strims-mobile

A React Native companion app for the strims.gg / chat.strims.gg community, built to match the behavior of the existing web ecosystem (chat-gui, strims-live-extension, Rustla2) rather than reinvent it: chat, the live stream list, and AngelThump/Twitch streams playing above chat. Android-first, developed against a physical device; iOS builds in CI on every release but hasn't been tried on an iPhone yet (see docs/gotchas.md). Not published to the App Store or Play Store.

Screenshots

Chat	Streams	Watching	Settings

Turn the phone sideways while a stream is playing for fullscreen:

Install

Every release has an Android APK (app-release.apk) and an unsigned iOS build (StrimsMobile-unsigned.ipa).

Android

1. On your phone, open the latest release and tap app-release.apk to download it.
2. Open the download and tap Install. Android asks once to allow installs from your browser or Files app; allow it.
3. Tap through the "unknown developer" warning: the APK is debug-signed, not Play Store-signed.

Updates: the app checks for a new release once a day and offers to install it. Installing a new APK over the old one keeps your login and settings.

iOS (sideload)

The .ipa isn't signed, so iOS won't install it as-is. A sideloading tool re-signs it with your own Apple ID while installing:

Tool	Runs on	Notes
AltStore	macOS / Windows (with AltServer)	Re-signs automatically every few days over Wi-Fi
Sideloadly	macOS / Windows	One-shot install; re-run it before the signature expires

With AltStore:

1. Install AltServer on your Mac or PC, and AltStore on your iPhone from it.
2. Download StrimsMobile-unsigned.ipa from the latest release onto the iPhone.
3. In AltStore, tap +, pick the .ipa, and sign in with your Apple ID when asked.

Limits Apple puts on this: with a free Apple ID the app stops opening after 7 days unless re-signed (AltStore does it for you while AltServer is reachable), and at most 3 sideloaded apps can be installed at once. A paid Apple Developer account extends the 7 days to a year.

What it does

Chat tab — a full chat.strims.gg client:

• Logs in through strims.gg's existing Twitch OAuth flow via an in-app WebView (no app-side credential handling — same login path as the website), storing the resulting jwt in the OS keychain.
• Catches up on missed messages via REST (/api/chat/history, /api/chat/me, /api/chat/viewer-states) on open/foreground/reconnect, retrying history until it lands, then opens the chat websocket and applies live MSG events on top, with the same reconnect/backoff behavior as chat-gui. Connection status banner (Reconnecting… / Disconnected + Retry) and a connected dot on the Chat tab.
• Renders chat-gui's emote set faithfully, including CSS-spritesheet "animated" emotes (e.g. NODDERS, catJAM), played natively as animated WebP on Android, and a subset of chat-gui's emote modifiers (:mirror, :flip, :smol, :wide, :spin, :fast, :slow, :reverse, :pause) — see docs/emotes.md.
• URL rewriting matches chat-gui's UrlFormatter (strims.gg/youtube/twitch/etc links shown in their short service/id form, tracking params stripped from Amazon/Twitter/Spotify links).
• Per-viewer nick coloring by watched channel (same deterministic scheme as chat-gui's viewer-state bar), a tap-to-focus mode that dims every other message, and a long-press nick menu: the stream they're watching (tap to open), mention, whisper (/w is sent as a real whisper), highlight, custom name color, and ignore (managed in Settings).
• Optional message timestamps (Settings: off / HH:MM / HH:MM:SS).
• Mention highlighting, greentext, message combos (repeated single-emote spam collapses into an "xN" row), "more messages" catch-up pill, and keyboard-safe layout on edge-to-edge Android.

Streams tab — a native client for Rustla2's aggregated stream list:

• Live stream list sorted by rustlers (strims-side viewer count), with follow/notify support (local notifications via Notifee when a followed channel goes live, polling on the same cadence as strims-live-extension).
• Channel names are colored with the same deterministic per-channel scheme used in chat, so you can see at a glance what color a streamer's nick will be while they're watching.
• Tap an AngelThump or Twitch stream to watch it above chat; turn the phone sideways for fullscreen. It shows as your viewer state in chat, same as watching on strims.gg. Other services (or a long-press) open the stream on strims.gg. The AngelThump player has a cast button, and its delay behind live and server are in Settings.
• Chromecast support for AngelThump streams (resolves past AngelThump's CORS-blocked master manifest to a castable edge URL; see docs/architecture.md).

Settings — the gear in the title bar: refresh emotes, animate emotes forever, timestamps, stream delay and AngelThump server for the player, ignored users, log out.

Building from source

Prerequisites (both platforms)

npm install

Android

Requires the Android SDK and a running emulator or a physical device (USB debugging enabled, or via usbipd-win if developing from WSL2 against a Windows-attached device).

npm run android    # builds, installs, and launches on the connected device/emulator
npm start           # Metro bundler, if not started automatically

iOS

Requires Xcode and CocoaPods.

cd ios && bundle install && bundle exec pod install && cd ..
npm run ios

Configuration

src/config/env.ts holds the API/websocket/login/Rustla URLs, defaulted to the production strims.gg deployment. Edit that file if pointing the app at a self-hosted instance.

Development docs

• docs/local-dev.md — day-to-day dev/test loop, including connecting a physical Android device from WSL2 via usbipd-win.
• docs/architecture.md — module layout and how the major features (chat sync, streams/cast, emotes) fit together.
• docs/emotes.md — the animated-emote crop pipeline and modifier system.
• docs/gotchas.md — RN/Android-specific pitfalls hit during development, and how to avoid re-hitting them.
• docs/releasing.md — versioning, changelog, and how to cut a tagged GitHub Release. See also CHANGELOG.md.