What can ISBoxer do better than Hotkeynet?

[valle2000]

I'm currently using hotkeynet and Jamba addon.
But I often hear about ISBoxer. Have anyone here used hotkeynet and changed to ISBoxer? If yes, why and what (in your personal opinion) are the advantages? What can ISBoxer do which hotkeynet can not?

[Svpernova09]

I've never used hotkeynet, however ISBoxer has damn near 24/7 live support via IRC. If Lax himself isn't there to answer you, typically someone else is.

[Ualaa]

Ditto, have not used HKN so cannot comment on that specifically.

The phenomenal support level, would be the top reason to switch.
Or to try a free 7-day trial of IS Boxer.

What might be different...?



IS Boxer runs on Inner Space.
Inner Space resides between the game and the operating system.
So it can do things like prevent the game from repositioning the windows, while the game thinks it has done that.
It can have a game think that each window has focus, for games where you cannot do things unless that window has focus (has been clicked upon).
You can box a lot more games with IS/ISBoxer, than anything else.

As far as IS Boxer itself.
The tools/language you're working with is fairly simple, once you've played around with it for a bit.
The actions are called Mapped Keys; they're grouped into Keymaps.
You can set a hotkey for these, or not... if another mapped key will be what activates it.
They can have more than one step, a step being what occurs on sequential presses of the same key.
Add another step with Right Click, Add Step; the same as many Windows menu options.
There are a variety of actions to choose from.

IS Boxer has its own addon, which translates macros created with it, to wow macros.
You can exceed the 255 character limit, without the need for another addon.
The wizard gets you a working FTL assist, with zero effort on your part.
You can set up dynamic formations, where the other characters all move away from the current character, without changing keybinds in game from the defaults.

You can have a mapped key execute things on Press or Release, and to hold Keystroke Actions while a key is held.
Basically, if you wanted, you could Load a Keymap on Press, and Unload it on Release.
Which would let any key function as a modifier key.
Also, anything off of the GCD can be executed on say Press, with something else on the GCD on Release; the whole 2-Step Mercurio Macros are easily implemented with two step mapped keys.

Most of the G15, G11, and similar keyboards are supported by IS Boxer.
If they're not, Lax is fast to add them with a fairly simple process.
There are threads on the isboxer site for that.

Repeater Regions can be constructed with HKN.
Khatovar demonstrated how, on the thread: "How to Earthquake".
However, instead of guessing at coordinates, and playing around until you get it right.
With IS Boxer, you choose the targets (or the Action Target Group which is the target) right there as you're making the region (choose from a drop down box).
Then create the region.
Position it, and drag the edges to resize it, until it is perfect as you want it to be.
Then press sync, save as auto, and close the GUI tool.
Done.

Lax constantly adds new features.
For example take a look at Video Feeds.
There is a link in the Blog for that.
MiRai put together the video and Fenril posted it.
Basically if you want a feature, Lax is very good as either adding it or letting you know how you could achieve it through the existing tools.
Most of the examples I used in my Guide (my signature), were questions I had posed to Lax on how I could do something.

TLDR - Most of the things are easier to configure, you don't need to understand the scripts, the wizard does a bunch for you, the support rocks and the product has constant evolution and improvement.

[Aragent]

I started with HKN and HKN2 and Mojo

HKN can do most of what ISboxer does but you must do most of the scripting

Both have good designers with very good Support

ISboxer (easer to setup for the avrage user)
HKN (Lot of pre done scripts to get you started)

Best way to explain it Windows 7 Vs Linux both great programs however ones usuallly requires more work to set up and get running (however if your and advanced user then more than likey you can get both to do the same thing.)

ISboxer I found tends to handle singel PC multiple account play and window (pip) switching better than HKN and is easer to set up and has a better GUI

HKN I think handles multpule PCs (running accounts across multiplepcs) better than ISBoxer at curent though I know lax is working on making it easer in ISboxer.

As I stated if your advanced and can get into the script level they both offer a lot, and the playing field starts to equalise at that point.

[Jafula]

I changed from HKN to ISBoxer specifically for the click bars in ISBoxer. HKN has/had a similar feature, but I could not get the click bars to stay on top of my WoW windows, making them useless. With video feeds and automatic FTL, I can't go back. HKN switches windows just as fast as ISBoxer IMHO, so that was never a consideration for me. It's nice not to have to script everything either!

[Sam DeathWalker]

Go to the macro section and read the Two Step Macro stickys at the top.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=33080

IsBoxer is blowing everything else away atm.

[Kicksome]

Props to Hotkeynet. It's actually really good and it's FREE. It took me quite a bit of time to configure, but it can do some pretty neat stuff.

However, nothing even comes close to ISBoxer. It's a no-brainer to buy it. Well worth the money, it's the best part of my multiboxing setup, and also by far the cheapest. I can't imagine multiboxing without it now.

[Apps]

I looked at a lot of software before settling on ISBoxer.

There is one MAIN reason why I went ISB... Lax.

You can not ignore, for the price, a live person, ready and with the answer you need. The support is unmatched. Seriously, look at it from a new boxers perspective. This stuff "can" get quite confusing. And when you start, whats the first thing you want to do? Make and team and kill something... so you can say to yourself "well, cool! aint this some shit!"

Lax was there. Granted, sometimes I needed to wait 20-30 mins, or a fill in (Ualaa for example), would help me out. Done. Back to learning the software.

Now, I know it so well, and understand the programming intent... I cant possibly fathom, going through new startups and NOT having the support you get equal to Lax.

No contest.

[mikekim]

Biggest differences i have found between HKN and ISBoxer:

I found ISBoxer to have quite a steep learning curve for some of the not so basic items - be prepared to do some head scratching, but the support (as everyone else here has mentioned here) is fantastic. I found HKN to be quite straight forward, as i have spent a 10+ years dealing with scripting.

Automatic generation of slave spells for assist - just drop the spells onto the bars and ISBoxer does the hard work for you.

FTL is so easy to setup - just run the wizard it does it all for you.

Instant switching of windows.

Seamless integration with Jamba.


Don't get me wrong HKN is a great free product, but ISBoxer is in another league... well worth the money

[BitBam]

Sorry if this necro is upsetting but i feel like none of these answers really are what the original question (at least if i was asking it) are correctly addressing what sort of information i require. now i'd like to ask the same question but address the what sort of answer is needed here. its clear that isboxer and hkn are capable of similar things, and that isboxer is a world times easier, friendlier and u can go talk to the guy who created it if u have questions. but that doesnt mean that hkn isnt incapable of the things isboxer is. or is it? and thats the question i want answered.

ease of use aside, need for asking the creator "how to" questions that are most def answered somewhere else on the internet. i want to know if isboxer is capable of anything relating to the actual multiboxing side of things that hkn simply cannot do.

my question is a little different from the OP but i think its what anyone searching google would be wanting the answer too.

[Dadjitsu]

I started multiboxing with HKN and its great as everyone else has stated, BUT its no longer really supported, information on how todo the more obscure and complex tasks, is hard to come by. If you have programming/scripting experience and you know oops and understand abstraction and your prepared to spend weeks getting HKN to do all the stuff that Isboxer can do then stick with it.

If you want to do that in Isboxer, the wizard will have you running in 5 mins, that was my experience with using Isboxer to create a 5 man team for wow.
I don't think anyone is going to tell you command by command the differences, but the main thing that Isboxer can do that HKN cannot is edit a team in game and apply the changes live using Isboxer that is the IDE (interface development environment) for innerspace (the actual program that does all the smart stuff).
go check the wikki http://isboxer.com/wiki/Main_Page
have a look at MiRai's videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWYUvNGoEQI
you dont get that with HKN

[MiRai]

Sorry if this necro is upsetting but i feel like none of these answers really are what the original question (at least if i was asking it) are correctly addressing what sort of information i require. now i'd like to ask the same question but address the what sort of answer is needed here. its clear that isboxer and hkn are capable of similar things, and that isboxer is a world times easier, friendlier and u can go talk to the guy who created it if u have questions. but that doesnt mean that hkn isnt incapable of the things isboxer is. or is it? and thats the question i want answered.

ease of use aside, need for asking the creator "how to" questions that are most def answered somewhere else on the internet. i want to know if isboxer is capable of anything relating to the actual multiboxing side of things that hkn simply cannot do.

my question is a little different from the OP but i think its what anyone searching google would be wanting the answer too.
If you're looking for an ultra-specific breakdown in the form of a table or something along those lines, then I'm going to assume that it doesn't exist, and only someone who is intimately familiar with both HKN and ISBoxer can give a truly informative answer.

As someone who has never used HKN, I can tell you that it cannot broadcast the mouse in realtime across each game client, and it lacks a feature similar to ISBoxer's VideoFX. I'm sure there are plenty of other little quality of life features along the way where ISBoxer trumps HKN, outside of the whole GUI thing, but I do not have those specifics, and if you're strictly looking to broadcast a keystroke to several game clients, then both programs do just that.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I don't think HKN has the macro step management ("Do not progress to the next step for X seconds," "Reset to step 1 after X seconds from first/last keypress," custom step series routing, etc.) that ISBoxer provides, though that might be something you could eventually figure out depending on the script language. The macro logic management makes collapsing your DPS down to one key manageable, if extremely tedious getting things figured out initially, especially for mixed teams.

[EaTCarbS]

Pretty sure you can create delays with HKN, it just takes some work. ISboxer is definately the easier of the 2 to use.