Octopus, an oldie but goodie. Need some input.

[Ghallo]

Ok guys, I just wanted to see if anyone out there is actually still using Octopus. I certainly am, but I'm curious if I am the only one. Just doing a quick poll.


If you used Octopus (more than just installing it, I mean used it) and you moved on - could you let me know what you moved on to (and a brief "why")?
And, if there was 1 thing you could change about Octopus, to make it better for YOU, what would it be?

Ghallo

[Fef]

I used Octopus for almost a year.

Then one of my accounts was hacked, I still don't know why to this day. Just after that, I bought a new computer, so I felt like taking a fresh start and purchased Keyclone. Reason was I could download from a trusted web site (well, I trust Keyclone's official web site), and it was cheap.

Honestly, the switch to Keyclone didn't bring anything to my multi-boxing experience, except for the ease of mind to think that it is most probably completely safe (I don't use round robin, I don't find it a convinient approach when playing several different groups with different keybinds).

I cannot wait to try Freddie's interfaced version of HKN !

[Ghallo]

Hmm, no one left that uses Octopus?

[WaffleFrie]

i still use octopus for a 5 box and dual box/dual pc. only thing i'm not outragiously happy with is that i can't get it to recognize a game with a launcher. i'd love to run a 5 box with hero online but just can't get it working :'(

[Marious]

Been using it since day 1, love it! Can't say I change anything on it, what I do with it, it works perfectly fine.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Yep, I'm still using it. Never seen a need for anything else.

As far as what I'd change, the only thing that comes to mind is automatic broadcast pausing while I'm chatting. But nobody has support for that, so it's not a big deal.

[Ghallo]

Ugh - you could set <enter> as your broadcast pause toggle (and then map it to itself so it does a pass-through>

Just a thought.

Here are some of the features I was thinking about:

Profile Creation Wizard (does what the current tool does, just creates the XML based on presets and a friendly wizard).
Profile Copy button (currently you need to manually change settings between profiles).
Allow keys to be "translated" on a per client basis. All of the other multiplexers do this. EG: "Shift-X" on this client becomes "1" on the other client.
This is the big one. Allow "regions" to be defined for the master window that EITHER became 1 click in another window offset (without keypress) OR translated into a single keypress which would then be broadcast per #3 (the idea here is I am playing my warrior, I click on the "make slave priest heal me" region and the priest receives a "Shift-Alt-2" keypress which causes the priest to cast a heal on the warrior.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Ugh - you could set <enter> as your broadcast pause toggle (and then map it to itself so it does a pass-through>

Just a thought.OK, but what happens when you type /r <message>? What if you're doing /1 "LOL NOOBS!" or /2 "WTB Titansteel Guardian x5 PST any of us." Those situations mean you have to have / or enter or backspace/reply or whatever all toggle chat mode on and then enter or escape toggle chat mode off, which isn't currently possible. :P Too easy to get out of sync.

[jddc78]

I 5 box with it as well. Fef, the same thing happened to me. Within a week of installing it someone hacked one of my accounts and I had to call to get it back. Leads me to think that the location we may have got it from is doing something fishy. But other than that isolated moment it has done everything I've needed it to do.

There are a few things that maybe I just don't know how to do that I would like.

1) Run in different resolutions. Currently if I change any of the resolutions on my clients it changes for all. I only run off of one WoW installation folder -> so using 2 different folders may take care of that for me.
2) Mouse broadcasting for AoE. Once again something that it may be able to do and I just don't know how.

If you guys know how to set that up I'd love to hear it!

[Pocalypse]

OK, but what happens when you type /r <message>? What if you're doing /1 "LOL NOOBS!" or /2 "WTB Titansteel Guardian x5 PST any of us." Those situations mean you have to have / or enter or backspace/reply or whatever all toggle chat mode on and then enter or escape toggle chat mode off, which isn't currently possible. :P Too easy to get out of sync.

HKN (as it is currrently) can support that, and it works very well.

Link (http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=23716)

[Ghallo]

I 5 box with it as well. Fef, the same thing happened to me. Within a week of installing it someone hacked one of my accounts and I had to call to get it back. Leads me to think that the location we may have got it from is doing something fishy. But other than that isolated moment it has done everything I've needed it to do.

There are a few things that maybe I just don't know how to do that I would like.

1) Run in different resolutions. Currently if I change any of the resolutions on my clients it changes for all. I only run off of one WoW installation folder -> so using 2 different folders may take care of that for me.
2) Mouse broadcasting for AoE. Once again something that it may be able to do and I just don't know how.

If you guys know how to set that up I'd love to hear it!

1) I currently run 1 client at 1920x1200 and the other 4 at 960x600. Works fine. Just go into the "Maximizer" setup and define the screen sizes - I'd recommend naming them things like "TopLeftx960x600" etc and then in the Profile manager you assign that toon to that maximizer. I can send screenshots tonight.
2) All you have to do is bind a key to "mouse broadcast" and then check the box on each client for "receives broadcast clicks" - then you can have them AOE with a single mouse click.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

1) Run in different resolutions. Currently if I change any of the resolutions on my clients it changes for all. I only run off of one WoW installation folder -> so using 2 different folders may take care of that for me.
Try looking up the symlinked folder (or NTFS junction points) methods for running multiple wow folders with a single base install. I use the junction point method and aside from a few minutes of extra work on patch days, it works like a champ.


2) Mouse broadcasting for AoE. Once again something that it may be able to do and I just don't know how.

If you guys know how to set that up I'd love to hear it!
If you want to setup mouse cursor broadcasting where the _cursor_ moves on all clients, I can't help ya. If you just want click broadcasting for casting Blizzard/Treants/Flamestrike/bombs/etc., just enable it and add your mouse keys that you want to use to the server-->Clicks list. Assuming you're using 1.35 or later, it should work fine. If you need a process for setting it up, let me know. I've been meaning to set up a click broadcast section in my tutorial but just haven't gotten around to it.

[edit] Caveat Emptor: you need to have all your wows set to the same UI scale and video mode aspect ratio for the clicks to be accurate. Check out my post here for the basic stuff to check if you're having problems with mouse clicking not being accurate in Octopus.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?p=77201

[Rhod]

I've used Octopus for a couple years now. I'm very comfortable with it and best of all, it works with my Windows 7 64-Bit "Server" Machine and my other 32-bit Windows XP "client" machines without a hitch. (Minus the little UAC junk you have to do).

One thing I would like to see is a "quick" profile change setting. I have pretty unique keybinds which are centered around being able to play my other "boxed" toons on my main computer solo without changing a bunch of keybindings. I have one profile for "normal" boxing and another for "mounted" combat. It would be cool if I could hit a quickkey and change my profile instead of through the dropdown menu.

[zanthor]

Ugh - you could set <enter> as your broadcast pause toggle (and then map it to itself so it does a pass-through>

Problems with that...

/ to start chatting instead of enter.
R to reply
enter to repeat last chat type

I've never worked out a reliable way to toggle broadcasting while chatting.

[Thulos]

Been using it for a year and a half 5 boxing across two computers. There are two bugs I get from time to time that are annoying. The first is every once in a while a key get stuck, but its usually pretty easy to fix. Its not so annoying unless it is the Control key and then the d key toggles sound on and off for a few seconds until I get it unstuck. The second bug is octopus sometimes crashes when it loads on bootup.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

The second bug is octopus sometimes crashes when it loads on bootup.That's not an octopus bug -- it's a bug in the way DLLs load in .NET Framework. I've seen it with other .NET start-on-boot apps.

[WaffleFrie]

lol i figured out my launcher issue, didn't have "auto add windows" on DEE DEE DEE. as for any kind of update, last i knew the person that made it killed the project and ended the open source on it as well. that was about a year ago that i saw this news, so hopefully he's picked it back up! a quick profile switch would be extremely handy for me as i try to multibox alot of different games(anyone play some games that are f2p/micro transaction/trial to certain lvl that i could try out)

[Sethra]

I still use Octopus.

However, a while back when I installed the Win 7 public beta on my new machine, the X-Keys/Octopus combination seemed to act weird. Single key broadcasting worked fine, but if I bound two keys together at once (i.e. ctrl-F1) then it wouldn't broadcast anymore.

I do get the very occasional random crash, but it's so rare that I don't care.

[Ghallo]

Single key broadcasting worked fine, but if I bound two keys together at once (i.e. ctrl-F1) then it wouldn't broadcast anymore.


I had this problem too with my XKeys. I went to each key and did the following:
Add the "on-release" checkbox
Put Ctrl-F1 in both the top box and the buttom box
insert "Key Down" at the end of the top box line
insert "Key Up" at the end of the bottom box line.

[Ghallo]

Well, I'm not totally sure how far I am going to go with this, but I talked with Skarlot (the original author of Octopus) and purchased the source tree for both Octopus and Interbox. I am not a dev, but I've been looking at this and figured I could make the simple changes necessary.

But Octopus is a very complicated application. I must say it is well organized code-wise, but it is very daunting to look at.

[Mamut]

I have been using Octopus since i started boxing ages ago, and i still use it. Click regions is a great idea to make healing easier on an alt but other then that i wouldn't change anything.

Wonder what happened to skarlot?

[WaffleFrie]

Well, I'm not totally sure how far I am going to go with this, but I talked with Skarlot (the original author of Octopus) and purchased the source tree for both Octopus and Interbox. I am not a dev, but I've been looking at this and figured I could make the simple changes necessary.

But Octopus is a very complicated application. I must say it is well organized code-wise, but it is very daunting to look at.

ghallo can i say that i love you in the most non-homo way? :p if i had any idea how to help i def. would,but i'm just a drunk that plays video games while everyone else is asleep :rolleyes:. speaking of which, i need another beer!

[Ghallo]

Thanks for the kind words ... I think :)

I'm looking at the Mojo project right now and that looks very impressive. Freddie's made a lot of progress in very short order. If he's willing, I may just direct my effort in that direction - but I'm not sure if I am good enough at programming yet.

If I do make changes to Octopus, it will take me time, as I'm slow.

[Ghallo]

Ok, so I have a build of Octopus (I'm calling it 1.3.8b until I make some REAL changes)

Done:

Profile Copy button (currently you need to manually change settings between profiles).
Need:

Somewhere to host the files.
Someone to help test this.
To Do:

Profile Creation Wizard (does what the current tool does, just creates the XML based on presets and a friendly wizard).
Allow keys to be "translated" on a per client basis. All of the other multiplexers do this. EG: "Shift-X" on this client becomes "1" on the other client.
This is the big one. Allow "regions" to be defined for the master window that EITHER became 1 click in another window offset (without keypress) OR translated into a single keypress which would then be broadcast per #3 (the idea here is I am playing my warrior, I click on the "make slave priest heal me" region and the priest receives a "Shift-Alt-2" keypress which causes the priest to cast a heal on the warrior.
(zanthor) Handle "chat functions to pause broadcasting" - "r", "/" and "Enter" to trigger the pause and "Enter" or "Escape" to release the pause (I'll make this an option under "toggles" - someone suggest a button title?
(Rhod,WaffleFrie) Quick Profile Switch

Need more information here - how do you see this working? Think about how you'd want the menu to look and work with the rest of Octopus. Do you mean just the KeyList/Whitelist/Blacklist? How would the profile be triggered? If you have the time - draw something up in msPaint or something, a picture is worth a ton!

Round Robin (is this needed/wanted? I've never really used this, but I guess it could be possible to include).
(WaffleFrie) Not recognizing "a game with a launcher" - do you mean for maximizer? I've never played around with WoW through the launcher so I'm not sure.

[Khemikal]

I'm still using Octopus. I do have to say I haven't used the other multiplexers out there yet, so my opinion is very biased. Being a programmer I've thought about trying HKN, but if what I have works, why switch? I'm still waiting for the 'read my mind' option however. :D

[Freddie]

I've never tried Octopus but I have a very good impression of it from things people say here. And also from things Skarlot said here while he was writing it.

I'd like to include Octopussy featurers in Mojo. The first things I'm putting into Mojo are (1) automatic key broadcast to all WoW windows and (2) mouseover (KM) like in Kavoom and Synergy.

Broadcast is already in, and hopefully mouseover will be published tomorrow.

I'm not sure how much these things are like Octopus, but if Octopus users test Mojo as it develops, and if they give me feedback telling me how to make it more like Octopus, I'll probably keep adding features in that direction.

[Ghallo]

Freddie ... if you PM me we can talk.

While I absolutely love Octopus (enough to buy the source!) what I really want is a tool that does everything *I* want ;)

From what I have seen the code looks good. Ironically Skarlot seemed very embarrassed by it, but I've seen many projects that ran in the millions for dev that had much worse code. I'm not much of a programmer and yet I was still able to get the modifications I added to work. I can't even look at LUA without getting cross-eyed.

Right now I'm trying to figure out this whole "Publish" thing. I know what you mean about clickonce. I can't get the darn thing to allow me to pick an install directory. I myself am enough of a control freak that I don't want some app deciding for itself where to install on my machine - so I don't want to "Publish" an Octopus that I feel has such a flaw. I could just send out the .exe but I'd really like to just have a single installer that makes it easy the way Skarlot did.

[Freddie]

Heh, I understand Skarlot's attitude all too well. Many times over the years I've refused to give away source code because it didn't meet some internal standard of mine. Even though the program worked fine and the code was good enough for its purpose.

I had the same reaction to ClickOnce as you when I first encountered it. After banging my head against the wall I finally paid attention to what the ClickOnce team was saying about their intentions.

With ClickOnce (assuming we're talking about web deployment) the app is like a web page. ClickOnce is like a browser. A ClickOnce pseudo-shortcut (they aren't real shortcuts, you may not have noticed that yet) is like a bookmark on a favorites list.

The local copy of the app is like a browser's temporarily cached local copy of a web page.

The real copy of the the app is on the web. (Again, assuming we're talking about web deployment.)

I've actually gotten to like this idea a lot. It's perfect for Mojo during its alpha/beta because I'll be putting out 2 or 3 new builds a week for months, and ClickOnce automatically updates the cached "page."

It's also incredibly easy to make a ClickOnce installer. Takes just a couple of minutes with Visual Studio.

I'll send you a PM.

[WaffleFrie]

ok, it's not like a "quick switch" really for me. best way to explain is when you have your profile set in the status screen like say i've got my "hero 2 box" all my maximizers and all keys everything like that set and then i want to play my shattered galaxy 5box so when i change the profile it'd change all my stuff over so i don't have to change over keys clicks and everything else. i guess you could call that a quick switch of sorts.

also having all the game clients show up on the client list would be really handy as far as running multiple pc's instead of just the clients running on that computer so you can customize a little eaiser.

OH and ummm instances, when it auto adds a window it says OK that one is waffleFriesL next one opened is WaffleFriesi and assigns the maximizer and recieves keys/clicks/whatever. that'd be the most handy thing for me, because i can't run the instances because Hero Online has a launcher that keeps me from running it from octo, so my maximizer won't apply to it.

[Sethra]

I had this problem too with my XKeys. I went to each key and did the following:
Add the "on-release" checkbox
Put Ctrl-F1 in both the top box and the buttom box
insert "Key Down" at the end of the top box line
insert "Key Up" at the end of the bottom box line.

Seems to be working now.

Thanks!

[Rhod]

I had this problem too with my XKeys. I went to each key and did the following:
Add the "on-release" checkbox
Put Ctrl-F1 in both the top box and the buttom box
insert "Key Down" at the end of the top box line
insert "Key Up" at the end of the bottom box line.

To add to this sub topic: I had a similar problem when I upgraded to 7 from XP Pro with my G15 keys. The key profiler, that starts up when your computer starts, needs to be shut down and restarted as "Run as Administrator." This fixed the problem with my G keys not functioning.

[olibri1]

I have used Octopus since shortly after it was created. I like it a lot, and it works pretty well. My biggest problem has been simultaneous key-presses with key modifiers causing strange behavior. For example, if I broadcast shift-z and am hitting '2' at the same time, then sometimes this ends up as shift-2. I don't know how the key-broadcasting works, but I would have expected that the ASCII value actually gets sent as opposed to the individual keys, which may not have caused this problem.

I like Octopus enough that I'd have paid for it. Unfortunately it takes so much work to integrate that kind of program that you don't know for a long time whether it will work for you or not.

FYI: I use Octopus, hotkeynet, Autohotkey, xkeys, and a logitech g15 for my multi-boxing.

[Rhod]

Ghallo - Something on the main page which has a button for up to may be 5 profiles. I personally would only need 2, I just put 5 up for image symmetry.

The way I see it working is one would set up their "main" profile under "profile 1." Then set up any additional profiles they would need based on preference. Then in the button next to the drop down menu, have a keybind menu for "quick-changing" any "built" profiles.

Then if I had Profile 1 bound to Alt-F10, and Profile 2 bound to Alt-F11, I could quickly change between the two.

The UI image I used is from build 1.3.2. I use 1.3.8 which has a different UI, but hopefully you'll get what I have in mind.

Thanks for checking this out by the way!

[species6729]

I have been using Octopus for a long time. I am just getting back into WOW after taking a few months off. Trying to setup Octopus to play a 5 box team. I think I got it to work 90% of the time. Still have some problems with Mouse Broadcasting to cast AOE from my 4 mage.

I am trying to follow Ghallo and Ughmahedhurtz advice but I am still doing something wrong. This is what I am setting up in Octopus 1.3.5f

1, Go to " Server" tab, then to "Clicks" tab.
2, Name a New profile "my mouse clicks"
3 , I have a Wolf King Gaming Mouse with 4 button + a scroll wheel. I am able to get Octopus to add "Btn1, Btn2, and Btn4" to my profile.
4, On my 4 Mage I have bind "6" with my "Blizzard" spell.
5, In order to cast "Blizzard" from my 4 mage. I need to press "6" (all my mage has the AOE ready), Left click or use Btn4 from my main to where I want to cast the spell but nothing happen. All my mage still has the blue circle out but no one cast the spell. I can either click on each of my mage screen, then left click on the area, then the mage will cast the spell.

Did I miss a step somewhere.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I have been using Octopus for a long time. I am just getting back into WOW after taking a few months off. Trying to setup Octopus to play a 5 box team. I think I got it to work 90% of the time. Still have some problems with Mouse Broadcasting to cast AOE from my 4 mage.

I am trying to follow Ghallo and Ughmahedhurtz advice but I am still doing something wrong. This is what I am setting up in Octopus 1.3.5f

1, Go to " Server" tab, then to "Clicks" tab.
2, Name a New profile "my mouse clicks"
3 , I have a Wolf King Gaming Mouse with 4 button + a scroll wheel. I am able to get Octopus to add "Btn1, Btn2, and Btn4" to my profile.
4, On my 4 Mage I have bind "6" with my "Blizzard" spell.
5, In order to cast "Blizzard" from my 4 mage. I need to press "6" (all my mage has the AOE ready), Left click or use Btn4 from my main to where I want to cast the spell but nothing happen. All my mage still has the blue circle out but no one cast the spell. I can either click on each of my mage screen, then left click on the area, then the mage will cast the spell.

Did I miss a step somewhere.Yes. Blizzard is a two-button spell. First click pops up the ground targeting circle and can be a macro or regular button, doesn't have to be a mouse. 2nd click is the one you want to click broadcast as that one confirms the location of the ground target and starts channeling the spell.

[Ghallo]

In Octopus you can add a toggle for Mouse Broadcasting. Bind that to a button, set it to "Toggle". Then, after hitting 6 in your example, you hold that button down and click the mouse on the main's screen where you want it to cast.


Note: I am going to do some more work on this app, I've just been having too much fun playing :)

[geko77]

Hi Ghallo, are you still around? I was wondering if you ever got Octopus updated and posted somewhere to download? I'm particularly interested in having the .NET crash at launch fixed and also the issue of when your computers wake from sleep where your cursor goes to a secondary screen and is stuck there.