open the Twitch.tv website.
Chatty uses OAuth for logging in with your Twitch account which is ideal from a security-conscious standpoint as it means the app never sees your Twitch password.
Using the app is straightforward enough: you enter a Twitch chat channel/username and connect.
Chatty has a number of nifty IRC-style features, including:
- Keywords and username highlighting
- See stream title and viewer count
- Customize fonts and colors
- Get notified when channels you follow go live
- Follow and unfollow channels
- Quickly open streams in your browser or via livestreamer
- Join multiple channels
There are a tonne of advanced features, and Streamer-orientated options too. See the official website for a full rundown of everything the app can do.
Installing Chatty on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Chatty is a Java app. This makes it cross-platform, giving Windows, macOS and Linux users the same experience.
Naturally it requires Java, and installing the Java runtime on Ubuntu is never entirely straightforward. A note for anyone wondering: Chatty doesn’t play nice with the OpenJDK runtime or development kit available from the Ubuntu archives. To use it as intended you’ll need to use Oracle Java 8 JRE.
Here’s where I concede that the way I install Java on Ubuntu is very different to the way most people do (via a third-party PPA). You may probably have your own preferred way of installing Java.
I install Java 8 JRE on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS manually. I downloaded the jre-8u101-linux-x64.tar.gz from the Oracle website, extracted it to /usr/java (as root) and then run Chatty by passing it to Java with the following command:
/usr/share/java/jre1.8.0_101/bin/java -jar ~/Downloads/Chatty_0.8.3/Chatty.jar
It doesn’t look flawless. There are text spacing issues that make some dialogs hard to decipher.
But for an out-of-browser way to chat live with your favourite Twitch streamers, it might just suit you.