<aside> 📢 Current state of Parsec Soda as of June 6, 2023 Soda no longer works. You will need to host with Parsec and share your computer links.

</aside>

Things to be aware of

The people that join your game will see the chat window so make sure you don't put it in the way of the normal Parsec chat. Consider only capturing the bottom part of the chat to only display new messages.

Hooking keyboard input and sending it to Parsec Soda in the background is not perfect, it may not work for all games and will only work when the Chat input box is selected before alt-tabbing. It also has a chance to fail but you will know when it doesn't show up in chat.

<aside> ℹ️ AutoHotkey is used to make keyboard macros and automate functions. Anti-cheat protection may flag it a cheat so be careful.

</aside>

Required software

OnTopReplica

https://github.com/LorenzCK/OnTopReplica/releases/

AutoHotkey

https://www.autohotkey.com/download/ahk-install.exe

AutoHotkey script

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/v6ooo/parsec-tools/main/chathook.ahk

OnTopReplica - Display chat

• Download from the GitHub release page, unpack and install the app.
• Start the app and you should see a window that says Right-click here to start...
• Right click → Advanced → Check Restore last cloned window
• Right click → Select window, and click on Parsec Soda
• Right click → Select region...
• Now draw a square around the the chat and then adjust X, Y, Width and Height to crop out the parts you don't want to see.
  • Make sure you press the plus ➕ button and save regions so you can easily select them the next time you start the program.
• Right click → Uncheck Show window border