Some of you may have already noticed, but over the past few months I completely discarded the old system and rebuilt it from the ground up. I’ll try to give you a brief summary of all the changes in the system.

Let’s start with the obvious things.

Combini and Workflows

Combini

Some of you may have already noticed, but I decided to stop developing Combini. The idea and implementation came at a time when Twitch did not yet offer a built-in way to combine chats. However, with Twitch’s new Stream Together feature, there is now a ready-made and simple system available not only for you but also for your viewers. That’s actually the main reason why I didn’t rebuild Combini 😄

Workflows

I did transfer the workflows to the new system, but the more I worked with them, the more I realized that their functionality is absolutely unsatisfactory for me.

From a developer’s perspective, it might be a simple and usable tool, but for someone with less technical experience, this tool can be overwhelming due to its complexity, the need to input variables, {{-syntax, etc. Once the Clip Randomizer component is finished, I plan to invest more time improving this.

Aside from usability, there have also been changes on Twitch’s side that the workflows and underlying bots do not yet reflect.

Randomizer

There are also minor changes in the Randomizer. Occasionally, you may notice that links you previously used no longer work as before. This is partly due to a slight change in the URL structure.

Example: Previously, if you used the Randomizer without logging in, one of the URLs looked like this:

https://simply-stream.com/de/tools/random-clips/view?streamers=tobidev_

In the new structure, the language part is simply removed:

https://simply-stream.com/tools/random-clips/view?streamers=tobidev_

I tried to make the old URLs as compatible as possible and catch many cases to redirect them, but caching in your browsers may still prevent some pages from being accessible.

Login

I have also removed some permissions during login that my system previously required from you on Twitch. The reason for this is that I want to give you the ability to decide for yourselves which features to use. Along with this, you gain more control over which of your data ends up in my system and which does not. For example, why should my system know about your follows and subs if you only want to use the Randomizer?

However, for technical reasons, the following Twitch events are still active by default:

• Stream Online

• Stream Offline

• Channel updates

• User authorization revoke

The Stream Offline event is required to keep your clips in the Randomizer up to date. Additionally, the system stores your current live status, which logically also requires the Stream Online event. In a future update, this status will also be visible in the Randomizer so that viewers can see when you are live.

The Channel update event currently doesn’t have a major functional use. Mainly, it updates your name in the system as well as your stream title, category, and language. These data points are not heavily used at the moment, but they are intended to serve a purpose in future updates.

Polls

Since Combini and (temporarily) the workflows have been removed, you now have a new feature: a polling tool!

The functionality is relatively simple, although still a bit clunky to use. There are two types of polls:

Poll

The poll is – surprise! – a classic poll. You configure a title, duration, votes per person, and how a chat message should be counted (more on this below). Of course, you also provide the possible answers.

Conditions for valid votes

Before we begin, the word answer in the options could be misleading. It doesn’t mean that viewers have to type the exact answer you provided. They only need to type the number of the answer option. So if you have:

1. Yes

2. No

3. Whatever

your viewers don’t need to type Yes, No, or Whatever in chat—they just type 1, 2, or 3. I will adjust the display later to make this clearer.

Another potentially confusing element is the second input field next to an answer. It becomes clearer after you’ve run a poll once, as it shows how the voting turned out. But be careful—when the poll is restarted, all values are reset to 0! I will also make improvements here to make this more understandable.

The URL to display a poll can be found above the list of polls.

Here are the four options for chat vote evaluation:

1. Chat message starts with answer
   A counted message might look like TobiDev_: 1 or TobiDev_: 1 gets my vote!. An uncounted message could be TobiDev_: I vote for 1!

2. Chat message contains only one answer
   The chosen option can appear anywhere in the chat message. Example: TobiDev_: I vote for 1! will count here, unlike option 1.

3. Chat message can contain multiple answers
   Similar to 2, but every number in the chat message is counted. Example: TobiDev_: I vote for 1 and 2! counts both numbers. The number of numbers counted is limited by the votes per person setting.

4. Chat message consists exclusively of one answer
   Only TobiDev_: 2 would count. If more text is in the message, it won’t be counted. Even a punctuation mark can prevent counting. This is to prevent chatbots from accidentally voting just because a number appears in their text.

Number Range

Functionally, this is basically the same as a normal poll, but you can also set a minimum, maximum, and step size.

These values are used to automatically generate the answer options. Here, the evaluated value is the actual number, not the option number.

So if you set the range from 1 to 5 with steps of 0.5, you get options like:

1. 1

2. 1.5

3. 2

4. 2.5

5. 3

6. 3.5

7. 4

8. 4.5

9. 5

Instead of selecting 4 for 2.5, the number 2.5 will be counted directly*.

* While writing this, I noticed a bug that currently evaluates 4 for 2.5. This will be fixed in the future.

Conclusion

That’s roughly everything that has changed for you. If you have feedback or requests, you can contact me directly on Discord, or the old-fashioned way via email at info@simply-stream.com.