Comparative analysis? HKN vs. GCP vs. ISB?

[Fuzzyboy]

Coming back from a long (and well deserved :D) break, I see there's a lot of new contenders in the boxing software category. Last I played I preferred HKN over Keyclone for it's excellent ability to be configured by text (and, at least at the time, better mousebroadcasting).

Now, however, I'm told that castsequence is no more and using /click is the way to go. At the same time I see that GCP has some castsequence-like functionality and looking at the webpages for HKN/GCP/ISB I have a hard time determining what programs offer the most features.

Can anyone help me by pointing out, what programs support what features or do they all do pretty much the same?

[Fuzzyboy]

Actually, what I really want to know is - does the other programs have any functionality that HKN doesn't? :-)

[Chilaxx]

I would like to see this too. Maybe the authors of the software could tell us what makes their program unique!

I would contribute to this topic if i could :p But I don't know enough of all the software out there atm..

[Svpernova09]

I would like to see this too. Maybe the authors of the software could tell us what makes their program unique!

um. well. They software's websites do a good job of selling the features of the software.

http://solidice.com/keyclone
http://www.lavishsoft.com


I use ISBoxer for incredibly ease of creating macros / keymaps and superior mouse broadcasting and file virtualization.

[Psych]

For what it's worth, I use Hotkeynet and have zero issues.

Mouse click passing is good, it's lightweight, had a fully functional script I could just copy and paste in right on their webpage, a good amount of forum interaction on his site as well. I'm quite happy with it!

Also, I'm still using castsequences for my all druid 5 group. In testing, I can do more dps like that than just by manually firing off the spells when I'm on one of those toons solo, so it's certainly not that bad :) Click may be better, but castsequence is certainly easier and less typing :)

Hope that helps a little!

[Freddie]

I would like to see this too. Maybe the authors of the software could tell us what makes their program unique!
In order to say what makes HotkeyNet unique, I'd have to know a great deal about the other programs. But I know very little about them.

Comparing programs is a lot of work, and the comparisons go out of date quickly because programs change and grow.

[Mubox]

In order to say what makes HotkeyNet unique, I'd have to know a great deal about the other programs. But I know very little about them.

Comparing programs is a lot of work, and the comparisons go out of date quickly because programs change and grow.

Perhaps a community-editable matrix of features on the wiki would make sense. It would allow both authors and users to show which features are exposed by each application in a format that would make sense to everyone. As features grow the matrix could be expanded, if features differ then simple footnots can be added as a complement to the matrix.

Would be nice, I've never used any other application except Synergy, which hardly qualifies (in my mind) as something you could compare with HKN or Keyclone, thus if someone asked me "what does X do differently than Y?" I wouldn't have the slightest clue.

[daviddoran]

I'd love a comparison of all the available systems, not just on feature sets, but how easy/difficult they are to set up.

I started on HKN, switched to Keyclone because HKN kept changing on me, but now am considering switching to a FTL setup, and using IS Boxer, but I want to make sure I explore all options first. My biggest concern is re-configuring all my action bars, macros, etc. Looks like with IS Boxer FTL system, i just put the vanilla spells in the regular action bar slots, no macros in game.

Maybe someone could make a guide to "switching" from one broadcast software to another?

[Lax]

Actually, what I really want to know is - does the other programs have any functionality that HKN doesn't? :-)
I would like to see this too. Maybe the authors of the software could tell us what makes their program unique! Just by answering this we might be violating the rules of the forums... but if you really want to know what is really different, I'll throw in my "fair and balanced" answer. (that's a jab at Fox "News" in case someone missed it)

ISBoxer, by way of using Inner Space, works differently than every other multiboxing software available to date. It's also the quickest and easiest to set up for WoW, via the Quick Setup Wizard (as demoed in the 40 second configuration video).

Exclusive features (ones you cant and wont find in HKN, KC, GCP, etc) during gameplay include:


Precise mouse broadcasting with a visible cursor in each window even on the same PC. For example, if you are broadcasting the mouse and trying to have all your toons click on a portal, you will see the cursor change on each window to indicate when the mouse is properly positioned in each
Virtual Files, which allow you to have ONE folder for performance reasons, while maintaining separate configuration files per character or per account (the Quick Setup Wizard and the Virtual File Wizard both set them up for you per character)
Instant window swapping. Other products claim "almost instant" or "practically instant" etc. It's not the same thing. People coming to ISBoxer from other software will tell you the difference is night and day, and will say things like "it changed the way I play, because I now switch all the time instead of avoiding it like the plague because it could get me killed while I wait up to 7 seconds for it to switch". It's instant regardless of the framerate of the game, so even in Dalaran you're going to get an instant switch, and even on a slow PC it's still instant. (Note that some people prefer to disable window swapping or prevent it from happening most of the time, e.g. to click on a background window to cast a spell instead of switching to it, which is fine too)
Interactive in-game UI (not the same as a WoW Addon, which ISBoxer also has -- this feature works in all supported games) which for example allows in-game configuration of Repeater Regions -- where you drag a box over something you want to automatically broadcast the mouse when it's over (it's possible to do regions in other software, but not via an interactive in-game UI). This is extremely useful for healing in conjunction with click to cast + sorted party unit frames. I heal my multiboxing teams exactly the same way as I heal when I play my healer in a raid, even if I'm playing my tank or a DPS at the time.
Provides immunity to the "window needs to be foreground" problem various games have (EQ1, EQ2,LOTRO to name a few), can stop the game from repositioning the windows (LOTRO for example constantly wants to center the window, and EQ1 maximizes the window for no apparent reason when you leave the character select screen to go to server select), and solves lots of other problems posed by various games

The reason you can't find this in other software is because of fundamental differences in their design. My company has been doing this sort of thing since 2004. EQ1 players will probably remember how EQWindows (which is not mine, but I used it all the time myself) went out of maintenance and that's when I created WinEQ, which featured Picture-in-Picture, instant window swapping, and virtual files (it did not offer any broadcast features).

A few notable things about the ISBoxer configuration interface (but are not as exclusive as the ones above):


The Quick Setup Wizard can generate a fully working setup for you very quickly, with almost no thinking involved on your part. It will even auto-assist when you push action bar hotkeys (1 through = by default) without you making any changes
Window layouts (similar to KC's maximizer functionality) define how you want your windows layed out -- surprise! Okay that's not the notable part. Window layouts can be generated for you, with a preview pane to show you how it'll appear, and/or you can click+drag to create whatever style you like.
You can set up as many teams as you want in the same ISBoxer configuration file. I have probably 15 different teams and I reuse window layouts, various key mappings, etc between them.
ISBoxer can dynamically generate WoW macros, which would be installed and bound to hotkeys in game by the ISBoxer Addon. This allows for some advanced features for those who want it, and includes what is known as a "preprocessor" -- which means that you can put in variables (http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/ISBoxer:World_of_Warcraft#Dynamic_Macros) like {CHARACTER} and when it spits out the actual macro, that will be replaced with the current character's name. e.g. if you made a macro "/say {CHARACTER}" in ISBoxer, and had each character press the key to activate the macro, each one will /say his own name.

The company is also my full-time job, which means I am personally available for assistance most of the time, and I am known to fix bugs for you while you wait (depending on the issue). It also means that I am constantly working on improvements, like working on supporting additional games (Aion) and I have been working for a while on the next generation of multiboxing software (which should be even more exciting)

With that said, each multiboxing solution has its own strengths and weaknesses.


I started on HKN, switched to Keyclone because HKN kept changing on me, but now am considering switching to a FTL setup, and using IS Boxer, but I want to make sure I explore all options first. My biggest concern is re-configuring all my action bars, macros, etc. Looks like with IS Boxer FTL system, i just put the vanilla spells in the regular action bar slots, no macros in game.
Right, the benefit with ISBoxer's FTL system is you don't need to make any changes at all to your action bars, from playing the character solo. You don't need to make any macros or anything, unless you want to. The mages in the related video were just using spells on the bar, and the default generated configuration, I made zero macros in-game. (But if I wanted to, I could have made macros in-game to do /castsequence, etc)

[Fuzzyboy]

Virtual Files, which allow you to have ONE folder for performance reasons, while maintaining separate configuration files per character or per account (the Quick Setup Wizard and the Virtual File Wizard both set them up for you per character)



It's a nice feature, but is it significantly different from the functionality you get from simple directory junctions?





Instant window swapping. Other products claim "almost instant" or "practically instant" etc. It's not the same thing. People coming to ISBoxer from other software will tell you the difference is night and day, and will say things like "it changed the way I play, because I now switch all the time instead of avoiding it like the plague because it could get me killed while I wait up to 7 seconds for it to switch". It's instant regardless of the framerate of the game, so even in Dalaran you're going to get an instant switch, and even on a slow PC it's still instant. (Note that some people prefer to disable window swapping or prevent it from happening most of the time, e.g. to click on a background window to cast a spell instead of switching to it, which is fine too)



That does sound good, but one thing that worries my though. What is the performance difference between a full-size window resized to for instance 800*600 and one where the window is configured to run at 800*600 in WoW? Also, my main windows is 1920 * 1200, so if I set up my user interface to look decent in that resolution, scaling it down to 800*600 (or something similarly small) will make it too small to actually see what is on the screen :)





The Quick Setup Wizard can generate a fully working setup for you very quickly, with almost no thinking involved on your part. It will even auto-assist when you push action bar hotkeys (1 through = by default) without you making any changes



As for the user friendlyness, I bought a trial subscription yesterday and I find it pretty confusing. There are no standard buttons in the program - it looks nothing like standard windows/mac windows, which makes it a lot less intuitive. The setup is confusing and while the wizard will get you running fast, in order to utilize 100% of the programs potential, you have to spend just as much time learning to use it as I did in my time with HKN. In comparison, HKN is kind of hard to setup if you're not into programming - but once it's learned it's actually easier to use that most other programmes which require you to browse about for functionality in windows menus with poor or no documentation.

I like the "fake" mouse pointers and the easier macro management, but I find ISBoxer / IS to be a bit user un-friendly and cluttered and not very intuitive compared to keyclone/HKN (I haven't tried GCP for more than 15 mins so I can't comment on that).

[Otlecs]

Lax, I read "somewhere" that IS calls home at startup. What happens if IS / ISBoxer can't talk to it's registration server for some reason?

Will it continue to work for some time, or will it immediately stop working?

[Slats]

I find Keyclone incredible easy to setup and has alot of awesome features. However the PiP swapping is very laggy and isn't something you want to do in PvP - the swap itself has to occur then another second for the resize to full.

Keyclones PiP can also sometimes freak out and not put windows in the right place - this can also get you killed in PvP and PvE.

One of the great things about KC though is the commands, if one of my clients crashes I can quickly reload it and then login to that client and get back to my AV with little issues.

I was using Innerspace for awhile before I quit multiboxing for 6-8 months and while it was a bitch to setup - once it was setup it was damn awesome. It looks like its advanced a great deal since then. I'll probably renew my subscription and look into building a setup for it again.

As for HNK and GCP I havn't tried them at all.

[PhantomRogue]

All I have to say is that from time started, to time im up and running with 5 boxes (1 Druid rushing 4 shaman), using Innerspace...

Was about 5 minutes.

Granted, my setup isn't that sophisticated, but its still from 0 to 5 boxer in less than 5 minutes. Switching and Questing is very easy with some additional setup.

I have to say that with the Quick Setup Guide in ISBoxer... its pretty dang easy to get up and running. I would recommend it to anyone that is considering boxing.

[Lax]

Lax, I read "somewhere" that IS calls home at startup. What happens if IS / ISBoxer can't talk to it's registration server for some reason?

Will it continue to work for some time, or will it immediately stop working?
Inner Space "calls home" when you launch the Inner Space program, and when you launch a game through it. If it can't connect, launching will not be successful. That's pretty much it, you don't get randomly disconnected while playing or anything like that (unless your connection to the game drops) -- the connection to my server is just for a second while launching. The primary license server currently has a 294.5 day uptime.

[Ualaa]

[QUOTE=Fuzzyboy;231569]It's a nice feature, but is it significantly different from the functionality you get from simple directory junctions?



From what I've read, once the junction points or symlinks are set up, there's functionally little or no difference in actual play.
However, there is physically only one directory on your system, so it takes up marginally little less space on the drive.
The main benefit would be patch day - just patch the one wow without breaking links, patching, re-establishing links, copying wow.exe files and then going.

[Lax]

It's a nice feature, but is it significantly different from the functionality you get from simple directory junctions?
I wouldn't say that junctions are "simple", and it is different in that it is dynamic and doesn't require additional folders. If you wanted a different configuration per Character and you have dozens of characters, you would have to make dozens of folders to use the junctions method. With virtual files, there's just another file in the original folder.


That does sound good, but one thing that worries my though. What is the performance difference between a full-size window resized to for instance 800*600 and one where the window is configured to run at 800*600 in WoW? Also, my main windows is 1920 * 1200, so if I set up my user interface to look decent in that resolution, scaling it down to 800*600 (or something similarly small) will make it too small to actually see what is on the screen :)
They run at the full resolution, so if you're running 1920x1200 main window and you have 4 800*600 smaller windows with Swap enabled, they're all going to run at 1920x1200. It's impossible to get the desired Swap speed without it. The effects can be mitigated by running at performance settings in game, and pointing the camera angle downward on your "other" characters (which subsequently also makes casting targeted AoE spells, among other things, much more convenient as well). I find that I don't need to see anything in my other windows most of the time anyway.


As for the user friendlyness, I bought a trial subscription yesterday and I find it pretty confusing. There are no standard buttons in the program - it looks nothing like standard windows/mac windows, which makes it a lot less intuitive. The setup is confusing and while the wizard will get you running fast, in order to utilize 100% of the programs potential, you have to spend just as much time learning to use it as I did in my time with HKN. In comparison, HKN is kind of hard to setup if you're not into programming - but once it's learned it's actually easier to use that most other programmes which require you to browse about for functionality in windows menus with poor or no documentation.Yeah, I'm not going to claim that the ISBoxer configuration interface is pretty, but it is pretty damn functional. I agree that it could have a better appearance, and the next generation software (in development) will be much better in this aspect.

The configuration is only as confusing as you want to make it -- for someone with complex ideas it will take more work. I can only imagine that your issues stem from liking your configuration a very specific way, and trying to immediately duplicate it in ISBoxer has a learning curve (which is one reason why a couple dozen people hang out in the ISBoxer chat room to share their ideas and help newcomers). Not everyone is the same, in fact most people have no idea how they want it set up, and are quite happy that the Quick Setup Wizard can get them up and running in a couple minutes, and then they can make tweaks later when they think of something else they want it to do. :)

[daviddoran]

O. M. G. W. T. F. B. B. Q. Fursphere software boxing? I think i just crapped my pants.....

I'm going to set up ISBoxer this weekend. I might switch back to one PC so I can use the window swapping, for PvP and questing, I bet it's invaluable.

I wish i started out on isboxer, seems like a way easier way to get started (watching the "get setup in 40 seconds" really sold me.

[Ualaa]

I started with Keyclone, and am currently using Keyclone.
I'm very tempted with ISBoxer features.

Honestly, Keyclone does everything I need.
However, I'd like superior mouse broastcasting, faster PiP swaps, automatic FTL, and the virtual files.

Not sure if I'll switch or not, but if I was starting from scratch it would be with ISBoxer.
GameCommander looks good too, but ISBoxer seems to have the most features I really like.

[Fuzzyboy]

I played with Innerspace/IS Boxer for the first time last night. Time to get basic broadcasting working for a single team? About 5 minutes.

Time to get 5 PCs sync'd together to "emulate" hardware boxing? About 20 minutes my first time. A chunk of that time was looking it up on the wiki.. everything I needed to know was there.

Its very easy once you understand how it works.

Yeah, like I said - getting the basic stuff isn't tricky, it's the advanced stuff from HKN I wasn't really able to convert in a pretty manner. I have nothing against learning curves though, I was simply trying to get an overview of the misc. boxing tools - seems HKN is still the application for me :-)

[Svpernova09]

I don't see myself going away from hardware boxing. Doesn't mean I don't want to explore all my options. :) (I'll probably end up with a hybrid setup though.. IS Boxer still has a few things I want to explore more)


/takes screenshot
/runs away

[5fingersofdoom]

Keyclone is great,I loved it and would recommend it to anyone thinking of boxing.
ISBoxer so far excellent I see it as suited to boxers who have a little more experience,and need more options in control.
HKN haven't used it.
Hope that helps.

[PhantomRogue]

I'm going to set up ISBoxer this weekend. I might switch back to one PC so I can use the window swapping, for PvP and questing, I bet it's invaluable.


The instant Switching and basically 1 click mouse repeating is what really sold me on ISBoxer. Ive used IS before for EQ and whatnot, but the ISBoxer actually brought me back to WoW because I wanted to try otu boxing. Running an i7 920 and 4 GB of RAM, I run 5 WoW's, iTunes , Firefox and IRC on the PC with ZERO lag.

Not sure if thats just overall processing power of the i7, but ISBoxer's frame rate limiter and Offscreen Resolution is very friendly for the single Machine users.

[zanthor]

It's a nice feature, but is it significantly different from the functionality you get from simple directory junctions?

Once configured it's 100% invisible. You can move your config from machine to machine without problems, doesn't require OS knowledge, etc.




That does sound good, but one thing that worries my though. What is the performance difference between a full-size window resized to for instance 800*600 and one where the window is configured to run at 800*600 in WoW? Also, my main windows is 1920 * 1200, so if I set up my user interface to look decent in that resolution, scaling it down to 800*600 (or something similarly small) will make it too small to actually see what is on the screen :)

There is a small performance h it to running all windows @ 1920x1200, but really if your machines running smoothly it's not likely to be a big difference. UI is totally irrelevant, the other windows swap so fast you'll give up trying to do anything on them since you can just make them full sized, and then do what you want and back...


As for the user friendlyness, I bought a trial subscription yesterday and I find it pretty confusing. There are no standard buttons in the program - it looks nothing like standard windows/mac windows, which makes it a lot less intuitive. The setup is confusing and while the wizard will get you running fast, in order to utilize 100% of the programs potential, you have to spend just as much time learning to use it as I did in my time with HKN. In comparison, HKN is kind of hard to setup if you're not into programming - but once it's learned it's actually easier to use that most other programmes which require you to browse about for functionality in windows menus with poor or no documentation.

Um, menus are standard on all GUi based OS's... Wizards menu, quick setup... 40 seconds later you can log in and kill shit.


I like the "fake" mouse pointers and the easier macro management, but I find ISBoxer / IS to be a bit user un-friendly and cluttered and not very intuitive compared to keyclone/HKN (I haven't tried GCP for more than 15 mins so I can't comment on that).

Because setting up FTL in KeyClone is so transparent... and I don't believe you are calling a SCRIPTING LANGUAGE more intuitive than ANY GUI.

Wow.

[zanthor]

Inner Space "calls home" when you launch the Inner Space program, and when you launch a game through it. If it can't connect, launching will not be successful. That's pretty much it, you don't get randomly disconnected while playing or anything like that (unless your connection to the game drops) -- the connection to my server is just for a second while launching. The primary license server currently has a 294.5 day uptime.

In another week I'll have been using IS exclusively for a year... in that time I've had exactly zero times that I've been unable to launch IS.

[zanthor]

/takes screenshot
/runs away

http://dkpfiles.com/botbh/pics/GOGLXg39Frlyds16fh1.jpg

[Eggy]

I started out with HKN for DAoC and WoW, it's pretty good, but when things get hectic it tended to que up my commands, or not even broadcast them to my game instances. The window swapping was pretty fast, but not instantly, would take about half a second to a second to swap, which ment slow reaction times.
I LOVE how easy and flexible it is to set up, though it might take some time to get everything just the way you want it, but once you get a hang of it it's pretty good. You can pretty much tailor it to your own needs. Mouse broadcasting is pretty good, even though I never was able to get it to show a cursor it still worked for things like aoe spell broadcasting. And it got a pretty solid community when/if you need help with anything freddy is pretty much there to help you out instantly.

But I'm actualy using Innerspace now, it's just too easy and too good to pass up on imo. Instant window swapping(pretty much a must in pvp), the mouse broadcasting is superb, it doesnt que up commands or occasionaly not broadcast them like HKN did for me.

Another thing which is a HUGE bonus is the virtual files, now I know it's possible to do this on your own and indepentently but you dont have to do jack for it to work. And it offers so much, having different addons loaded depending on toons, different gfx settings ect, and all you have to do is keep one wow updated. No muss, no fuss.

The keymaps is pretty flexible and easy to set up(Though I wish you could set conditional keys).

Anyway, suffice to say, I like both programs but I'm more then willing to pay for the superior product, which in my mind is Innerspace, even though Freddy does a really good job with HKN(Can't wait for HKN2).

[Eggy]

http://dkpfiles.com/botbh/pics/GOGLXg39Frlyds16fh1.jpg

Made me laugh :)

[rocnroll]

Like this? :) :)

67

[zanthor]

The keymaps is pretty flexible and easy to set up(Though I wish you could set conditional keys).

What are you trying to accomplish? I've not found anything I can't do with IS/ISboxer so far... so I'd be surprised if you can't solve this.

[Eggy]

What are you trying to accomplish? I've not found anything I can't do with IS/ISboxer so far... so I'd be surprised if you can't solve this.

Actualy, come to think of it, I take that back.

[Fuzzyboy]

Um, menus are standard on all GUi based OS's... Wizards menu, quick setup... 40 seconds later you can log in and kill shit

What are you talking about? Are you claiming that it's impossible to make a custom GUI on a GUI based OS? In that case I think you need to read up on your programming skills :-)


Because setting up FTL in KeyClone is so transparent... and I don't believe you are calling a SCRIPTING LANGUAGE more intuitive than ANY GUI.

Where did I write anything about FTL and Keyclone? And where did I say that a scripting language is intuitive? My point was simply that to set up HKN (which I assume is the scripting based program you're talking about), there's a pretty steep learning curve, especially if you wan't to use the program to it's full extent. With ISBoxer + toolkit it's easy to get up and running but if you want to do the advanced stuff, there seems to be as much of a learning curve as HKN - which is partially due to the interface.

I'm not bashing ISBoxer here, so don't take it too personal - I think $10 is a fair price for three months, but as far as I can tell, HKN just works better for me :-)

[Lax]

The keymaps is pretty flexible and easy to set up(Though I wish you could set conditional keys).

Conditional keys? If you want to elaborate maybe I can explain how you can accomplish what you're looking for. You can use a "Key Map Action" or "Mapped Key Action" to turn on or off different Key Maps or individual Mapped Keys (so for example if you have a mapped key set up on Alt+Q, you can disable it and turn on a different one that's on Alt+Q) if that helps. Otherwise I'm not quite sure what you meant :)

[zanthor]

And where did I say that a scripting language is intuitive? My point was simply that to set up HKN (which I assume is the scripting based program you're talking about), there's a pretty steep learning curve, especially if you wan't to use the program to it's full extent. With ISBoxer + toolkit it's easy to get up and running but if you want to do the advanced stuff, there seems to be as much of a learning curve as HKN - which is partially due to the interface.


I find ISBoxer / IS to be a bit user un-friendly and cluttered and not very intuitive compared to keyclone/HKN

Right there... HKN is a scripting language, and right there you said it's more intuitive than ISBoxer's GUI...

[Iceorbz]

The configuration is only as confusing as you want to make it -- for someone with complex ideas it will take more work. I can only imagine that your issues stem from liking your configuration a very specific way, and trying to immediately duplicate it in ISBoxer has a learning curve (which is one reason why a couple dozen people hang out in the ISBoxer chat room to share their ideas and help newcomers). Not everyone is the same, in fact most people have no idea how they want it set up, and are quite happy that the Quick Setup Wizard can get them up and running in a couple minutes, and then they can make tweaks later when they think of something else they want it to do. :)

lol amen to this, I have a "setup" that for some reason I cant function if not like it is now. Trying to replicate it in innerspace is very hard and difficult for me.

[Eggy]

Conditional keys? If you want to elaborate maybe I can explain how you can accomplish what you're looking for. You can use a "Key Map Action" or "Mapped Key Action" to turn on or off different Key Maps or individual Mapped Keys (so for example if you have a mapped key set up on Alt+Q, you can disable it and turn on a different one that's on Alt+Q) if that helps. Otherwise I'm not quite sure what you meant :)

Yeah, that was pretty much what I was on about, and like you explained that's what i figured I could do to solve it, though I havn't messed with it yet =)

[Fuzzyboy]

Where did I write anything about FTL and Keyclone? And where did I say that a scripting language is intuitive? My point was simply that to set up HKN (which I assume is the scripting based program you're talking about), there's a pretty steep learning curve, especially if you wan't to use the program to it's full extent. With ISBoxer + toolkit it's easy to get up and running but if you want to do the advanced stuff, there seems to be as much of a learning curve as HKN - which is partially due to the interface.


I find ISBoxer / IS to be a bit user un-friendly and cluttered and not very intuitive compared to keyclone/HKN
Right there... HKN is a scripting language, and right there you said it's more intuitive than ISBoxer's GUI...

You're playing the too-literal game, but if you insist: The fact that A > B only says something about the relative sizes of A and B - and nothing about their absolute values. Or: The fact that I find HKN more intuitive than ISBoxer does not imply that either are overly intuitive - simply that one is more intuitive than the other. And yes, I find a scripting language more intuitive than ISBoxer, _when it comes to the advanced features_.

[Bettysue]

Intuitive can easily apply to a scripting language especially when your computer background is taken into consideration. I work with UNIX all day at work, a GUI is non-existent for most of what I do, in fact I don't even have a mouse. So when I get home to the point and click world, I still find myself using keyboard shortcuts and arrow keys to get most things done.
Then scripting comes into play, I can look at HKN figure out what commands I have at my disposal and be up and running with full FTL in about 2 hours. Now that I have a base script setup, any new char, or even switching computers takes as little as a minute to copy paste the appropriate file over and DL+install HKN again.
I won't say that this is unique to any one of the programs, but each piece of software has its respective market. IS+ISBoxer looks amazing, I really like the idea or visible clues for mouse broadcasting. Other than that one feature I see nothing I can't do with HKN. Instant PiP swap is not taken into consideration for that statement, however, with good script management the difference can be made negligible, instant looks just like 55ms.
HKN can be daunting for non-programmers, but the demo scripts can have you running in seconds, much like the wizard setup for other software. Given the capabilities of the scripting language there is probably nothing you couldn't do with HKN, aside of course from graphical display components. A huge plus for me was HKN is free, as well as powerful, and well supported, like the other software options.
I also like the hands off approach HKN has, no macros or portions of the program that will fail should Blizz update or change a feature of the built in macro language. It just does it's job of sending keys and window management.

Keyclone, ISBoxer, and GCP all have decent GUIs that provide access to the real workings of each program. HKN is a simple scripting language that provides this same access. If you are a programmer or even just a computer hobbiest, I would say all of the above programs could get you to a functional state of boxing quite quickly. For advanced features the learning curve is probably the same GUI or otherwise. Remembering a command is just as difficult as remembering where on a menu a feature is. I think the real selling point for any of these boxing solutions is simply personal taste.

[Lax]

If scripting is your thing, ISBoxer is a configuration program + open source scripts (that run on Inner Space). There was no GUI until earlier this year, and if you don't want to use the GUI you also get "hands off"! ;)


Other than that one feature I see nothing I can't do with HKN. Instant PiP swap is not taken into consideration for that statement, however, with good script management the difference can be made negligible, instant looks just like 55ms.
That's two then, and I'd love to see you try to implement the other IS-exclusive features with HKN! I like the 55ms number you picked, but to be fair that'd be comparing worst case ISBoxer to best case HKN (or otherwise), and that's a bit disingenuous. Worst case HKN (being in a laggy area), with your good script management idea, is still going to be several seconds, compared to ISBoxer's worst case of probably 50-100ms in the same situation. I don't blame you though, it's hard to make the comparison without experiencing it yourself.

I take it as read that your personal preference leaned more toward the free part than any particular set of features :P

[Bettysue]

Free is quite hard to argue with...free and currently supported is indeed better. Currently HKN is doing this for me and meeting my needs.

I make no argument that IS outperforms the competition in the PiP market, those swaps are fast as hell and consistently so. 55ms was the lowest switch time I saw in Dalaran with HKN, I was using activewindow tracking in Windows to get that time. The highest time I saw was 230ms. ISBoxer did the same switch consistently at 42ms in the same conditions.