User guide

Everything telinha can do, from the first invite to the settings. If you just want to get going, the first three sections are enough.

Create a room#

Open telinha and click Create room. The default port is 7777 and the password is optional. Whoever creates the room gets the crown and is its admin.

The room lives on your computer while telinha is open. For a room that is always on, even with your PC off, use a dedicated server.

Invite people#

In the Inviting people from outside card:

1. Click Open port on router. It's the direct path, with the lowest latency. It works on most routers (UPnP, NAT-PMP or PCP).
2. If your ISP uses CGNAT, the port won't open. Then click Create public link: the room gets an address that works on any network, with nothing to configure.
3. Click Copy invite and send it. The Invite button, in the top bar, copies the same invite any time.

Whoever joins a room with nobody live sees the three steps on the stage: call your friends (with the copy invite button), share your screen and, on the other side, they click Watch.

The Invite button copies a link to the site's invite page (https://…/telinha/j/#i=…): it's clickable on Discord and in the browser, it opens the app for whoever has it and shows how to install for whoever doesn't. Inside it goes the invite itself (telinha://…), and what comes after the # is never sent to the site.

The invite (telinha://…) carries every way into the room: LAN, opened port, IPv6 and public link. Each person joins through the fastest one that works for them. It also carries the server's fingerprint, so the app checks it is really talking to your room before sending anything.

Didn't work? The connection guide has every other way: manual port forwarding, IPv6, gaming VPNs, SSH tunnels.

Join a room#

Paste the invite (the https link or the telinha:// one) on the home screen and click Join. If the invite is already on your clipboard when you open telinha, it's pasted for you. Clicking a telinha:// link opens the app: on Windows it registers itself the first time it opens, on Linux install.sh does it. With telinha already open, the link goes to the open window.

You can join straight into a channel: type its name in the channel field on the home screen.

Go live#

Click Share screen and choose:

Click Go live. Everything can be changed while streaming, without anyone losing the picture.

Several people can be live at once. If everyone is watching you in a small grid tile, telinha sends a smaller stream (less GPU and bandwidth for everyone) and scales back up the moment someone enlarges it.

Watch#

Click anyone who is live. Several streams sit in a grid that keeps every video as large as possible. A screen bot (like the big-screen bot) is watched the same way. If it has a panel, the panel sits docked under the video, with its buttons (pause, skip...), while its stream is alone or featured. A bot in another channel shows up in the room panel, under Bots in other channels: right-click → Bring to my call.

If nobody in your call is streaming but someone is live in another channel, a Someone is live in #channel: go and watch button shows up: one click and you're there, watching.

The dot next to the streamer's name tells how the stream is arriving: green flows fine, yellow stuttering, red bad, and why (your internet, your PC, so-and-so's PC or internet).

On top of any stream:

• "Look here" pointer: everyone watching sees it.
• Drawing: 15 colors and 4 widths, highlighter included. You can hide other people's drawings, and admins can take someone's pen away.
• Clip: saves the last seconds (5 s to 10 min, your choice) with one click or a global hotkey, as MP4.
• Recording: MP4 without re-encoding, with sound. Survives resolution changes.
• Screenshot: PNG at the stream's resolution.

Clips and recordings go to your videos folder (Videos/telinha).

Talk#

In Settings → Voice: voice activation (with sensitivity) or push-to-talk, which works even with a game focused; noise suppression (removes fans, keyboards and hiss); echo cancellation (speakers work as well as headphones); automatic gain for quiet microphones and a mic volume.

Chat#

• Enter sends, Shift+Enter adds a new line.
• Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, `code`, code blocks with a copy button and clickable links. Color emoji.
• Images: paste (Ctrl+V, anywhere in the room) or drag them onto the window. A preview asks before sending: Enter sends, Esc cancels.
• Reactions, @mentions (the person mentioned is notified) and history for late joiners.
• Right-click a message: copy, reply quoting it, or send its author a private message.
• Quoted replies: the original message shows above the reply, and the person replied to is notified.
• Private messages: only the two of you see them, in any channel. From the message's menu, the person's menu or /msg name text.
• Files up to 256 MB: the paperclip button, dragging the file onto the window or /arquivo path. It's uploaded once to the server and each person downloads it when they click, in the background, without hurting video and voice. On the server it's encrypted and gone after 2 hours.
• Bot cards: a cover, fields, a progress bar that moves by itself and buttons; clicking a button sends the click to the bot, which changes the card in place.
• Desktop notifications while telinha is in the background.

Channels#

A server can hold several rooms at once, IRC-style. Each channel has its own chat, and the call (voice and streams) is separate: you can read one channel while staying in another's call.

• Click a channel in the panel to read its chat.
• Click a channel's headphones icon to join its call. Your stream comes along.
• + creates a channel. It stays in the list even when empty (and if the server restarts); it only goes away after 3 days without anyone. Channels pinned by an admin stay forever.
• Whoever creates a channel is its OP, with a blue crown next to their name in the list (the yellow one is the room owner's). An OP runs the channel: right-click the channel for password, lock, topic and making it invisible (left out of the list; whoever knows the name and password gets in); right-click a person to make them OP, move them to another channel (an open one or one where you're also an OP) and remove them from the channel for good. An OP can't touch the channel's creator or admins; other OPs, only the creator can.
• Only the creator deletes the channel (it asks to confirm; whoever was in it goes back to the default channel) and takes OP away from others. Room admins can do everything, in any channel. The default channel has no OPs.
• A channel password applies to everyone, OPs and the creator included: to get in, type the password (the app remembers it and goes back to the channel on its own if the internet drops). Only room admins get in without it, and they also get into locked channels and see invisible ones. Testing with two windows on the same PC: both are the same person to the server (and with the admin token in Advanced options, both are admins).

Chat commands#

Anything else starting with / goes to the chat as normal text.

Shortcuts#

Global hotkeys (they work with another program focused, like a game): clip, microphone, deafen, share, screenshot and a master toggle. In Settings → Shortcuts, any key, combination or mouse button.

For admins#

Whoever creates the room (or joins a dedicated server with the admin token) can, by right-clicking a person: kick, ban, mute, stop their stream, take their pen away, give or remove admin. They can also lock the room, manage channels and clear the room's chat (the eraser at the top, two clicks): every channel's history and the files are gone for everyone, without restarting the server.

On a dedicated server, the admin sees the server stats: CPU, memory, bandwidth in and out, people per channel, who is lagging and a plain-language guess at the bottleneck.

Watch from a browser#

On a dedicated server started with --web, the room shows a TV button that copies a link. Whoever opens it watches in the browser with nothing to install: video, the stream's sound, the call's voices and the chat. The server only relays the same frames, so the streamer pays nothing extra.

From a browser you can watch and chat; going live and talking need the app.

Settings#

The gear button opens the settings, in a room or on the home screen.

Updates#

telinha (Windows and Linux) tells you when a new version is out, shows what changes and installs it with one click, after checking the release signature. In the settings you can let it install on its own or skip a version. The history is in Settings → About.

Where things are#

For a portable setup (on a USB stick, say), the TELINHA_PASTA_CONFIG and TELINHA_PASTA_CLIPES variables change these folders.