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- 20 May
New Alerts by Twitch Feature Introduced
- May 20, 2023
- by Liam Doherty
The global streaming giant Twitch, owned by Amazon, has recently released a huge update allowing streamers to set up their alerts, directly from within their creator dashboard. We’re going to discuss exactly what this means for creators on Twitch, and for those of you who are not familiar with the concept of streaming alerts, we’ll make sure to bring you up to speed.
In addition to this we’re going to take a deeper dive into the functionality being offered within this new feature, how to customize them to suit your streaming needs, and of course how to set them up with your streaming software.
What are Stream Alerts?
Stream alerts are one of the core reward mechanisms that encourage viewers to support their favorite streamer, and create hype moments. The alert itself could be a sound bite that plays during the stream, animated graphics or simply some text that acknowledges the viewers contributions. The reward is usually that interaction that the viewer gets from their favorite streamer, as it’s a common courtesy for streamers to thank viewers by name for their contribution.
You’re probably now wondering how the concept of stream alerts could be established before this feature was even released. Put simply, alerts have been around for a long time before this new Twitch feature. In fact, Streamlabs was originally called Twitch Alerts in their early days and were the first to introduce this concept. Without getting too deep into the technical details, 3rd party services such as Streamlabs and Streamelements have been using Twitch’s api to create their alerts services for streamers. This latest update from Twitch, has essentially integrated alerts directly into their own platform.
How To Get Started Using Twitch’s Alerts?
Let’s now take a step by step look at how you can add these alerts to your stream. Before we get into it there are a few concepts you should understand if you’ve never used alerts before. Firstly you will still need to use some form of broadcasting software to show your alerts. This could either be OBS or Streamlabs. Secondly, alerts are separated by variants, which are based on different types of events that occur on stream. This includes new followers, subscribers or viewer donations. With this in mind we can jump right into the setup process.
- Head over to your creator dashboard, and select Alerts from the left hand sidebar
- You’ll see the option, Create Alert Box. Looking further down the page you’ll see an existing starter pack. For now, click the Create Alert Box button. Give it a name and select Create.
- Click Edit Alerts, you’ll now be taken to the built in alerts editor page.
- On the left hand side you’ll see all of the available alert variants. Select one of them to begin editing the visuals.
- Once selected, check the panel on the right side for a complete list of settings. You’ll also be able to rapidly test changes to your alerts by using the Preview Alert button.
- Once you’ve finished tweaking your alert, the last step is configuring your broadcasting software to receive the alerts.
- Start off by copying the Browser Source URL in the bottom right of the alert editor. (CAUTION – This browser source URL should be kept a complete secret. Before proceeding to the next step, make sure that you’re not live and won’t accidentally reveal the URL)
- Open up your broadcasting software, create a browser source in your scene, copy in your browser source URL. We’re using OBS in our example.
- Back in the alerts editor on Twitch, hit the Send Test Alert button. If everything is set up correctly, the alert should trigger and show up in your broadcasting software.
- Head over to your creator dashboard, and select Alerts from the left hand sidebar
And that’s all there is to it. Make sure when you set up your browser source that the width and height values are set to match the width and height set in the Preview Options for the built in Twitch alerts editor. Having different values between the two could cause the alerts to show differently in the actual broadcasting software.
Advanced Setup Using HTML & CSS
If you’re code savvy then you’ll be very happy to hear that this new feature gives you an editor for customizing HTML and CSS code. This advanced feature will give you much more control over the appearance of your alerts. To start editing the code for the alerts you’ll have to first enable it.
- Select the alert variant you want to add custom code to
- In the general settings enable the Customize HTML/CSS toggle. You’ll be shown a warning prompt to which you can accept if you understand the risks.
- You’ll now see the custom code editor for which you can begin editing.
- You’ll notice on the right hand side some additional buttons. These can be used to insert variables into the html code which when the alert eventually shows will be populated with the relevant data.
If you’ve used the custom code editors in other services such as Streamelements or Streamlabs, you’ll notice that the alerts by Twitch don’t give you the option to add custom fields or Javascript. This limits the customisation available for the alerts somewhat, which is our only criticism of the tool
What’s The Community Saying?
Overall the community has reacted in a very positive way to this new surprise addition to the platform. Since Twitch announced that they would be increasing their cut to a 50/50 split with the streamers they’ve faced a lot of backlash. One of their biggest criticisms since this announcement was that the platform appeared to be focusing only on features that made more money for them. With a lot of streamers even announcing they would be leaving the platform for greener pastures.
With all that being said, this new feature seems to have taken the community by surprise, with many streamers sharing their positive thoughts on this new addition to the platform.
It goes without saying this is a step in the right direction for Twitch to begin winning back support from the creators that use their platform.
Conclusion
The idea behind alerts showing during a stream is no new concept. Streamers have been using 3rd party services for years to serve alerts on their stream. However with the alerts by Twitch, they’re going to be able to set them up directly within their creator dashboard. This is great news for streamers who would like to simplify the process of streaming.
The Twitch creator community has reacted positively to this news. This shows that Twitch could be taking the first steps towards repairing their relationship with content creators, who for the most part have been very outspoken against a lot of decisions made by Twitch as of late. If you’re looking for some high quality alert graphics for your stream then be sure to check out – Hexeums Store.
