APAP Chat Setup Guide

Go to Sign Up, enter your name, email, and password, then choose a plan. The trial plan gives you full access to every template and the Template Designer.

After sign-up, you land on the Dashboard. At the top you will see your tenant name, overlay URLs, and a template selector. Keep this page open while you set up the rest of your stream.

APAP Chat uses Restream to collect chat from YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, and more in one place.

1. In the Dashboard, find the Restream section.
2. Click Connect Restream.
3. Sign in to your Restream account and authorize APAP Chat.
4. When you return to the Dashboard, the status badge should show Connected.

Make sure your destinations are enabled in Restream and that you are live on at least one platform. Chat messages begin flowing into APAP Chat as soon as viewers start typing.

You have two options:

Using the Template Designer:

1. Click Template Designer in the Dashboard header.
2. Select a preset to start, or click New for a blank template.
3. Adjust colors, background style, fonts, text effects, and layout.
4. Watch the live preview on the right update as you edit.
5. Click Save and give your template a name.
6. Return to the Dashboard and select your new template from the Template dropdown.

Custom templates are saved to your account and persist across restarts. You can also export them as JSON and import them later.

Each template has its own style, but the Dashboard gives you live scaling controls for the active overlay:

• Width — max width of the lower-third card.
• Scale — overall size of the overlay.
• Bottom — distance from the bottom of the screen.
• Font — global font scale.
• Name / Message — relative text size.
• Avatar — size of the avatar image.
• Opacity — transparency of the card.

Changes are sent to the overlay in real time, so you can tune the look while you are live without refreshing the source in vMix or OBS.

The overlay is a transparent webpage that vMix captures as an Input. Use the Lower Third / Highlight URL from the Dashboard for featured messages.

1. In vMix, click Add Input → Web Browser.
2. Paste the Lower Third / Highlight URL from the Dashboard.
3. Set the Width to 1920 and Height to 1080.
4. Check Transparent (or use the green/transparent option if available).
5. Click OK and place the input in your overlay layer above your camera feed.

When you feature a message in the Dashboard, the vMix input will animate the lower-third on screen automatically.

OBS uses a Browser source. Use the same Lower Third / Highlight URL from the Dashboard.

1. In OBS, click the + button in the Sources panel and choose Browser.
2. Name the source (for example, "APAP Chat Overlay") and click OK.
3. Paste the Lower Third / Highlight URL into the URL field.
4. Set Width to 1920 and Height to 1080.
5. Set Custom CSS to body { background-color: transparent; } (or leave it blank if the overlay already uses transparency).

Make sure the Browser source is positioned above your gameplay or camera source in the OBS scene order.

Once chat is flowing, click the ★ (star) or Feature button on any message in the Dashboard. The selected message will appear as a lower-third in your vMix or OBS overlay with the viewer's avatar, name, platform badge, and message.

To clear the featured message, click Clear Featured in the Dashboard. The overlay will animate out automatically.

APAP Chat can also listen directly to TikTok live chat. This is useful if you are not sending TikTok through Restream.

1. In the Dashboard, find the TikTok section.
2. Enter your TikTok username (without the @) and click Connect.
3. TikTok chat will appear in the same message feed as Restream messages.

TikTok avatars are cached locally the first time a user appears, so they display reliably in the overlay.