Introducing DLiveLabs
https://dlivelabs.com
Hello everyone!
I would like to briefly introduce you to the last month of my work on one of the major projects I've been involved in creating. The whole idea was created during a loose conversation with friends who advised me to use my skills to create something for the community associated with the DLive.io platform. The vision presented by them was mainly focused on adding some variety and improvements of the quality of other users' streams. It was the time when first ideas were born and not lying, they took a couple of pages to write down. The first works went very slowly and they were hard.. as usually beginning are the hardest. However, when I wrote out all the points of action, I planned the structure of the site, everything was getting faster. That's how the first working version appeared, just a week later. It aroused many people who eagerly declared themselves to check my work on a daily basis, which they did, and for what I’m grateful because that’s what kept me motivated. DLive.io himself supported my work very much and offered me cooperation as a team member. It allowed me to develop wings and expand my capabilities to a very large extent. Thanks to them and the community, the motivation to act exceeded all possible scales, and soon afterwards a new version complementing the previous one appeared, and DLive.io decided to support the project to reach a wider group of streamers by posting a promotional post on his blog. In this post I am going to introduce you to what the project is about, and to present many interesting facts connected with it .
1. What is DLiveLabs
DLiveLabs is a project inspired by the operation of such websites as streamlabs.com and tipeeestream.com. The site has been designed to increase the pleasure of running and watching live streams. All of them were supposed to act in such a way as to bring as much freedom as possible to their users. So after the last update, the following options fell into the hands of the recipients:
- semi-automatic selection of live streams, which was replaced by the first idea, which forced users to continuously enter the permlink of the current stream, as well as update the generated URL in OBS. Thanks to this - the update of the stream was a pleasure, and the links added to the OBS became static, which accelerated the process of live configuration only to choosing the right broadcast,
- vote alert - it lets you display (in realtime!); received upvotes with both visual and audio alerts,
- follower alert - it lets you display new followers. It informs the streamer about new audience. Useful for ambitious streamers willing to mark their progress in acquiring new audience,
- followers count - displays actual number of followers. Cosmetic improvement and is a nice addition to our overlay,
- chat display - lets you display up to 10 messages on the stream. Nice cosmetic addition, lets the audience use the fullscreen potential without missing out the chat,
- an additional, much-anticipated and many times suggested by the community option was to add alert customization to your own graphic preferences. We are talking about such things as color, boldness, font size, the ability to add a background and shadow to the displayed text. This is a small introduction to the upcoming small steps that give users more freedom than before. But I will get in detail about this function later in the post.
2. Project history
The first works on the site began on 21.01.2018. After a short time, the project had a SteemConnect implementation. Small steps were added to the system to add more improvements. The first thing added as a working module was followers count - the current number of followers, which changed in real time. After a week, followers count, upvote alert, follower alert were added to the system. Unfortunately, the site was not fully user friendly. Each time a new live stream was launched, it was necessary to generate new URLs for a specific module and update it in the OBS program. As a streamer myself, I deeply felt that this is not the direction in which I would like the project to head. So, after a short time, the second major update was released. This time the additional option was a chat display - allowing real-time display of activity on the chat. However, the most important change was the static URL generated for a specific module. The only necessary option to do since then was to update the currently live one. Minor stylistic options such as changing colors, boldings etc. have been added to the system.
3. Why am I doing this?
I've streamed on Twotch for years, but I found out about DLive, and something lacked on this plaform, something that gave a lot of pleasure to use Twitch. Suddenly it dawned on me "streamlabs".. why not make such a platform for DLive / Steemit!? Some platform, which during our stream would inform us about new upvotes, followers, something that would free us from the requirement of peeking at our stream all the time and let us focus on the topic of the stream and the audience. The project is not easy, but every day it develops, new functions come to make the streamer's personality as well as its appearance is more pleasant.
4. Statistics
Here I would like to mention about the most important part of DLiveLabs which is.. you, the users! To give you some insight about the population and origins of Labs community I would like to share some stats with you. Most users, almost 34,5% come from Turkey, 15% from the USA and 8,78% from the Great Britain. Fourth place among all nationalities using DLiveLabs belong to Polish, that would be 5,95% of the users. Last time we had a lot of new visitors from France, Italy, Ukraine. Longest lasting session registered on the website was from Switzerland – it lasted 12 minutes and 49 seconds, second one recorded is from United Emirates – with time of 10 minutes and 8 seconds.
5. How to use DLiveLabs
To enter the world of beautiful and convenient streaming delivered by DLiveLabs is to connect the platform to your steem account. Don’t worry, you can do this in two simple steps:
- First step is to let the @dlivelabs.app authorize our steem identity by clicking ‘Continue’ when prompted, just as on the picture below.
- Second step is to login to the site by entering your steem account name and one of your passwords – memo, posting key or master password.
After successful login you will land on DLiveLabs main page on which you can find brief information on the account that was used to login, DLiveLabs Guide and the list of your last DLive streams.
Allright, so far so good, it’s time to check out what are basic labs functions, how to edit them and add to your OBS. If you ever feel confused or overwhelmed make sure to spend a moment on going through DLiveLabs Guide where you can see all alerts available on the platform and a video containing hints on how to use the platform.
Above you can see the functions available on DLiveLabs, let’s take a moment to describe them briefly:
- Setup current live – This is the option that you will probably use most often. It lets you link all your labs plugins and alerts to your current stream. Make sure to go through this every time you start a new stream!
- Chat display – this is a convenient chat that you can display on you livestream. Now your audience can enjoy your work on fullscreen without missing out on your chat!
To add chat function to our stream first we have to add a template by clicking ‘Add new’ button.
Here you can also modify the appearance of your chat – set the background (you can leave it transparent or use a color of your choice). Same goes for the nicknames and message colors. You can also make the fonts bold, add italics or even shadows. The choice is all yours so that your stream can outshine the rest!
- Vote alert – this function helps you, dear user, make sure that you never miss out any upvote you receive for you hard work. At the moment of receiving it you are prompted with a special sound (of course in realtime) and an image plus text of your choice that is displayed on you livestream.
To add this functionality to your stream make sure to add a template to this function by clicking ‘Add new’ buton.
Setup of this function is pretty similar to what you might have already encountered when setting your chat. You can personalize the appearance of your alert. Let’s set the background – it can be either transparent or any color of your choice. Same goes for the names and message that is displayed below. You can also make the fonts bold, add italics or even shadows. You can also leave a small ‘Thank you’ message for the generous upvoter!
- Followers count – This is a smart counter that lets you display an ammount of your followers on your stream. You’ve worked hard to earn them, why not show it to the world?
To add this counter to your livestream make sure to first add a template by clicking ‘Add new’ button, just as for the rest of DLiveLabs functions.
Again, just as mentioned above you can change the default appearance of your followers count. Set the background, color of the numbers etc.
- Followers alert – This function is a notification you have a new follower on your channel. It displays an image and a name of your follower on the stream and plays a sound to notify you.
To add this notification to your stream make sure to first add a template, just as before, by clicking ‘Add new’ button.
Same appearance customization as for the above mentioned functions apply. You can set the background, change the colors of nicknames and messages, edit the text and, just the same as for the upvote alert, you can add a small message for your new follower.
Another step is to add our alerts to OBS. I’ll show you how to do this taking ‘chat display’ as an example.
First we have to add a new scene
Lets give it a creative name… let’s say – ‘chat display’
Let’s place an URL from DLiveLabs.com in place of the highlighted URL.
Now the only thing that’s left is adjusting the placement in which our alert be visible during the stream, then we’re done! You have to do this for all other alerts and everything is ready!
6. Plans for the future
With the upcoming update, very advanced changes are in preparation. New design, new options, and certainly all DLiveLabs enthusiasts will be pleased to automatically update the current livestream and only one URL for all alerts.
However, lets approach it step by step. Or plans include options such as:
7. New desing
While working on the new website, we are also implementing a new, friendly design that encourages the user to customize their experience and makes the website as easy to use as possible. As of today, the website is presented in the following way.
8. Supporting the community
To support the community using DLiveLabs, I want to organize every week's competitions for the most active / original and committed creators who not only stream but also encourage new and current steemians to create the best content, so that our platform would have the best quality content and be the role model, to be followed others ... After the weekly competitions, I dream about the possibility of rewarding the community using DLiveLabs with the help of upvotes, to encourage them to develop, to motivate them, support them to feel appreciated for what they do, show them that their usage of the platform gives others the possibility to see it and enhance their experience either.
9. Meet the team behind DLiveLabs.com
We’re few, but determined to deliver, a bunch of friends working night and day to enhance the experience of DLive users and the whole Steem community.
See you on DliveLabs!
CDHexx
&
DLiveLabs Team
