Macros and Quick commands

The dashboard can do a lot, and mid-stream is the wrong moment to hunt through tabs for it. Macros puts the things a streamer does while live one tap or one sentence away: hide the overlays and bring them back, go to BRB and come back, play a clip, start and stop a timer, a poll, a closest guess or an emoji meter, and see the result big the moment one stops. The same commands are on the phone, in the Companion app's Quick commands screen, laid out for one thumb.

Macros of your own (several commands under one button and one phrase) are made on the dashboard and run from either.

• On the dashboard: the Macros tab, the lightning bolt right after Stream status. It is on by default; Settings → Menu bar → Show the Macros tab hides it.
• On a device: tap Command / Direct in Companion's top navigation (0.9.79/build 101; previously Quick / Macros), or, on the camera screen, the Quick commands tab at the top (or the bolt on the bottom bar), which pulls the remote down over the picture. The stream carries on underneath while you use it. See Quick commands on the device.

Both talk to the same router, so a poll started on the phone can be stopped on the dashboard, and Recent on either lists the commands from both.

Built-in buttons are grouped by enabled features on both screens: Overlay control, Companion, Timer, Polls, Closest guess, Emoji meter, Weather, GPS, Trivia, Jokes, Theme parks, Clock, Audience numbers and Chat. Closest guess and Emoji meter follow the Polls tab; Chat follows its own enabled setting. Disabled features do not show Quick controls or Now entries; hiding a tab does not stop its task. Theme parks includes park selection, current data, display settings and an overlay toggle. Overlay groups omit disabled members. Your macros and Whatever is running stay separate.

The box at the top takes a command in plain words: hide overlays, go to BRB, play clip 2, start a timer for here, stop and hide the poll. Wording is forgiving: kill the overlays and hide everything do the same. As you type, the box suggests commands it knows.

• The microphone turns what you say into the same words. On the phone it uses Android's speech recognition. On the dashboard the microphone button appears only where the browser allows a page to listen: over a secure (https) address, in a browser with speech recognition such as Chrome, Edge or Safari. On the router's plain address, type instead, or use the phone.
• What can I say? lists every phrase, your own included. Tap one to put it in the box, change it if you like, and go.
• Anything that will go on stream comes back to check first. Start a poll, the question is what next, the choices are Space Mountain or Big Thunder opens a short form with the question and the two choices filled in, and nothing airs until you press Start a poll. A misheard question on stream is worse than one more tap.
• When something is missing, it asks instead of failing: which clip is your BRB screen, what the choices are, whether to replace the poll that is still running.
• Undo: an answer that can be put back has a button for it (Undo, Exit BRB, Carry on timing, Remove it).
• Try a phrase (Macros tab, Settings) shows what a sentence would do, without doing it.

Background audio reduction (formerly Voice isolation) keeps voices and turns down background music, traffic, and ambient noise on the streaming server (Restreamer), so the phone does no extra work. The Quick button shows ON, OFF or FAILED. Say background audio reduction on, audio reduction off, voice isolation on, toggle voice isolation or name a preset: audio reduction theme park, voice isolation passing cars, set audio reduction to voice only (light, balanced, ambience, theme park, passing cars, windy, loud music, voice only); Undo restores the previous setting. In a macro use audio.isolation with on set to 1, 0 or empty (flip) and an optional preset.

Presets, thresholds, and fine settings (such as bass cut and room tone) are on the Restreamer tab; the toggle in the companion app and dashboard quickly enables or disables it. The first switch-on reconnects the director once. It needs the Restreamer Core address, user and password in Settings. It is not a guarantee against copyright claims.

Stream timer controls appears under Timer and Chat & celebration controls under Chat on both dashboard and Companion. They use the router's command list; Companion 0.9.93/build 115 does not need another update.

• Say start the stream timer, stop the stream timer, reset the stream timer, how long have we been live, use automatic stream timer, use manual stream timer, or stream timer settings. Start asks before changing Automatic to Manual. Reset asks and changes only this displayed duration. Stop the timer still controls the separate queue/countdown timer.
• Show the stream timer and Hide the stream timer have their own entries in Stream timer controls, What can I say? and the macro-step picker. Say show the stream timer or hide the stream timer. Hiding does not stop/reset timing; Undo restores the previous visibility.
• Say mute viewer Alex or unmute viewer Alex. Confirm the exact name; this affects chat overlays across platforms, not camera sound. Muted viewers' active/queued cards are removed.
• Say replay celebration for Alex or play a celebration, then choose a saved message. The newest available 40 matching messages are offered. Clear chat and mutes still apply; replay uses current tiers and fresh timing.
• Say next celebration or clear celebrations. Clear asks before removing the active card and queue.
• Say enable hands free celebrations, disable hands free celebrations, enable celebration queue or disable celebration queue. Queueing follows the Featured Messages switch, not an external app's scene.
• Say enable chat overlays or disable chat overlays for both switches together; show featured messages and hide the stream timer control one overlay.
• Say edit celebrations for title, accent, card hold, every particle/effect type, thank-you note, duration/detail, icon size and existing uploaded image choices.
• Say celebration animation settings to edit the independent effect box, or full screen celebration animations to pre-fill full-screen placement without enlarging the message card.
• Say edit monetary celebrations to create/edit multiple thresholds, currency/event restrictions and effects; remove a monetary celebration asks before deletion. Only the highest matching tier plays, replacing the normal celebration.

Upload new custom icons/shapes in Chat settings first, then choose them from the validated library here. Saved effect changes reach the shared overlay; refresh/re-send standalone Featured output after editing.

Quick commands are buttons on both screens. Timer, Poll, Trivia and Jokes have guided tasks. Weather and GPS list their overlays with ON/OFF switches. Everything else is a sentence away, a tap on the thing itself (an overlay, a clip, a card under Now), or a step in a macro.

Hide all overlays takes everything off the picture at once and remembers what was showing; Bring back overlays brings back exactly those, not every overlay you own. It is the same as Hide for now on Overlay control, so either page can bring them back. If nothing was hidden that way, it asks before switching on every hidden overlay.

Every overlay answers to its name: show the weather, hide the clock, map off. To add your own words, open Settings on the Macros tab, and under Your words for each overlay write the words that show it and the words that hide it, separated by commas (clock on, what time is it). Saving warns you if two overlays, or an overlay and a macro, would answer to the same words.

On the Macros tab and on the phone, enabled feature overlays have tiles: tap one to switch it, lit when it is on. On the phone, hold a tile to show it for 10 or 30 seconds, or for as long as you say, and to see the words that work for it.

GPS, Weather and lightning map controls also have Zoom in / Zoom out buttons. They preserve your styling and placement, update the saved zoom one level, and report when a limit is reached. The all-in-one overlay follows automatically; standalone URLs retain their original zoom.

If you switch on an overlay that no screen has drawn in the last minute and a half, the answer warns you: it may be missing from your encoder's scene. See one URL for the encoder.

BRB, clips and camera switching go through the director phone: a Companion running in Director mode (see Companion app help). Without one, the answer says why, and the overlay, timer and game commands still work.

• Your clips are the Companion tab's BRB library, numbered in its order, so play clip 2 is the second one.
• From dashboard 2026.10.06.1, drag clips in Companion → Scenes to save their order. Quick commands, clip pickers and spoken clip numbers follow that order. The Scenes Still previews switch gives you saved single images or a simple list; clips do not animate or get redrawn on each status poll.
• To change several clips together, select them in Scenes and choose Edit selected clips. Only fields you change are applied: changing message position or size preserves each clip's other message options. Bulk playback settings apply the next time a clip plays, without restarting one already on air.
• With Companion 0.9.62/build 84, Now and the clip list show actual time left for both Full and Over playback. Looping clips and pictures show Infinite. Loading/buffering does not keep counting down; older Companion builds say timing is unavailable.
• From dashboard 2026.10.05.3, the old 96 MB file limit and 512 MB library limit are removed. Available router storage is the limit; a full disk is reported explicitly.
• Pick your BRB clip on the Macros tab, Settings → BRB clip, or just say go to BRB and answer when it asks; it is remembered. On the phone, tap a clip's name and choose Go to BRB with this clip.
• Go to BRB plays that clip full screen and looping, with the cameras and their sound off, so viewers hear only the clip. It stays up until you exit, however the clip is set to play.
• Exit BRB goes back to the camera, the layout and any clip over the camera that were on before.
• Play a clip full screen or over the camera; the clip's own setting decides when you do not say. A clip full screen that does not repeat ends by itself and the cameras come back.
• Switch camera by number, or next camera for the next one with a picture. A camera with no picture asks first. During BRB, the camera you pick is the one that comes back when BRB ends.

The commands drive the Timer tab's own timer, so its overlay, the tab and the header all move together.

• Start a timer asks which type: count-up, a ride line, a duration, a clock time or a published show. It then asks only the relevant values and an optional title. Pick a ride or show from the configured park's list. With no count-up title, the overlay shows just the digits. Start a countdown offers only duration, clock time and show.
• Time this line (start a timer for here) titles the timer with the ride whose line you are in: it offers the three nearest attractions, from GPS, in the park picked on the Theme parks tab, and starts on the one you tap, with its posted wait. Rides can be stacked almost on top of each other, so the nearest is not always yours; with only one ride near, it starts straight away. From the Companion, it uses the phone's own GPS, so it is where you are, not where the router is. If the ride you pick is more than about a mile away, or there is no position or no park picked, the timer still starts and the answer says why.
• Stop leaves the final time on screen, and the answer shows it big. Stop and hide shows the final time for a few seconds, then hides it. Hide takes it off screen while it keeps counting.
• How long results stay up after stop and hide is the Macros tab's Settings → Results stay up: 8 seconds unless you change it, 0 to hide at once.
• Hides in N s counts down while results linger, then reads hidden. Dashboard result cards remain for reference; they are not what is still on stream.
• Starting a timer while one is running replaces it and says what the old one was at; Undo brings it back.

Stop timer, on every screen. While a timer runs, a red Stop timer button with the running time floats in the bottom-right corner of every dashboard tab and every Companion screen. One tap stops it (a ride line timer reads On the ride ? stop timer). Every screen then asks which overlays to hide: Hide all, a group, Hide selected or Keep them showing. When a countdown timer counts down to zero, it automatically takes itself off the stream and triggers the same hide-overlay prompt. Afterwards, Bring back overlays brings back the hidden overlays except for the defunct timer overlay itself, preventing obsolete timers from reappearing on stream, and also offers Reset timer to set the timer back to zero. See Clearing the screen when the timer ends.

From dashboard 2026.10.05.3, got in line or I have entered a ride line starts the nearby ride timer; repeating it keeps its original start. I'm on the ride stops it and immediately hides all overlays. I exited the ride restores only the overlays visible before boarding, keeping the stopped timer hidden. A different running timer asks before replacement.

From 2026.10.06.1, I'm in line and we are off the ride work too. Saying just timer offers choices based on its state: setup or the nearby line when idle, stop when running, carry on when stopped, plus visibility/reset options where appropriate. It does not start or replace a timer until you choose.

Start a countdown to Happily Ever After uses the next published showtime in your configured park/destination. Missing, stale or past times are never guessed; multiple matching shows ask which one. An existing running timer asks before replacement.

From 2026.10.06.1, play clip Magic Kingdom works by name as well as number. A misspelt or partial clip name asks Did you mean…? before playback; matching more than one clip offers choices. Exact names remain direct.

Typed and spoken commands share bounded spelling correction. Start a timer to the next ahppily ever after is a show countdown, not a count-up timer; coutdown and happil;y ever after also work. Review the form. An inferred show name asks Did you mean Happily Ever After?; exact names win and ambiguous matches ask which show. No published time is invented. Repaired immediate actions ask for confirmation; questions, answers and subjects are not corrected into other commands.

Start the park overlay by name or location: say start the theme park overlay for EPCOT or show the theme park overlay for Magic Kingdom. Names are fuzzy; magic king works, and uncertain names offer choices. Without a name (start the theme parks overlay or show the theme park overlay for where I am), Companion GPS takes priority over router GPS to select your current park. Selection stays within the resort saved on the Theme parks tab; distant or ambiguous locations ask you to choose. Existing layout and display fields are preserved. Enable the Theme parks tab and configure the overlay first. Hide the theme park overlay hides it.

From 2026.10.06.3 (Companion 0.9.71):

• Several commands in one sentence. Join them with and, then, and then, after that, also or a comma: stop the poll and show results, and then show the radar runs each step in order (up to 6) and answers with one card listing them. show the radar and the clock carries the verb over. A step that needs more, like a poll's question, pauses with its form; finish it and the rest carries on. Phrases that already mean one command stay one: stop the poll and show results, stop and hide, and poll choices like mac and cheese are never split.
• Did you mean? Words that are close but not exact (hide the clok, raydar plz, show the stream helpers water mark) are not run blindly: one best guess is a yes/no question, several are a short list. Typos and sound-alike speech mistakes both count. If no command matches, Show voice commands offers a useful next step.
• It learns your words. Pick an answer from Did you mean? and those exact words run straight away next time. To deliberately create a phrase, open Dashboard → Macros → Settings → Teach me your words. Type Your words (for example, lunch time) and Command to remember (show the clock), then press Remember phrase. Saving remembers without running anything. Creating phrases is dashboard-only, not a phone dictation flow; saved phrases still work by typing or speaking on either device. Commands you use most rank higher in suggestions. Learned phrases are listed under What can I say? on the phone and in Macros → Settings → Phrases I've learned on the dashboard, where each can be forgotten. They live on the router, shared by phone and dashboard, and are not part of Settings → Backup.
• The StreamHelpers.com mark answers to show the watermark, hide the stream helpers mark or streamhelpers logo off.
• Park questions (Theme parks tab on): show me ride wait times for EPCOT, what time is the next show for American Adventure, show me show times for Magic Kingdom, what is down right now at Disney World, what's the single rider wait for Guardians, what's the shortest wait near me (the phone's location), or when does the parade start. You can name a park or resort in each question without changing the saved Theme parks selection. Park, resort, ride and show names are matched fuzzily; if a match is uncertain, choose from the suggestions rather than getting a guess. Published performance times are matched even when a show appears in the park's attraction list.
• Closest guess with an answer photo: add a picture of the real answer; it shows with the results.

With the updated router and Companion 0.9.61/build 83, Quick controls follow the enabled tabs and use the same stores as those tabs. ON toggles have green outlines.

• Weather/GPS: direct overlay ON/OFF switches plus controls menus for latest readings, GPS status, activity reset, public map address and display options. Account credentials and AI provider configuration stay on the dashboard.
• Timers: a type question, followed by ride/show selection, duration or clock-time values and an optional title.
• Polls: saved polls open for editable review; set duration, result hold, visibility, results-after-close, chat, first-vote locking and whether to keep results. Extend/reopen preserve votes.
• Trivia: write a question, select up to 30 bank questions with answer hints, choose timings/loop/chat, pause/resume, move between questions, reveal and reset scores. Replacement and score reset ask first.
• Jokes: choose the queue or write your own, then review rating and timings. Choose Show it on the stream or Read it myself (do not show); repeat also asks. Reading returns both halves as a card without changing the stream. Showing uses visual delivery even if the dashboard default is voice-only; Quick commands neither speaks nor shows a browser-voice warning. The stream rating ceiling still applies. The visual card stays visible through the punchline before its final exit.

Style changes update the all-in-one overlay; standalone URLs you already copied retain their own parameters. Saving one section preserves other sections and placement. Account credentials and AI provider/key/model setup remain dashboard-only.

Generate trivia about Disney history and generate jokes about long lines open AI options. Generation uses your configured provider, can take up to four minutes, and saves for review without automatically airing. Subject-only generation does not send GPS. Choosing Where I am or Subject and GPS explicitly sends location; trivia can use selected park places without GPS or an optional nearby-place focus. If the reply is lost, inspect the Trivia bank or Jokes queue before generating again; there is no automatic retry.

Now includes trivia and jokes. Trivia Stop ends the question run; Stop and hide also hides its leaderboard. Trivia/jokes stop immediately, without the timer/audience-game result linger.

These are the audience games, with their own tabs. The commands start and stop them with the settings from those tabs, and what you say or fill in.

• Poll: a question (leave it empty to ask it out loud) and 2 to 6 choices, one per line. The phone has a Yes / No button for the choices. Choices can be said the ways people list them: A, B and C, A or B, one A two B, A versus B.
• Closest guess: a question, a picture (none, a frame grabbed from the stream as viewers see it, or, from the Companion, a photo taken or picked on the phone), who wins (closest, or closest without going over), a time limit, and the real answer if you know it, kept secret until you stop. Stopped without an answer, it asks you for one, with guessing already closed.
• Emoji meter: an optional prompt (How scary was that?) and a time limit.
• A time limit left empty uses the game's own tab; 0 runs until you stop it.
• If the game's overlay is switched off, starting the game switches it on and says so: a game nobody can see is no game.
• Starting one while the same game is still open asks whether to replace it.

Every stop shows the results in a card made to read at a glance: the poll's winning choice big (or Tie), every choice with its votes, its share and a bar, and the total; the closest guess's answer big, with the closest guesses and how far off each was; the emoji meter's top emoji big, the top eight with their counts and the total. Stop and hide shows them for the Results stay up time, then hides them. Hide takes the game off screen while chat can still play; Show brings it back.

Stop, without saying what, stops the newest thing still running; stop and hide does the same; hide it hides the newest thing on screen. If something else is still running, the answer says so.

Counting votes, guesses and reactions needs chat coming in: see Audience games.

A macro is a few commands in a row under one button and one phrase. Say ride time and it hides the weather, starts the line timer and asks chat to guess the wait. Macros are made on the dashboard only, on a screen big enough for it, and run from the dashboard, by their words, or from the phone, where they are coloured buttons.

Your macros → New macro walks through four pages:

1. Name, an emoji if you like, and the button's colour.
2. Steps, top to bottom, up to 12. Fill in each step's values now, or tick Ask when it runs and you are asked each time (what you typed becomes the suggestion). Arrows reorder the steps; Wait (1 to 10 seconds) spaces them out.
3. Words & safety: the words that run it, one per line (its name always works too, as ride time or run ride time), and Ask “are you sure?” before it runs.
4. Check & save: the whole macro in plain words.

When it runs, everything it asks for is asked first, in one form, then are you sure? if ticked, then the steps in order, as if you pressed each button. A step that needs something more, like a photo or a yes, pauses the macro and carries on once you answer. A step that fails is reported and the rest still run, so a director phone that is not answering does not stop the poll from starting. A macro runs for at most 20 seconds and cannot run another macro.

Up to 40 macros, each with up to 8 phrases. Edit, reorder and delete them from the list.

The Companion's Quick commands screen (Companion 0.9.52 or later) has the same commands, made for a small screen and one thumb. From the top:

• The command bar: a round blue microphone, the box with suggestions, and Go. The connection shows top right: Connected, Via Tailscale or Not connected; tap it to try again.
• The answer, under the bar: what was heard, what happened, the results card, and one button for Undo or for what is needed next. A plain done folds itself away.
• Now: everything running, the timer's clock ticking, each with Stop, Stop & hide and Hide.
• Commands: your macros as coloured buttons (hold one to see its steps and words), the built-in ones, and buttons for whatever is running.
• Overlays: Hide all, Bring back, a tile for each overlay (tap to switch, hold for more), and your groups.
• BRB & clips: Go to BRB and Exit BRB, each clip with Full and Over.
• Cameras & layout: the director's cameras, layout choices, per-box cameras, titles and audio. A layout, corner or size switch shows a spinner until the director's reported state agrees. Missing confirmation is reported after 20 seconds, not treated as success.
• Recent, and What can I say? at the bottom.

Sections fold, and the phone remembers which you closed. Things worth knowing:

• The phone's own microphone or camera on the stream: if this phone is a camera on the program, the first tap on the microphone warns that the stream may lose this phone's sound for a moment and viewers may hear you, and offers to type instead. Taking a photo for a closest guess warns that the camera app can freeze this phone's camera on the stream, and offers a frame from the stream instead.
• Speak without hunting for the button (Companion 0.9.73 or later). The always-listening wake phrase is gone; it used battery and missed too often. Instead, each of these opens Quick commands already listening:
  • Quick Settings tile: pull down the notification shade, tap the pencil/edit button and drag Say a command into your tiles. Works from any app, and from the lock screen after unlocking.
  • Say a command icon: a second Companion icon in the app drawer. On a Samsung, set Settings > Advanced features > Side button > Double press > Open app > Say a command and a double press of the power key starts listening.
  • Long-press the Companion icon and choose Say a command (or Quick commands). Drag either one onto the home screen for a one-tap button.
  • Say a command on the Companion's notification.
  • On the camera screen, the Quick commands tab at the top: drag it down (or tap it) for every Quick command over the picture, and tap its microphone to talk. The stream keeps going; Back or dragging the tab up closes it.
• Feel what happened: the phone gives a confirm tap when a command ran and a reject buzz when it did not; the screen shows the question or the problem.
• Photos are shrunk on the phone before they are sent, so a closest guess with a photo works on a slow connection.
• The phone reaches the router on its WiFi, or over Tailscale when you are away from it. If a command's connection drops half way, it is not sent again by itself: look under Now before trying again.

• Backups (Settings → Backup) include your macros, your words for each overlay and the Macros tab's settings.
• The Macros tab and the phone only do what the dashboard itself can do: someone on a share link cannot use them.
• For what each overlay looks like, see the overlay reference; for the games themselves, Audience games.