Tips for configuring UI

[Chivalrous]

Hey everyone!

i started multiboxing in October. I run 5 toons most of you regulars know me. Anyway, the first time I configured ISboxer and created a cohesive UI for my team was in october 2012. I made a few improvements over time, but it still felt kinda clunky and newbish.

Last week I started doing trade skills and cleaning/organizing my guild bank and trying to cash in on some of my hard work. I had a ton of greens and cloth, etc so I sold it and got tradeskills on my toons, etc. well-I also had the bright idea to overhaul my interface and ISboxer configuration to make it more "pro"-- for lack of a better word. Maybe less newbish is better.

i reset my keybinds to default on all toons, removed most of my addons, and haven't touched ISboxer yet, but have been planning to delete my config and start fresh. This might have been a mistake--not sure yet. I probably spent atleast 20 hours creating my last setup. My question is, what, if any, tips can you more experienced multiboxers give to save me time configuring each toon and ISboxer? I really am not looking forward to another 20 hour session of just hitting a target dummy and making adjustments, but I don't really know any better. All tips gratefully received.

thank you!

[MadMilitia]

Firstly, make your primary rotations inside the WoW client. This way any future mishaps won't lose your all important rotations!

Secondly, I'd have each slot represented by their own keymaps. So you can start working out a more elegant way of activating and deactivating things like movement and attacking or both.

The biggest PITA is setting up the click bars which I used for party ability uptime and downtime visuals. If anyone has a better method let me know. JukedParty hasn't been updated in eons.


If I do return at some point the first thing I'm going to do is map out two things. DPS and Survival for each class. Then work out a step macro that will try to do one survival method, then another, then another. Inevitably that will reduce the UI overhead that needs to be setup.

You'll want two important keymaps. One is STDump, the other is AEDump. You'll have to set these up yourself. Put an icon on a clickbar that shows you clearly which is active. I used a blue orb for ST and a red orb for AE. Next when you hit a specific hotkey you've setup, or clicked the click bar, it will activate one and deactivate the other. Inside each, you put all the specific slot ST/AE rotations you want. The only one that will go to the instances is the active one. So they will AE or ST on your command.

I put both the STDump and AEDump calls inside my FTL DPS keymap. That seems the best way to do that.

[luxlunae]

Firstly, make your primary rotations inside the WoW client.
I prefer to keep all of my rotations outside my keymaps in the wow helper library thing of Isboxer, personally. In-client is too tedious to tweak across characters. Over the last two iterations of my setup I've moved to having more and more things handled by isboxer macros, even easy things like /dismount, hearthstone, and log.

I wouldn't delete all of your settings per se, but I would suggest that you wipe the keybinds (not the mapped keys themselves, just the keybinds) and make a list of all the keybinds available and all of the abilities/rotations that you might want to keybind.

Someone did an exhaustive list of things to keybind on a google docs document a while ago, let me see if I can find it.... I'm afraid I don't have a copy in my gdocs anymore.

I'm personally partial to a four step dps rotation (using numpad 1, 7, 8, 9) as being pretty robust and flexible for most specs. I've discovered that most icy veins theorycrafting can be distilled pretty easily into something that fits into four step. And icy veins is good enough for what we're doing here most of the time.


Both of the times that I've done major revamps to my interface I was coming back off of a break.

Mad, that's an EXCELLENT idea about the aoe versus single target click bar indications. Hopefully I'll remember the next time I come back.

[Chivalrous]

Thanks you two! I am certainly going to take some of your advice. I'm going to do the revamp tonight after work--I have a 4 pack if Amp and a gallon of Tampico to see me through it. Ill edit this post when I'm done to let you know what I end up doing :)

[MiRai]

I have a 4 pack of Amp and a gallon of Tampico to see me through it.
848



Ill edit this post when I'm done to let you know what I end up doing :)
Most hospitals have WiFi. :)

[Chivalrous]

Oh! Thanks mirai I totally forgot the candy bars! ;)

[Baltyre]

I use the isboxer virtualization stuff :
http://isboxer.com/wiki/HOWTO:Configure_ISBoxer_like_a_pro
It's really nice.

And on my UI, i heavily use videofx to put some alt buttons and focus target on my main windows.

[MiRai]

We haven't received a reply from him yet...

...we can only assume the worst.

[Chivalrous]

We haven't received a reply from him yet...

...we can only assume the worst.

Hey! Alive and well! I'm only half done but so far so good! I have the basics done and two toons ready to rock and roll. I have each slot configured outside WoW with macros inside WoW to compliment them. I didn't make any click bars--I played with it, but honestly don't feel I need it. Is there a way to hotkey your video fx windows if they're blocking something on your screen? Sometimes I have to move them. Anyway, for some reason it's moving much faster now--less cluttered up maybe, or I just know how to configure it better from experience perhaps... But I'm very happy with the results so far. My warriors DPS has gone up atleast 15k! Haven't done my other toons yet. Wife and I are going on some cuddly date at some bed and breakfast.. Blek! Hah. But, I have to be chivalrous! ;)

mirai I ended up drinking only 1 amp in lieu I your post. Honestly I'm just getting to old to pull all nighters lol. I want to but then find I want to sleep more.

[Chivalrous]

I use the isboxer virtualization stuff :
http://isboxer.com/wiki/HOWTO:Configure_ISBoxer_like_a_pro
It's really nice.

And on my UI, i heavily use videofx to put some alt buttons and focus target on my main windows.

i honestly am to dumb to understand the virtualization stuff. :( well, haven't invested the time to figure it out anyway

[luxlunae]

I have ALL of my video feeds handled with three hotkeys, create feeds, show viewers, destroy all. When I swap a toon to lead it destroys everything and redraws the feeds on the master window, but I can remove everything if my feeds get in my way using ctrl alt shift R.


http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/34559-Video-Feed-and-Cursor-Feed-Tutorial is the way to go!

It's actually far better than creating feeds by hand and I wish there was a way to do this for repeater regions too, rather than just a hotkey to show a specific set of regions.

[Chivalrous]

Thanks for the guide Luxlunae, and thanks to Alge for writing it. I stack all 5 screens but I create a DXnothing window on my 2nd Monitor and create four static video feeds on that dxnothing window, so I'm not going to use the majority of this guide. However, he told me I can create a video feed toggle which is what I need for my healers grid! :) so I'm going to try that now. Thanks for the help everyone.

[Alge]

Damn that thing is a bit out of date. Glad you were able to follow it. :)

[Owltoid]

Firstly, make your primary rotations inside the WoW client. This way any future mishaps won't lose your all important rotations!

I totally disagree with that statement. I have every single macro stored in ISBoxer and in my years of experience that's by far the best way to go. Make a backup of your ISBoxer config (email it to your self or something) and you don't have to worry about losing your important rotations. I can't imagine trying to build the 100's (possibly 1000+) macros I use between all my teams in the WoW client.

[shadewalker]

I totally disagree with that statement. I have every single macro stored in ISBoxer and in my years of experience that's by far the best way to go. Make a backup of your ISBoxer config (email it to your self or something) and you don't have to worry about losing your important rotations. I can't imagine trying to build the 100's (possibly 1000+) macros I use between all my teams in the WoW client.

I have to agree 100% with what Owltoid has posted here. It makes it much easier to configure macros and also add new toons.

[Chivalrous]

Well, I'm done with my UI and its a big improvement over what I had. I'm still tweaking macros to get my DPS where I want it, but did a few heroics and 5 boxed LFR with no problems! Thanks for your tips everybody.

i configured my macros in game-I just prefer it that way, it might take longer but it feels better to me personally. I created toggles that destroy my video fx windows then recreates them when I hit the button again, thanks to lux and Alge for that one--it is awesome and very helpful. Nothing fancy on my UI, but it gets the job done nicely and is way less clunky than what I had before.

For all you noobies out there like me, don't be afraid to revamp! I learned a lot and it was way quicker this time than the first time. Only like... 10 hours or so ;)

[crowdx]

Well, I'm done with my UI and its a big improvement over what I had. I'm still tweaking macros to get my DPS where I want it, but did a few heroics and 5 boxed LFR with no problems! Thanks for your tips everybody.

i configured my macros in game-I just prefer it that way, it might take longer but it feels better to me personally. I created toggles that destroy my video fx windows then recreates them when I hit the button again, thanks to lux and Alge for that one--it is awesome and very helpful. Nothing fancy on my UI, but it gets the job done nicely and is way less clunky than what I had before.

For all you noobies out there like me, don't be afraid to revamp! I learned a lot and it was way quicker this time than the first time. Only like... 10 hours or so ;)

I think the only bonus of in game macro is that you can change them on the fly while playing, whereas (correct me if I am wrong here) with the macros in ISBoxer if you change a macro you have to close your game and relaunch all the clients.

[MiRai]

I think the only bonus of in game macro is that you can change them on the fly while playing, whereas (correct me if I am wrong here) with the macros in ISBoxer if you change a macro you have to close your game and relaunch all the clients.
You would export to Inner Space and /reload your UI for any changes to take effect.

[crowdx]

You would export to Inner Space and /reload your UI for any changes to take effect.

So in the wow client reload UI ? Or ISBoxer Reload UI ?

[Chivalrous]

Import new macros to innerspace just like you would after changing anything, then in game type /reload.

[crowdx]

Import new macros to innerspace just like you would after changing anything, then in game type /reload.
Perfect, that worked like a charm which was the only drawback I had to having all macros written in ISBoxer.