keyclone v1.3a -- hot off the compiler and very alpha

[keyclone]

edit: Please post comments on the new thread
http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums2/viewtopic.php?t=696

moderator: please lock thread

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** this is an alpha... not 100% ready, but functionally viable **

ok, i said i'd have the hotstrings, and here it is... with a few more items.

o new setup dialog
o active / suspended window indicators
o tray icon
o command strings (50% at the moment.. cute to look at, useless otherwise)
o keymaps and hotstrings
o right click menu for clones (this is how you associate the keymaps)

issue:

o the shift/ctrl/alt issue is still there, but with the new hotstrings, it might be enough until i fix it

so for all you keycloners that want to try it, pull this link and proceed normally:

ALPHA: https://solidice.com/keyclone/keyclone_v1.3a_18jul2007a.exe

you can always revert by pulling the version on the main page and installing over the alpha.

http://solidice.com/keyclone/keyclone_v1.3a_001.jpg
http://solidice.com/keyclone/keyclone_v1.3a_002.jpg
http://solidice.com/keyclone/keyclone_v1.3a_003.jpg

[Mannyman]

Nice job:) I'll definitely play around with it later today, too tired to do anything now. The suspended window thing is a nice surprise and looks useful already, at least to me. I control my priest with voice commands, so being able to leave 1 window away without manually adding others is nice.

Looking forward to playing around with the keybindings:)

[keyclone]

voice commands?? hadn't thought of that. how does it work?

[Mannyman]

There are at least 3-4 voice command programs out there. They all do the same thing, you say a command, it presses Ctrl-U or whatever you specify to carry out your command. It's a lot easier for me to say "Heal me" or "Renew so and so" then to reach for a button. Especially in a 5 man group.

[keyclone]

i've programmed voice activated stuff before, just never thought anyone would want it for a game.

hmmm... tie your 'heal me' voice prompt to alt-ctrl-h (or something unused).. and tie that to 'healer.heal.<character name>'.. and only the healers would have that string hooked up.. which would target you and trigger heal. interesting

[Mannyman]

The hotstrings idea is interesting. And a unique way of handling modifier keys. Just got to playing around with it for a bit. Since I'm playing different classes, I'm assigning hotstrings into something like caster.rangespell, which would tell the mage to shoot fireball, and the lock to cast shadowbolt. Same thing with 30 min buffs like demon armor, arcane intellect, fortitude, etc. I likey:)

I'm currently remaking my group, possibly into warrior and priest, then elemental shaman, mage and lock. The latter 3 would share similar keybindings, like lightning bolt, fireball/frostbolt, and shadowbolt. Mage is about is as simple as you get pve-wise, so he'd need only a few buttons for everyday use. Warrior abilites would fit in fine on my N52 with what I have in mind, now I just have to figure out what to do with totems, warlock specials, etc.

I'm working on an idea for the N52, shift states, and Bartender 3 to tie everything in nicely. I originally thought all different classes for 5 boxing would be wicked tough, but I think I could whip up an interface where I could access everything needed right off the warrior's screen.

This'll give me a chance to put the alpha KC to the test as well. Will get back to you in a few days:)

[zanthor]

One feature I'd like is an "Exclude Windows" or "Exact Match" option on windows to clone to...

Last night I kept finding:
Thottbot: World of Warcraft - Mozilla Firefox

In my list!

[keyclone]

np

adding to the list...

[zanthor]

Having a bit of trouble understanding the functionality of the Alpha...

The obvious part is how to load a keymap for an instance of WoW... The part I'm having problems with is the keymap editor.

I've created a keymap but I'm not sure how you are supposed to set those up...

I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if these features aren't working on Vista.

[Hypermoo]

Keyclone,

I am very interested in buying what you have, but I'm a little nervous about going to software route.

Here is part of an e-mail I received recently form WoW tech support:



From what I understand, you would be using a program to issue commands to multiple accounts with a single keystroke. To be perfectly honest, there is a chance that you would not be caught while using this program.

However, please keep in mind that the use of a third-party program to control or interface with World of Warcraft in any way can be detected by the World of Warcraft game client and our servers, which may result in the closure of your accounts. I personally recommend that you do not use any third-party programs to interface with or control World of Warcraft if you want to ensure the safety of your accounts and characters.


That being said, does your method interface directly with WoW? I don't want all the details, but a little explanation for how you send keystrokes to multiple windows would be cool (I apologize if you already discussed this, and I missed it). I'm willing to take some risk, but I'd rather not have all my accounts closed.

[keyclone]

keyclone is not written specifically for any windows programs. it is written to be generic and work with any application. it's as close to splitting a keyboard cable you can get without hardware.

keep in mind, technically your web browser displaying thotbot is a 3rd party app that effects your game play... it's all quite grey.

also keep in mind that keyclone is NOT for unattended macroing. it simply will not do it. (and sitting still with an AFK over your head in WoW would result)

one more thing to remember... you need a new WoW account for every character you have. its in their best interest for you to multi box.. hell, i'm sure they'd love it if everyone two-box'd at least.

[keyclone]

zanthor,
in order for the hotstrings to work, you would create multiple keymaps. it basically translates a key to a string (hotstring).. broadcasts to all clients... which will look the hotstring up in the associated keymap. if the current hotstring is not in the map (healer would not have 'mage.ranged_attack').. then it will be ignored. if it finds the hotstring, it will send the associated key to that window.

active_machine[ map(key) -> string ] ::>broadcast<:: machine_X[ unmap(string) -> key ]

for example:

desc: leader
map( ctrl-F1 ) hs( mage.1.ranged_attack )
map( alt-F1 ) hs( mage.2.ranged_attack )
map( alt-ctrl-z ) hs( healer.heal_leader )

then you have 2 other maps:

desc: mage.1
map( F1 ) hs( mage.1.ranged_attack )

desc: mage.2
map( F1 ) hs( mage.2.ranged_attack )

each mage has F1 tied to their ranged attack (fireball / ice bolt/ etc) key.
when you hit ctrl-F1, the hotstring "mage.1.ranged_attack" is broadcast... and since only one character (mage 1) has a keymap for that hotstring, only that character will fire. the other will just ignore it

note the 'alt-ctrl-z' keymap... that would be for your healers.. only they would map that hotstring, and it would target the leader then heal (wow macro potentially tied to F1 for the healer).

thoughts?

[Mannyman]

Let's say you bind CTRL-Y for mage's fireball on your main window. You would name that to "fireball" or whatever you name it in the keymap editor. Then in the other window where it lists all the WoW's you are running, right click on the WoW window that your mage is playing.

Start up a keymap for that one, use the whatever hotstring name you designated for fireball, and bind a key for it(can be a different key than the original binding). So when you hit the keybinding for fireball in your main WoW screen, keyclone will send out the name "fireball", not the keybinding you used.

Let's say I play a druid as my main, and I bind keys for priest heal, mage fireball, warlock shadowbolt etc. When I hit a keybinding for any one of those actions, it'll broadcast that action to everyone, but each class will act on their commands only. So when fireball gets sent out, everyone except the mages will ignore the command. When I call for priest heal, only the priest will act, etc.

So while this doesn't offer modifier key broadcasting directly, this is a good system to use in the meanwhile.

I've had long days at work this week, so I haven't had the chance to play with it as much as I wanted to. And I've been tinkering with my 5 man team quite a bit. But I thought I'd put something up to help explain how the new hotstrings work.

Hope that helped.

[keyclone]

thanks manny. what do you think? do you like it? any thoughts?

[overkil2]

thanks manny. what do you think? do you like it? any thoughts?

I like it in theory.

I haven't had the opportunity to play around with it yet, but I'll try to give it a shot soon.

[Mannyman]

I like it a lot. For $10, this is a serious bargain.


I haven't had much time to play WoW since Wedneday, been working 14-16 hours the last few days. My thoughts so far:


- The documentation could be a bit better, I had to refer to previous threads to fully understand what you were doing in the alpha version. I could see where new users would be lost without some more explanation.


- After reading the other thread to understand the hotstring concept, it was a breeze to setup. I literally had my commands set up in 20 minutes for all 5 toons. I 5 boxed with the alpha, all toons up to level 12 so far, and I haven't had a problem yet.


- I like the "hotstring" idea. It makes total sense, and greatly eases trying to remember which keybind is for what machine/character. Especially useful when leveling up, since I can pull up the menu and clearly see what class abilities are keybound, and which ones would I need to add.


- I made macros for the other 4 classes (I am experimenting with playing a warrior/pally as the main), and I match up the picture with the ability, so it's just like I'm clicking on that ability in their screen. Except I put them on all my warrior's screen for easy access. Mage fireball looks like the fireball button on a mage's toolbar, etc. In most cases, I leave the actual macro command line blank, I just bind that macro picture to the hotstring associated with it. So when I want my mage to bust out a fireball, I click on the fireball macro(or locally keybind it), and away he shoots. Hell of a lot easier I think. Similar setup for other class abilities.


- I'm curious to know what you have in mind for the command editor tab section:)


- Is there some way to add a rename window title ability? When I have 3-4 WoW windows up, I'd like to rename them, within Keyclone, to the different classes. So instead of seeing 3 WoW's in the list, I would see Mage Priest Warlock.


- The mouse click idea from the other thread would be nice to consider some day. Not necessary, but would be a nice bonus.



I can't think of much else, I'm dead tired at the moment. I'm gonna roll new toons on Mag in the next day or 2, and I'll get a chance to fiddle with it some more:)

[keyclone]

re: better docs
after i get passed the alpha, i will be putting up a page to describe it. (also want / need to update/improve the keyclone page... it seriously needs a rewrite)

re: made macros for other 4 classes
can you give an example of the hotstrings you used?

re: command editor
patience young grasshopper, patience ;)

re: is there a way to rename a window added to keyclone
yes.. just left click on the description in keyclone and an edit box will appear. type whatever you want and hit <enter> when done

re: mouse clicks
yes... the more i think about it, the more i'd probably also like it. (i added it to the list)

any more ideas, please keep em coming.

btw, how do you find the response time? on another thread someone was saying something about software solutions being laggy when the cpu load is high... i have never had a noticeable issue. How about you?

[zanthor]

How about a partial override mode... a mode that only passes keymapped keys.

I use 1-0,- and = for each of my main toolbars and am using the keymaps to pass those when I press G1-18 (with the G-Keys setup to be CTRL or ALT key combo's). For most of my hunting I could live without broadcasting anything but those keys...

It took me a bit to figure out why every time I hammer of justiced something both mages would sheep the bastard too!

[Bena]

Any ideas when the ctrl/shift/alt key will be supported? Would love to see mouse buttons and wheel as well.

[keyclone]

re: partial override
sounds like something that would help people out. right now you could map each key (1-0,-,=,F1-F12,etc...) to a hotstring for each character (really just make one keymap and reload for each same type character).

once you do that, and you hit a '1' on your mage... it could map to 'mage.wand_target'... and get sent to all clones. only the clones that have a mapping for 'mage.wand_target' would actually find the map to a key... the others would just ignore it.

this mechanism should allow you to use your keys (1-0,-,=,F1-F12,etc...) repeatedly for different actions on different clients.

on your main box, you may want to have finer control so you may have to map mage, warrior and healer commands to various hotstrings... but the alt/ctrl/shift will work perfectly fine on the main box.

your main's key map might look like:

G1 'caster.ranged_attack'
shift-G1 'melee.ranged_attack'
alt-G1 'healer.heal_leader'

meanwhile, you make a map for your caster:
--
1 'caster.ranged_attack'

your warrior:
--
1 'melee.ranged_attack'

your priest:
--
1 'healer.heal_leader' // which triggers a wow macro to target the leader & cast heal

notice that the G1 key ONLY sent out 'caster.ranged_attack' ... the other characters will just ignore it UNLESS they have a keymap loaded that will associate a key with that hotstring.

re: ctrl/shift/alt
hit a snag last night.. playing with it today. going to eat shortly then get back to it.

[Mannyman]

My response time is fine. I only keep 2 screens up, my main and my priest, so 1 on each computer. I run the other characters in the background on the priest's computer. Once in a while, one toon will lag out, not because of my setup or internet connection. It happens to everyone at some point.

I'll be running to town and notice there are only 4 of me, and wonder, where the hell is the 5th? Then I open his window, and there he is... running in place, waiting to lag out. Welcome to Warcraft:)


As for the macros, if I'm playing a warrior, and want the warlock to cast shadowbolt, I make a macro with a picture of a shadowbolt, leave the macro empty, put it on my warrior's toolbar and bind it to ctrl-e or whatever in WoW. Then I put ctrl-e as "shadowbolt" in Keyclone, and set Keyclone on the second computer to press the number 3 to cast shadowbolt in the warlock's window, when "shadowbolt" is broadcast. Not sure if that helps any, but it's easier for me this way. If I forget the keybinding or things get hairy, I can always just click the macro picture, and the warlock does his thing.

[madsteintist]

I look forward to a specific written doc on how to setup up keyclone. I am a fairly intuitive guy, but even combing thru the various threads I am not fully getting the how-to on setting it up. Your examples of the 'code' to put into it could be better explained if you indicated where the specific info goes in the various areas of keyclone. I get what you are doing with the examples, just not the wehere and how portions.

It may not make any difference, but if it does, when you get to the documenting, you may want to break it down into two parts- multiple accounts on one machine, and mutiple accounts on multiple machines.

Looking forward to using this soon. Thanks.