No broadcast software ideas for multiboxing

[nodoze]

EDIT: A compilation of the various techniques/tools/utilities to achieve these goals is being tracked on this spreadsheet tab:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1566844114 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j6tc7Bi0WNN_NbplgM1mbKcJkv89c4EhbYDN18vuYA4/edit#gid=1566844114)

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Original Initial Post below:
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Figured I would start a thread for folk to post/discuss ideas for multiboxing approaches that don't use any key broadcasting nor rely on any 3rd party software (except addons inside WoW) to run their teams. There may soon be some software solutions that don't have broadcasting that we could try but figured it would be OK to put down ideas for the meantime.

1 PC setup: 5 clients on the PC and alt-tab/mouse-over to switch between clients;

2 PC setup:
- Main PC: Tank+3DPS and alt-tab/mouseover to switch between clients;
- 2nd PC: Healer so can simultaneously heal while working to initiate Tank/Healer actions (could be a simple number pad to control heals).

-5 PC setup:
Each client own PC with full keyboard for main client and number pads for the 4 other PCs.

Note for the above you could look to do physical PCs or Virtual PCs...

*Note: for any of the above you could also look into custom keyboard options that can connect to one or more computers...

[nodoze]

Found some native ways to switch WoW clients in Microsoft Windows...

Doing some research I found that if you pin your Warcraft client to the leftmost spot on your taskbar (spot 1) you can use the following keyboard shortcuts to switch only within your Warcraft windows as follow:


Windows-1: While holding down the "windows key" and pressing "1" one or more times will always take you to a specific wow window. For example when running 4 WoW clients and I hold Win and press 1 three times it will take me to the 3rd WoW window. This may be able to be macro'ed into a G button mouse or G button keyboard to give fast switching to a given wow window consistently. One negative side affect is that it does show "mini-preview-windows" briefly...
Cntrl-Windows-1: also cycles through the application windows with no "mini-preview-windows" but goes to the "next window" so it could be hard to consistently get to a given window.

Note: Pinning WoW to the 1st slot was just for an example... You can pin Warcraft in any spot 1-10 from the start menu and do the above replacing 1 with whatever slot you pinned it to (use 0 for 10).

There are also some other programs that I found while researching that I did NOT have any time to test (so use at your own risk):

https://neosmart.net/EasySwitch/

https://www.pcworld.com/article/1829...aSwitcher.html (https://www.pcworld.com/article/182929/VistaSwitcher.html)

[Swaggasauruz]

I thought of a couple of approaches so far.

1. I wrote a python script that if a WoW client has focus and I press a key it will focus the next WoW client and so on.

This allows me to alt-tab without actually having to press alt-tab - though I'm not sure if this would qualify as automation so I want to shy away from it. This setup is tedious regardless since it means 1 physical key press per client so lots of spamming.

2. Use a USB synchronous switch - like THIS (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NZSZFL8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) one.

This switch allows a keyboard and mouse to control 8 devices simultaneously. I also purchased THIS (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089T6W5QK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) one hand gaming keyboard to use with the switch so my regular keyboard is freed up for other things. This offers a simple hardware based solution but the issue is of course you need 1 PC per WoW client which is not a small barrier to entry.

[nodoze]

Wep posted this idea in the ISboxer Discord using a Launchpad approach (with rtpMIDI and Bomes Midi Translator) and VMs:



https://i.gyazo.com/ab172a7a596229d859efa002fe12a6a5.png

[nodoze]

I thought of a couple of approaches so far.

1. I wrote a python script that if a WoW client has focus and I press a key it will focus the next WoW client and so on.

This allows me to alt-tab without actually having to press alt-tab - though I'm not sure if this would qualify as automation so I want to shy away from it. This setup is tedious regardless since it means 1 physical key press per client so lots of spamming.

2. Use a USB synchronous switch - like THIS (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NZSZFL8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) one.

This switch allows a keyboard and mouse to control 8 devices simultaneously. I also purchased THIS (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089T6W5QK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) one hand gaming keyboard to use with the switch so my regular keyboard is freed up for other things. This offers a simple hardware based solution but the issue is of course you need 1 PC per WoW client which is not a small barrier to entry.Lots of good thinking. The USB synchronous KM switch would obey the current "letter of the law" (by bypassing software) but may violate the "spirit of the law" by allowing 1 keypress to initiate an action in multiple clients...

A USB number keypad is kinda like the one-hand keyboard (or half keyboards) with even fewer keys... A low tech solution that combines multiple number keypads and allows them to be used like a synchronous switch would be something like:

https://i.gyazo.com/79ec17ce563426d0d4793655ea1547d3.png
(https://i.gyazo.com/79ec17ce563426d0d4793655ea1547d3.png)
Using that wooden dowel to link the devices may however also violate the "spirit of the law" so I would try to deliniate which solutions are using multi-client broadcasting (even if hardware based) versus which are not. Having just those four small 10keypads and manually clicking each one would likely not be a violation of neither the letter nor the spirit of the law...

[nodoze]

If using multiple PCs this monitor allows you to view 4 inputs at once on a single montior:

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Multi-Client-Monitor-P4317Q-DisplayPort/dp/B06ZZ25ZZS

There are other similar options out there that may be cheaper... That is just the one I have used before.

[jak3676]

@nodoze I'm actively looking for a 32" version of that multi-client monitor you posted. I think that's exactly what I want for my 4 followers, but I've only been able to find 43" versions from different manufacturers.

[jak3676]

I'm loving all the discussion and different ideas floating around figure out a multibox solution that doesn't involve software broadcasting. I'm currently going down the road of trying hardware broadcasting (https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/57967-So-hardware-multiboxing?p=433122#post433122), but I fully acknowledge that may also be problematic (spirit of the law vs letter of the law).

In this thread (https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/57978-Best-Teams-for-no-broadcast-multiboxing), we started some discussion of ways to window switch rapidly. This seems better place to have that discussion so that we can leave the wow classic discussion of which teams work best with this approach separate.

Alt-tabbing between instances is problematic, but maybe we can focus on improving that portion?
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-bring-back-old-alt-tab-experience-windows-10 talks about changing the alt-tab behavior such that we don't get the little preview - that should make it faster.

nodoze had some great ideas too - maybe some people didn't see that because they don't go into the wow-classic pages.
Doing some research I found that if you pin your Warcraft client to the leftmost spot on your taskbar (spot 1) you can use the following keyboard shortcuts to switch only within your Warcraft windows as follow:
Windows-1: While holding down the "windows key" and pressing "1" one or more times will always take you to a specific wow window. For example when running 4 WoW clients and I hold Win and press 1 three times it will take me to the 3rd WoW window. This should be able to be macro'ed into a mouse or keyboard to give fast switching to a given wow window consistently. One negative side affect is that it does show "mini-preview-windows" briefly...
Cntrl-Windows-1: also cycles through the application windows with no "mini-preview-windows" but goes to the "next window" so it could be hard to consistently get to a given window.




Note: Pinning WoW to the 1st slot was just for an example... You can pin Warcraft in any spot 1-10 from the start menu and do the above replacing 1 with whatever slot you pinned it to (use 0 for 10).


There are also some other programs that I found while researching that I did NOT have any time to test (so use at your own risk):


https://neosmart.net/EasySwitch/


https://www.pcworld.com/article/182929/VistaSwitcher.html

[Dougn0782]

Looking for feedback on my plan before I dive in.
5 Accts. 1 PC with 4 VMs.
Planning on making Arduino keypads. Use USB filtering to send one keypad to each VM.

Any reason this would not work. This should not be considered SW broadcasting at all of I am understanding the terms.

[nodoze]

Looking for feedback on my plan before I dive in.
5 Accts. 1 PC with 4 VMs.
Planning on making Arduino keypads. Use USB filtering to send one keypad to each VM.

Any reason this would not work. This should not be considered SW broadcasting at all of I am understanding the terms.I would have to understand a little more detail to give more advice but my initial thoughts are that you may want to go with 5 VMs if you go this route... I say that because your primary WoW client & Warden running on your VM host OS will then have full access to your VM host and be able to document your full setup from "underneath/behind" your VMs and use that against you...

If your approach is anything like Wep's Launchpad approach (see diagram posted above) anything virtual is technically implemented in software and could be construed however Blizz wants to...

I am not an expert in Adruinos nor the Launchpad but to me the following looks like it is probably software or implemented through software:


- MIDI Translator;
- rtpMIDI Network;
- MIDI channel;
- USB filtering;
- VMs;
- VM networks (VMnets);

On a related note I also saw lots of people in the ISboxer discord saying Virtual Machines (VMs) were against the ToS but no one posted sources for that... I would like to understand the source for that before I invest in any VMs... My time is limited so if someone helps gather the info on Blizz's stance on VMs I would be happy to review it and weigh in but right now I don't have time to research that...

At this point, unless I get more info, I am likely going with the following if I continue 5boxing:


- 1 main PC with 4 WoW clients for 4DPS (or Tank+3DPS) in quadrants with mouse-over &/or hotkey window switching;
- 2nd small PC with 1 WoW client for Healer with own keyboard/mouse and maybe some foot-pedals;

I like this setup as it doesn't rely on much (if any) 3rd party software and could be done with regular standard hardware that I already have and would not need any multicasting of any keystrokes to be reasonably effective in 5boxing...

Monitor-wise I will likely either do the 2nd PC as hot-key-able Picture-in-Picture on my 4K multi-input Dell Monitor (P4317Q (https://www.dell.com/yu/p/dell-p4317q-monitor/pd)) or a typically minimized remote control window (like via Remote Desktop Protocol or www.splashtop.com (http://www.splashtop.com)) or both...

Keyboard/Mouse wise I will have separate dedicated keyboards/mice for both PCs but I may add a hardware USB switch to be able to turn on/off the parallel hardware USB replication of my main keyboard to the 2nd PC (not decided for sure yet as that is technically multicasting). If I do that I will make sure that any client key-binds on my healer are not shared with my Tank/DPS so there will never be any chance that one action by me will cause more than 1 action in 1 WoW client...

For reference my main PC will likely work/function like this (except I would likely do 4 Hunters, PaladinTank+3Hunters, &/or PaladinTank+3Warlocks) in the quadrants:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UiGL_Phzsk

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/504835144016986112/774276561359732787/IMG_9044.mov
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/504835144016986112/774276561359732787/IMG_9044.mov)
The reason why I picked these teams (4 Hunters, Paladin+3Hunters, &/or Paladin+3Warlocks) is because I want to be using a team that doesn't either need multicasting 1 input to multiple wow clients nor require tons of keystrokes/mouse movements (Actions per Minute) to be effective (I have carpel tunnel and neck and back injuries). If you are interested in more detail there is more discussion regarding why those teams here:

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/57978-Best-Teams-for-no-broadcast-multiboxing

[jak3676]

https://milosophical.me/blog/2010/03/10/ms-windows-focus-follows-mouse-registry-hacks.html posted in another thread, but I want to keep all the ideas for no-broadcast multiboxing here.

I'll have to dig for the Blizzard link later, but I think the discord is incorrect about VM's being banned. I've never seen any source of that - if someone has a source, I'd love to see it. What Blizz did clarify a while ago was that online cloud hosting services were not allowed

[nodoze]

https://milosophical.me/blog/2010/03/10/ms-windows-focus-follows-mouse-registry-hacks.html posted in another thread, but I want to keep all the ideas for no-broadcast multiboxing here.Thanks. I think that is similar/related to one of the ideas I saw in Discord and I copied the pics from the registry changes required. As I see ideas/tidbits from discussions in discord or other places I have been putting them here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j6tc7Bi0WNN_NbplgM1mbKcJkv89c4EhbYDN18vuYA4/edit#gid=1566844114

If/when I have time I will revisit each and clean up the copy/paste and maybe add more info on some...

[Dougn0782]

Nodoze. Really appreciate the detailed write up!!

one PC running 5 clients is not one I want to try because I feel it requires some level of SW broadcasting to be efficient enough.

i also though about building 4 low end PCs and networking it. But then if a ban happens I have 4 crappy PCs that are wasted.

I think I will try the VM approach so I won’t need any form of SW broadcasting.

[nodoze]

Nodoze. Really appreciate the detailed write up!!

one PC running 5 clients is not one I want to try because I feel it requires some level of SW broadcasting to be efficient enough.

i also though about building 4 low end PCs and networking it. But then if a ban happens I have 4 crappy PCs that are wasted.

I think I will try the VM approach so I won’t need any form of SW broadcasting.Thanks and glad to help where I can.

Actually you can run 4 clients pretty efficiently on 1 PC with no 3rd party software, no SW nor HW broadcasting, and no multicasting of 1 input to more than 1 client at a time.

Examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UiGL_Phzsk

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/504835144016986112/774276561359732787/IMG_9044.mov

The above 4 quadrant setup should work fine for 4DPS or Tank+3DPS and then you could put the Healer in a VM or a 2nd PC with a 2nd keyboard/keypad/foot-pedals/etc so you can spam heals if/when needed without any broadcasting nor multi-casting.

In the .mov example he is doing pretty continuous RR of 4 mages doing Arcane Explosions... He isn't even clicking on anything or using any keystrokes as just putting the mouse over the game client makes it the active window and his mouse wheel spins are initiating the Arcane Explosions.

4 Hunters or Tank+Hunters would also work well as the hunters just need brief focus to send pet (if not set to aggressive) and start auto-shot and periodically revisit to burn though all mana... Could then spend the rest of the time driving from your tank if you have one.

Personally I want to try Paladin+3Warlocks as the Warlocks just need a mouse-over and 1 button every 15 seconds to keep up HellFire and the Paladin can Tank unlimited targets fine with just a mouse over every 8-10 seconds to refresh Consecration & Holy Shield. I may try to make HellFires trigger from mouse-wheel-spin for ease.

[jak3676]

Love it! Any details on the hardware setup behind both of these? Just a single keyboard & mouse with 4 clients running on a single PC? How are you doing the 4-windows on the monitor? (is that native on the 43" multiclient monitor?)

[nodoze]

Love it! Any details on the hardware setup behind both of these? Just a single keyboard & mouse with 4 clients running on a single PC? How are you doing the 4-windows on the monitor? (is that native on the 43" multiclient monitor?)We literally just finished moving the 43" Dell from our "kid office" to my office and am working on configuring it now so I haven't been able test much yet. Currently the 43" is just VGA at 1080P via my KVM to my VPN-work-laptop, an extra/old PC, and my main gaming/personal PC. I just finished installing WoW on the old/extra PC so I could put my healer there and now I am going to work on getting the dell management software installed on my main PC and see if I can use hot-keys to switch from 1K VGA to 4K DP when on my main PC. After I make sure I have it to where I can switch back and forth with my work laptop (I get calls 24x7 and need to be able to help the users quickly) and understand the monitor utilities/switching I will work on the personal PC stuff and try to replicate the quadrant setup...

Those 2 quadrant examples were not mine but rather 2 other boxers who were using native windows 10 functionality (if I understand correctly) to do the 4 quadrant setup...

To do the 4 quadrant setup that way I think it is just a single monitor with windows 10 accessibility (ease of access) setting for mouse over window functionality (and a registry adjustment for timing and reboot) and then setting some windows management "snapping" features to make the 4 windows stick/size to the 4 quadrants.

I snagged the steps as best I could and put them on the 'noBroadcast' tab of the 'Classic WoW Planning (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j6tc7Bi0WNN_NbplgM1mbKcJkv89c4EhbYDN18vuYA4/edit#gid=1566844114)' spreadsheet. Once I get through the steps and test/validate them I will try to clean them up and maybe have a mini-guide or something. I went and just now hi-lighted in cyan/light-blue on the 'noBroadcast' tab the steps I think need to be done to do the quadrant setup in case you want to try them before I can get to them.

[Pocahuntess]

Never thought about using my launchpads this way! I also have midi translator!
Think I'm going to give this a go as I instantly have all kinds of ideas!

Thanks nodoze!



Wep posted this idea in the ISboxer Discord using a Launchpad approach (with rtpMIDI and Bomes Midi Translator) and VMs:



https://i.gyazo.com/ab172a7a596229d859efa002fe12a6a5.png

[Pineapplepizza]

I have been multiboxing a team of 5, warrior/priest/mage/mage/warlock for about a year in Classic and have cleared every 5-man with it including some raids with my guild, just to fill up the lack of people.

I do use hotkeynet to broadcast only hotkeys, not mouse, I use a lot of ingame macro's and addons (leatirix), most hotkeys having overlapping abilities or macro's on the characters. I play fullscreen on the warrior and don't see the others at all, i assisgned hotkeys to quickly bring each character's screen as the active screen.

The way i play, bloodthirst or a heroic strike would also do a fireball from the mage, and shadowbolt from the warlock, these are bound to the same hotkey ingame. When i started out, this would also cast a heal on the tank, this resulted in me running out of mana too fast and way too many unnecessary heals. So separate hotkeys for the healing were born.

However the better I got, the more i got to lean to 1 action per keystroke when doing the rotation for dps as well. There are so many cases I don't want my characters to cast the things that I bound to the keys doing the overlapping spells. For example, mages are out of mana and need to evocate, while the warlock can still cast shadowbolts. Or the warlock has to lifetap and the mages need to keep shooting. So these all got their own keybinds as well.

So I really wouldn't mind doing the same with all spells from each character on a seperate keybind, it would even add flexibility, i'd need to do just a bit more typing though. So i would send part of my keyboard to WoW1, another few keys will always go to WoW2 etcetera.

I know how to configure this in Hotkeynet, and would not be using any broadcasting at all anymore, however, it appears the entire program is blacklisted.
- Is there any other way to basically split your keyboard over the wow instances?
- Is there any alternative for the following hotkeynet script: (it eliminates the alt-tabbing)
<Hotkey F8>
<SendPC local>
<TargetWin WoW1>
<SetActiveWin>


<Hotkey F9>
<SendPC local>
<TargetWin WoW2>
<SetActiveWin>
etc
I read that windowskey-1 works, but i really need it to be one key dediced to each character.

[nodoze]

I have been multiboxing a team of 5, warrior/priest/mage/mage/warlock for about a year in Classic and have cleared every 5-man with it including some raids with my guild, just to fill up the lack of people.

I do use hotkeynet to broadcast only hotkeys, not mouse, ...

However the better I got, the more i got to lean to 1 action per keystroke when doing the rotation for dps as well. ...

So I really wouldn't mind doing the same with all spells from each character on a seperate keybind, it would even add flexibility, i'd need to do just a bit more typing though. So i would send part of my keyboard to WoW1, another few keys will always go to WoW2 etcetera.

I know how to configure this in Hotkeynet, and would not be using any broadcasting at all anymore, however, it appears the entire program is blacklisted.
- Is there any other way to basically split your keyboard over the wow instances?
...The only ways I can think of are as follows:

5 numberkeypads (without the wooden dowels) with each one connecting via USB to a single WoW client in a dedicated PC or VM (but these would give you a limited number of keybinds):

https://i.gyazo.com/79ec17ce563426d0d4793655ea1547d3.png

If you needed more keybinds than can fit on the 10keypads you could do something like 5 of these (each mapped to a PC/VM):

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B074SGZ6Z4
https://smile.amazon.com/Koolertron-Single-Handed-Programmable-Mechanical-Keyboard/dp/B076LRJ528

(you could velcro multiple of these or the 10keypads to a single lapboard)

If you wanted to try to do it all from one keyboard you will likely have to use some software based routing like depicted here using something like a Launchpad or an Elgato:

Diagram of a Launchpad approach (with rtpMIDI and Bomes Midi Translator) and VMs:

https://i.gyazo.com/ab172a7a596229d8...02fe12a6a5.png (https://i.gyazo.com/ab172a7a596229d859efa002fe12a6a5.png)

Lastly you could maybe build a hardware based single-frankenstein-keyboard via Arduinos that outputs specific keys to specific destinations.

[Kurkis493]

So you could not do 1 PC w/ 4 Linux VMs and VPNs on each with lets say your keyboard only working on the main screen and then have something like a Tartarus connected to the 4, VMs because Warden will see what you are doing?

[nodoze]

So you could not do 1 PC w/ 4 Linux VMs and VPNs on each with lets say your keyboard only working on the main screen and then have something like a Tartarus connected to the 4, VMs because Warden will see what you are doing?I don't know that we know for sure to say one way or the other...

If you are 5boxing and your 4 are following your main and all fireing at the same time you could well be setting yourself up for action. They can tell that you are in party together and looking like a bot or boxer regardless of how you VPNed to get there.

It is clear that they don't want any automation and that they now want 1 human input causing only 1 action in 1 client (not multiple clients). If you do it and it is hardware based then you may be OK based on the current policy wording focusing on software... You could maybe make it separate inputs by using different keybinds in each client such that any one key only causes an action in 1 client.

[Kurkis493]

Yeah I was thinking, healing off the mouse like I do currently. Then having 1-9 my tank and then 1-9 the 3 DPS all using their own modifiers like ctrl, shift and alt.

I use the thumb stick on the Tartarus for modifiers so easy for me.

I'd also just hide in instances to reduce exposure. Would never multi-box open world.

[nodoze]

Here is an example of someone 5boxing paladin+3Mage+Priest on 1 single PC with no extra 3rd party software:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B45FL6aOT7k

I may try that instead of the 4 quadrant approach on 1 PC with the healer on the 2nd PC and see how it goes. I have carpul tunnel so I am going to try to use the mouse-over feature that makes a given window be in the foreground when you are over it rather than clicking on each window like he is.

[jak3676]

I think there's 2 different approaches people are working on for no-broadcast multiboxing that both seem promising (I'm excluding hardware broadcasting and broadcasting with VM setups from this discussion). Both of these no-broadcast approaches are essentially finding ways to rapidly switch windows such that you can provide input to only that window, then switching to the next window providing input there, etc.

1) Mouse-Switching: Opening multiple clients then configuring your system's focus to change with just a mouse-over, such that the user can rapidly mouse over multiple windows and provide input to each one in rapid succession.

A) Windows without boarders
- This Microsoft utility works to share your mouse and keyboard across multiple PCs (its a "software KVM" utility). But instead of having to switch your keyboard, video and mouse with a button on your KVM switch, you can just mouse between the different screens and whichever system has focus is automatically switched to whichever screen has the mouse cursor. Note that the software is internally limited to only 4 systems, so to 5-box (or greater) you still need separate keyboard, mouse and monitor for the 5th system. This utility does seem particularly good where you have multiple video feeds multiplexed onto a single monitor (there's a few 43" monitors that have this multi-client multiplexing built in, otherwise and external video multiplexer is required.

B) Synergy/Synergy Core/Input Director/Barrier
- I need to find the links and do some comparison against windows without boarders. I think the functionality that people want that windows without boarders doesn't is the ability to scale to 5 or more PC's

C) Windows Accessibility - "Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse"
- Fundamentally different than the above approaches, this can all be contained on a single PC (no additional hardware required). Instead of switching monitors based on mouse position, this approach is to switch windows within a single PC based on mouse position. I expect that this is where the different multiboxing software utilities could also be re-engineered to help

2) Keyboard-Switching: Opening multiple clients and using keyboard input to rapidly switch which window has focus.
These are all somewhat clunky options on their own, but if combined with a programmable keyboard, they can be quite fast (as fast as you can hit a key) and convenient (can program the focus shifts into a "rotation" along with your in-game dps rotation)


A) "ALT-TAB" is generally the 1st option people think of here, but its probably the least preferred option as you still have to select which window you want to gain focus, so that involves additional key presses. Still you can improve the speed of alt-tabbing through windows by disabling windows 10 preview feature https://www.windowscentral.com/how-bring-back-old-alt-tab-experience-windows-10 and for folks using multiple desktops, you can limit alt-tab to only your current desktop https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4764-select-desktops-show-open-windows-alt-tab-windows-10-a.html



B) Windows + 1, Windows + 2, etc - allows the user to directly switch to specific windows, but does require you to have these windows open an positioned in a specific manner on your taskbar. But there's confirmation required like there is on alt-tab. For people who want to hard program specific actions regardless of where you are in your screen focus "rotation", this may the best option (e.g. you could program a keyboard button to switch focus to your healer's wow client, then heal your tank)

c) "ALT-ESC" switches to the next window that's already open on your taskbar



Where I really see some added utility needed is to combine 1C, 2B and/or 2C into a multiboxing friendly software package, similar to how ISBoxer and Keyclone used to allow you to set up window control. I could see some added utility in allowing windows mouseover and/or keyboard focus control to be configurable (easy to turn on and off, re-assign to other keys and potentially only allow keys or mouseover focus to switch to WoW windows, while ignoring other windows)

[pak]

Don't we just need software that will switch to a specific screen, hit a button, then switch back? I feel like thats already possible with ISboxer. Wether we get away with it or not is the question.

[jak3676]

That question has already been answered - you cannot get away with it. Blizz is actively looking for ISBoxer. LAX agrees (the maker of ISBoxer) and has told all users not use ISBoxer for WoW anymore.

But yes, that was a core component of ISBoxer as well as Keyclone - so it shouldn't be difficult to strip out just the window control features into a stand-alone application. This added utility isn't actually required - you can do without it and just manage your windows yourself with nothing other than built-in windows settings. I just want to make that more user friendly.

[boxblizzard]

Don't we just need software that will switch to a specific screen, hit a button, then switch back? I feel like thats already possible with ISboxer. Wether we get away with it or not is the question.

everything is sketchy because blizzard give the generic response “ no software “ that rules out everything, we may work round it but we need harder evidence what is ok and what is not ok.

using modified is boxer may not be allowed as it will flag and probably have to get unbanned every 5 minutes as the argument is, no broadcasting being used.

very risky atm

[jak3676]

I should have been more clear - I don't think a user modification to ISBoxer or Keyclone will be sufficient. It will take the ISBoxer and Keyclone developers to develop an entirely new product. I just mean that they already have the code developed to do that, so it should be a simple fork - no need to greenfield a whole new project.

[Tin]

What I understand is that LAX is working on a windows manage only version - with some of the same thing we had with ISboxer
easy team setup, layout and load

[nodoze]

I have been documenting the various approaches and setups I have seen and the various utilities &/or hardware to support them in the following spreadsheet tab:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j6tc7Bi0WNN_NbplgM1mbKcJkv89c4EhbYDN18vuYA4/edit#gid=1566844114

The cyan/light-blue hi-lighted links have info on "mouse-over Focus" options that are available and how to enable/disable them (most people want to b able to toggle it on/off so the utility 'Xmouse Controls' is likely the best option for most folk. The 2 cyan video links show samples of what boxing is like via a "mouse-over Focus" configuration.

The light green hi-lighted links labeled "Fuii-Boxing" links to info on the "WoW client launcher / window manager" that Matricus/Fuii shared.

There are also multiple other sections:
- example videos of configs in action;
- sample Layouts people are using;
- various OS areas to investigate;
- Various Utility addons for WoW;
- Various Utilities for fine tuned controlling of FPS/Windows/shortcuts/etc;
- Various Hardware options that boxers may want to look at during this trying time;

Note: At the bottom of that tab is VARIOUS COMMENTS AND OTHERWISE CATEGORIZED INFO... Working on categorizing what I can but the amount of info/ideas flowing in the Forums and in Discord is somewhat staggering...

[boxblizzard]

What I understand is that LAX is working on a windows manage only version - with some of the same thing we had with ISboxer
easy team setup, layout and load

the problem with this is, it’s looked upon as “software” to manage toons. This is what has sparked off the arguments.

I think it’s great Lax is developing a new product but I fear once this is released and technically not against the new rules this may still come a problem with the wow community again!

if people snatch the new product and again farm and be attention seekers, we can kiss boxing good bye

[nodoze]

the problem with this is, it’s looked upon as “software” to manage toons. This is what has sparked off the arguments.

I think it’s great Lax is developing a new product but I fear once this is released and technically not against the new rules this may still come a problem with the wow community again!

if people snatch the new product and again farm and be attention seekers, we can kiss boxing good byeI agree with you that exploitative farming and grief-ing hurts our chances long term...

I think the biggest issue with the current version of InnerSpace/ISboxer is that Botters were able to use other programs to automate things through calls to InnerSpace and abusive boxers were automating many steps at least and having 1 human action do 1(or more) actions in many wow clients (into the 100s)...

If the new version isn't callable/abuse-able by botters that will be HUGE improvement.

If the new version also can't call any keybinds then it has a decent chance of being tolerated by Blizz.

If the new version can call a wow client but is hard limited to 1 human input causing only 1 game action in only 1 game client then maybe Blizz will accept it (but they may not bother)...

[Ikevink]

If you're capable enough to write a bot, it's a small task to send a keypress to a background window. The only reasoning that I could come up with is that by going through ISBoxer it disguises the key press in some way. Of course last time I checked, bots don't need to interact using keybinds at all, you can just enable click to move and send "interact with that object", "interact with those coordinates" etc.

[nodoze]

If you're capable enough to write a bot, it's a small task to send a keypress to a background window. The only reasoning that I could come up with is that by going through ISBoxer it disguises the key press in some way. Of course last time I checked, bots don't need to interact using keybinds at all, you can just enable click to move and send "interact with that object", "interact with those coordinates" etc.I think bots running through InnerSpace get lots advantages on cpu usage and window management/renaming/organization, and more than key broadcasting. Likely there getting that for free and saving their own time on developing those parts... Strong management could more than double the number of bots per unit of hardware invested and get them off the races faster...

[boxblizzard]

I think bots running through InnerSpace get lots advantages on cpu usage and window management/renaming/organization, and more than key broadcasting. Likely there getting that for free and saving their own time on developing those parts... Strong management could more than double the number of bots per unit of hardware invested and get them off the races faster...


To be honest best way to solve hard work boxing is literally to go hardware boxing and this involves PCs screens keyboards and mice obviously and something to display all of those on one central screen purely as a visual and the other is manageable with a KVM switch if required.

Macros to be made in game assist /focus etc

and then the only problem is we need a hardware device to manage the inputs for the others, And I believe the best way to do this is to have a keyboard designed with 3-D printing with guts for my slim base keyboard or even one of those of rubber rollable ones or even, And I believe the best way to do this is to have a keyboard designed with 3-D printing with guts for my slim base keyboard or even one of those of rubber rollable ones/mechanical.

have them merged together with the ability to replace the membrane or best just use mechanical so it can be repaired. this might seem silly but actually this is true hardware boxing and it will work, just need to get the keyboards create a housing out of a material like wood and then get this 3-D printed and keep revising to make it slim as possible I’ve got a great design in my mind that it’s a situation of design concept.

it has just done a full circle it is a case that we go classic. Old school boxing.

If the keyboard can be designed and merged together into a big hardware keyboard at each client then have additional keyboard attached so that the KVM can switch to it if needed.

I work with IT infrastructure and I know this is possible and it’s not difficult the only issue is creating the “ abomination keyboard” as I would like to call it. However if Blizzard saw it I would most definitely say yeah that’s fine. Because there was no argument, They will also note that the more you add to it the harder it is to box more so therefore this sort of concept would limit the amount of boxing today which I would suggest probably five at maximum.

I know a lot of us are trying to do a workaround are you some kind of hardware software method and I’m not sure if that’s going to actually be okay as it as it is potentially not true hardware, How do I boxing is literally having five keyboards in front of you no magic buttons to split it as then the splitter itself is then becoming the violator. That Will be down to Bliz to ban hammer.

so someone needs to get creative in the shed here with some slimline keyboards and other materials to create a sandwich abomination keyboard, Mouse inputs well that indeed is going to be very difficult as it might be possible to link them together a small mice however the axis locations would be too far out to be any good so unfortunately my movements almost going to be extremely difficult to achieve.

compare to keyboard it’s easy it’s just a matter of creating a shell to harbour the keyboards and then revising to accommodate the mechanical keyboards so they are long-lasting but with the smallest design possible so that we can actually use it on the desk this may work nicely with 2 to 3 boxing depending on how slim can it be made.

If blizzard give us a response and then a callout pretty much anything but what I’m saying above and we all know what we got today once someone has designed the concepts and 3-D printed it and I want to buy the keyboard I’m slot them in or out or it falls apart in five pieces or more and then you take the keyboards apart and put them all in and then stages construct it and then screw them together.

I think the only way to make a successful keyboard is the use mechanical this is awfully expensive but it could be the only way you could actually truly hardware box you would have to alongside this have additional keyboards so you can individually manage each town as well which is built into Windows to have as many devices attached.

[nodoze]

I had similar thoughts though was thinking of calling it a Frankenstein-Keyboard or a Frakenboard (TM).

[jak3676]

I think I get your concept of your "abomination keyboard" - I press letter <X> on the top keyboard, and my key-press goes down through the stack and actually triggers <X> on multiple keyboards below. But I think key part you're looking for is isn't vertical alignment of the mechanical switches, but instead that you want a single key press to trigger 5 (or whatever number) of physical switches at one time. If you're already going down the route of 3D printing something, and if you're comfortable with a soldering iron, I'd just put 5 (or whatever number) of circuit boards in a stack - all connected to 1 physical key. 5 sets of keyboard circuity - 5 independent outputs, all connected to a single set of keys.

imagine if this is a normal keyboard
https://gyazo.com/301bba3a4455013706fe25e3522f9894

you'd end up with something more like this:
https://gyazo.com/e48f11ebe9b29b88cc72636acaedca9c

I'd find a place that sells pre-assembled PCBs, like this company: https://clueboard.co/parts?category=PCBs

The whole thing would be a modification of instructions similar to this: https://kotaku.com/how-to-build-your-own-keyboard-1797070430

mouse wise - I don't know that we actually need/want a broadcast mouse. I'd start with just a software KVM (mouse without boarders/synergy/barrier/etc) so that your 1 mouse can travel between and click within any window - but only 1 at a time. With the exception of trying to cast targetable spells (Blizzard, Flamestrike, etc) at range, you never actually need to have 1 mouse per window. I've always just macro'd my flamestrike to cast @player and that works fine.

[boxblizzard]

I think I get your concept of your "abomination keyboard" - I press letter <X> on the top keyboard, and my key-press goes down through the stack and actually triggers <X> on multiple keyboards below. But I think key part you're looking for is isn't vertical alignment of the mechanical switches, but instead that you want a single key press to trigger 5 (or whatever number) of physical switches at one time. If you're already going down the route of 3D printing something, and if you're comfortable with a soldering iron, I'd just put 5 (or whatever number) of circuit boards in a stack - all connected to 1 physical key. 5 sets of keyboard circuity - 5 independent outputs, all connected to a single set of keys.

imagine if this is a normal keyboard
https://gyazo.com/301bba3a4455013706fe25e3522f9894

you'd end up with something more like this:
https://gyazo.com/e48f11ebe9b29b88cc72636acaedca9c

I'd find a place that sells pre-assembled PCBs, like this company: https://clueboard.co/parts?category=PCBs

The whole thing would be a modification of instructions similar to this: https://kotaku.com/how-to-build-your-own-keyboard-1797070430

mouse wise - I don't know that we actually need/want a broadcast mouse. I'd start with just a software KVM (mouse without boarders/synergy/barrier/etc) so that your 1 mouse can travel between and click within any window - but only 1 at a time. With the exception of trying to cast targetable spells (Blizzard, Flamestrike, etc) at range, you never actually need to have 1 mouse per window. I've always just macro'd my flamestrike to cast @player and that works fine.

yes, won’t be difficult to get this sent off to China for replication and samples, subject to beta stress testing.

[nodoze]

I think I get your concept of your "abomination keyboard" - I press letter <X> on the top keyboard, and my key-press goes down through the stack and actually triggers <X> on multiple keyboards below. But I think key part you're looking for is isn't vertical alignment of the mechanical switches, but instead that you want a single key press to trigger 5 (or whatever number) of physical switches at one time. If you're already going down the route of 3D printing something, and if you're comfortable with a soldering iron, I'd just put 5 (or whatever number) of circuit boards in a stack - all connected to 1 physical key. 5 sets of keyboard circuity - 5 independent outputs, all connected to a single set of keys. ...If you do the keyboard this way then indeed I would call it an "abomination keyboard" and that abomination should rightfully be banned by Blizzard as it violates "1 input causing only 1 action in only 1 client".
I had similar thoughts though was thinking of calling it a Frankenstein-Keyboard or a Frakenboard (TM).The Frakenboard(TM) on the other hand would be configurable at the hardware level, per key, to be able to have that key go to a specific single client. The hardware would be designed such that any key could only able to bridge the gap to 1 and only 1 client at a time.

The most popular model would likely be the "FrankenBoard 5" for 5boxers :-)

[Wepwewet]

Just chiming in on the Frankenboard (TM), as i kinda want to do that as a fun project (i will most likely go my Launchpad route i sketched earlier and soft broadcast to different PCs myself, i feel the risk is kinda low from a warden / blizzard perspective).

If you want to do a custom keyboard with multiple outputs (that is also sort of programmable and even could send a different key to each PC) i would look into Arduinos. The Arduino Pro Micro is not exactly the cheapest solution but has HID capabilities on Board by default and is quite tiny. You can literally put 5 of those in an enclosure and hard wire their GPIO Pins together to produce the same output. A full fletched keyboard could be wired in a matrix style or with the use of some multiplexers, but i think the 16 useable Pins should also be enough for most purposes. and thats really super easy.

https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/337

i will make a rough design later, as stated its kinda fun to me - most likely i wont go that exact route, but i think its kinda blizz-proof

(on a side note: for all the solutions we should agree on the simple fact that nothing will help against player reports and automated bans, no matter what hard or software you use)

[Dougn0782]

I know I can do USB filtering for different VMs. Is there SW that will do USB filtering to different applications running in the same windows? For example having separate USB number pads filtered to each WoW instance running?

[jak3676]

I don't know of such a tool, been looking myself.

One utility I do think is needed here is FancyZones. It let's you set up a tiling approach that you can reuse. https://www.onmsft.com/how-to/how-to-use-fancyzones-windows-10s-new-tiling-window-manager

[nodoze]

... One utility I do think is needed here is FancyZones. It let's you set up a tiling approach that you can reuse. https://www.onmsft.com/how-to/how-to-use-fancyzones-windows-10s-new-tiling-window-managerOn the spreadsheet we have listed all the Utilities seen being discussed in the Discord and the Forums:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j6tc7Bi0WNN_NbplgM1mbKcJkv89c4EhbYDN18vuYA4/edit#gid=1566844114

FancyZones was already on the spreadsheet but is "still in a pre-release state" and has not tested as well as some of the other options but "your mileage may vary".

There are multiple other tools that have been better in testing and so far the consensus has been that generally best windows layout tool has been 'ShiftWindow' (which is hi-lighted in bright green because it is in the lead so far).

Note that be default all the WoW windows are named the same when launched. One helpful tool that can be used with multiple Windows Mangement Softwares is the Utility "GUIPropView" which is a tool to display info/properties on all windows open and can modify window names. I quickly opened 5 wow clients and with GUIPropView I appended a 1 through 5 on each window. With the numbers on the end ShiftWindow can put them on the screen where I wanted them (save the profile with the window names and run the profile each time you start a gaming session). You can do all this before you login to WoW and neither tool needs to be running while you are logged in.

[jak3676]

"1 input causing only 1 action in only 1 client" While I'm fond of this wording myself, Blizzard has never actually stated this is their new policy. That is our interpretation of their intent - and we don't all share that interpretation. So on one hand I agree with you, but we can't state that as a hard fact unless/until Blizzard clarifies their new rule.

@nodoze On the previous page we were discussing different ideas for keyboards and how they could be cobbled together to send multiple outputs based on 1 button press. You seemed to take offense to the idea of connecting the electrical wiring of the switches together to create a broadcast keyboard, but you're OK with the idea of connecting the physical switches together. I'm honestly not following your logic on why you think electrical connections are bad, but physical connections are OK. Can you elaborate?

For Shift Window, how do set multiple wow windows separately? I set up 5 different rules to grab my 5 wow windows, but it only resized my 1st window 5 times (which makes sense - each window is named the exact same thing).

[Dougn0782]

I have been looking at building 4 standalone bare bones PCs to run their own clients.

To keep costs down I am looking at an i3 core, 4gb ram and a 2gb GPU to meet the minimum requirements.

But there is a step drop-off in $$ from 2GB to 1GB GPUs. Do you think a 1GB GPU is enough if the machine is only running WoW on minimum settings and nothing else?

[jak3676]

I would not recommend going below an Nvida GT1030, but I also run at 1920x1080 on my followers (4k on my main). Maybe you can get away with less at lower resolution? But I'd also go with 8GB RAM and an i5, so maybe my expectations are too high. If you're going below a 1030, then I'd be looking at CPU with integrated graphics - AMD APU's. Bottom of this thread a few of discussed what we're looking for hardware. https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/57967-So-hardware-multiboxing/page2

But for hardware help, we'd need to know retail or classic, and what resolution you're looking for.

[Tin]

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands System Requirements
https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/256565

[nodoze]

"1 input causing only 1 action in only 1 client" While I'm fond of this wording myself, Blizzard has never actually stated this is their new policy. That is our interpretation of their intent - and we don't all share that interpretation. So on one hand I agree with you, but we can't state that as a hard fact unless/until Blizzard clarifies their new rule.

@nodoze On the previous page we were discussing different ideas for keyboards and how they could be cobbled together to send multiple outputs based on 1 button press. You seemed to take offense to the idea of connecting the electrical wiring of the switches together to create a broadcast keyboard, but you're OK with the idea of connecting the physical switches together. I'm honestly not following your logic on why you think electrical connections are bad, but physical connections are OK. Can you elaborate?

For Shift Window, how do set multiple wow windows separately? I set up 5 different rules to grab my 5 wow windows, but it only resized my 1st window 5 times (which makes sense - each window is named the exact same thing).Some Blizz reps have indeed been very clear on that things need to be 1-1-1 (here is an: example (https://postimg.cc/NLgnSxNN)). I agree that overall Blizz hasn't been clear nor consistent.

Offense is too strong of a word as I am a fan of all the great ideas and documentation/details people have been giving/sharing (especially you). I do get concerned on approaches which are abusable (like via things like automation or multicasting (https://i.gyazo.com/c69c8997e30090942897322a3243b86e.png)) because I believe that abuses will help bring more enforcement from Blizz and possibly clarifications or restrictions that we can't live with so I do speak out against those exposures to try to protect the community... We don't know which straw will be the one that breaks the camel's back...

It has been many decades since I studied EE so I apologize if I confused or overemphasized hardware vs electrical connections as that was not my intent... My main point was that I would design the multi-connection keyboard to be where it is not-abusable by design and that would be enforced as the hardware level only allowed each key to be configured to connect to only out USB output at a time. Basically every key on the "FrankenBoard5(TM)" would have the potential to connect to any of the 5 USB clients, but ONLY 1 at a time via something like this Rotary Switch (https://i.gyazo.com/309eae45a0e5216d6e0d25927e6a7432.png) (at least conceptually). Conceptually you could envision a keyboard that looks like something like this on the top (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71BV3U2VpWL._AC_SL1500_.jpg) but has 5 USB connectors on the side/top and if you flip it over it has 48 little Rotary Switches with "little clockfaces" showing 1-5 on them that you adjust per key with a little screw driver. Conceptually the little switches could look something like this picture (https://media.rs-online.com/t_large/F3793799-01.jpg) for every key (except it would be 1-5 instead of 1-4)... That would give you a very flexible keypad for controlling upto 5 PC/VMs but not supporting multi-casting (https://i.gyazo.com/c69c8997e30090942897322a3243b86e.png) of any single key to more than 1 target... That would be enforced at the hardware level...

If you had any firmware on the keyboard you could make it all encrypted (like Samsung bootloaders and Knox) and include a Trusted Platform Module (https://trustedcomputinggroup.org/resource/trusted-platform-module-tpm-summary/) (TPM) that WoW clients could check to verify the inputs were from a trusted source...

Regarding ShiftWindow being able to IDing windows separately you need to use a utility/tool like GUIPropView to change the title/name of the window before running ShiftWindow Rule Set. Just launch the 5 windows, append a 1-5 on the end of the window name/title with GUIPropView (or another tool), then run your 5 step ShiftWindo ruleset. Links for the GUIPropView tool and many other utitlies are on the spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j6tc7Bi0WNN_NbplgM1mbKcJkv89c4EhbYDN18vuYA4/edit#gid=1566844114). If you want a very elegant windows management and client launcher you may want to check out the Fuiiboxing tab (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j6tc7Bi0WNN_NbplgM1mbKcJkv89c4EhbYDN18vuYA4/edit#gid=439687403).

Sorry if the above doesn't make sense. Very busy and in a hurry and working with too much coffee and too little sleep...

[boxblizzard]

Some Blizz reps have indeed been very clear on that things need to be 1-1-1 (here is an: example (https://postimg.cc/NLgnSxNN)). I agree that overall Blizz hasn't been clear nor consistent.

Offense is too strong of a word as I am a fan of all the great ideas and documentation/details people have been giving/sharing (especially you). I do get concerned on approaches which are abusable (like via things like automation or multicasting (https://i.gyazo.com/c69c8997e30090942897322a3243b86e.png)) because I believe that abuses will help bring more enforcement from Blizz and possibly clarifications or restrictions that we can't live with so I do speak out against those exposures to try to protect the community... We don't know which straw will be the one that breaks the camel's back...

It has been many decades since I studied EE so I apologize if I confused or overemphasized hardware vs electrical connections as that was not my intent... My main point was that I would design the multi-connection keyboard to be where it is not-abusable by design and that would be enforced as the hardware level only allowed each key to be configured to connect to only out USB output at a time. Basically every key on the "FrankenBoard5(TM)" would have the potential to connect to any of the 5 USB clients, but ONLY 1 at a time via something like this Rotary Switch (https://i.gyazo.com/309eae45a0e5216d6e0d25927e6a7432.png) (at least conceptually). Conceptually you could envision a keyboard that looks like something like this on the top (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71BV3U2VpWL._AC_SL1500_.jpg) but has 5 USB connectors on the side/top and if you flip it over it has 48 little Rotary Switches with "little clockfaces" showing 1-5 on them that you adjust per key with a little screw driver. Conceptually the little switches could look something like this picture (https://media.rs-online.com/t_large/F3793799-01.jpg) for every key (except it would be 1-5 instead of 1-4)... That would give you a very flexible keypad for controlling upto 5 PC/VMs but not supporting multi-casting (https://i.gyazo.com/c69c8997e30090942897322a3243b86e.png) of any single key to more than 1 target... That would be enforced at the hardware level...

If you had any firmware on the keyboard you could make it all encrypted (like Samsung bootloaders and Knox) and include a Trusted Platform Module (https://trustedcomputinggroup.org/resource/trusted-platform-module-tpm-summary/) (TPM) that WoW clients could check to verify the inputs were from a trusted source...

Regarding ShiftWindow being able to IDing windows separately you need to use a utility/tool like GUIPropView to change the title/name of the window before running ShiftWindow Rule Set. Just launch the 5 windows, append a 1-5 on the end of the window name/title with GUIPropView (or another tool), then run your 5 step ShiftWindo ruleset. Links for the GUIPropView tool and many other utitlies are on the spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j6tc7Bi0WNN_NbplgM1mbKcJkv89c4EhbYDN18vuYA4/edit#gid=1566844114). If you want a very elegant windows management and client launcher you may want to check out the Fuiiboxing tab (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j6tc7Bi0WNN_NbplgM1mbKcJkv89c4EhbYDN18vuYA4/edit#gid=439687403).

Sorry if the above doesn't make sense. Very busy and in a hurry and working with too much coffee and too little sleep...



long as hardware broadcasting is acceptable, we can bounce back. Tab boxing is just awful and no good in fast paced scenarios and even if you can make it work by a thread...it’s not viable long term as it is more work than it has to be.

the truth is, boxing the old days was expensive, I used to 5 box on a desktop back in 2008 and it cost £3000 to have something that was decent enough.

it’s a full circle, we need to use hardware casting gear and budget amd nucs etc

i think all the modern casting software has made boxing so easy and I expensive, it’s been a easy ride for everyone to jump on board.

Time to get our wallets out, and adapt to the policies with hardware.

we will be back in action soon when we all compile a recommended list of hardware for reboot :)

What I worry the most about is bots, they will grow and become a bigger problem for us as we all
get slammed for being a bot using software, living a life of temp bans.

lets hope blizzard identify genuine boxers and treat us fairly and investigate in person rather than the ban hammer drom
the automated system.

[jak3676]

I don't actually see there being a good reason to run multiple desktop PC's anymore. For people that want to look at hardware broadcasting for better performance, I think the better option is to feed that input back into a single PC with virtualization. Sure you could feed that back into multiple PC's, but I don't see any benefit of doing it that way (outside of some edge cases where someone has 5 PCs already, so they don't want to pay for virtualization).

I started down the multiple-PCs road myself last week - hooked up the KM synchronizer to my desktop and 2 laptops for testing. It mostly works fine - I just couldn't get my Razer keypad to work with it (which won't be an issue for most people). I had cannibalized another older desktop some years ago, so I ordered parts for that and I was shopping for a 5th PC. Then I started looking at a better monitor setup...

In that time I started seeing what some others were doing with focus-follows-mouse and remapped keys for alt-tabbing. I think the performance there will be fine for 5-boxing- arguably better in some scenarios. I can program keys on my keypad to switch the current window of focus to which ever window I need, then to send a single keypress to that window - that all happens with just 1 keypress. So then you program multiple keys that you have multiple sets of those keys for each client. In combat you can send commands as quickly as you can roll your fingers across those keys. I need to do some more testing, but I think you can basically just mash all 4 or 5 keys at one time and each keystroke still goes where it needs to. Because I'm grouping my attacks onto multiple keys, I can't keymap everything like I used to, but I think I can get the 3 or 4 most hit buttons to all have their own group. For non-combat actions like drinking, mounting, etc (stuff where timing isn't critical), I'll handle those with a mouseover-focus.

These sorts of rapidly switching focus options seem to be the best footing for whatever blizzard decides to do in the future also - if they say, "no broadcasting by any means", I'll already be compliant.

More testing is needed to see how well this all actually performs in game - I've just done some very basic testing with multiple windows and notepad, etc - all seems very promising. The part that's kicking my butt right now is getting my screen layout optimized - but its slowly coming together.
https://gyazo.com/a4ad7d2987fd1632af9b94913789b900

[nodoze]

I don't actually see there being a good reason to run multiple desktop PC's anymore. For people that want to look at hardware broadcasting for better performance, I think the better option is to feed that input back into a single PC with virtualization. ...

... with focus-follows-mouse and remapped keys for alt-tabbing. I think the performance there will be fine for 5-boxing- arguably better in some scenarios. I can program keys on my keypad to switch the current window of focus to which ever window I need, then to send a single keypress to that window - that all happens with just 1 keypress. ...

These sorts of rapidly switching focus options seem to be the best footing for whatever blizzard decides to do in the future also - if they say, "no broadcasting by any means", I'll already be compliant. ...

The part that's kicking my butt right now is getting my screen layout optimized - but its slowly coming together.
https://gyazo.com/a4ad7d2987fd1632af9b94913789b900Agreed as full VMs (or Virtualized Desktops) architecturally give you virtually the same thing as physical PC.

Regarding getting your screen layout optimized, did you try renaming your windows with a tool like GUIPropView and then running a layout for each window by name via something like ShiftWindow? It testing mine were all pretty easy to get laid out correctly everytime and others were able to get it to remove the borders at the top of each client (I got it removed on 1 but didn't do for all of them in my testing).

What are you using to bring a desired window into focus via keypress?

[boxblizzard]

Agreed as full VMs (or Virtualized Desktops) architecturally give you virtually the same thing as physical PC.

Regarding getting your screen layout optimized, did you try renaming your windows with a tool like GUIPropView and then running a layout for each window by name via something like ShiftWindow? It testing mine were all pretty easy to get laid out correctly everytime and others were able to get it to remove the borders at the top of each client (I got it removed on 1 but didn't do for all of them in my testing).

What are you using to bring a desired window into focus via keypress?


cloud/Vm are of the same technology and creates a easy environment to box larger numbers.

this is possibly the kind of tools blizzard wants to not promote, hence hardware route limits numbers and technology within.

this is why I believe blizzard would be ok with raw tech than virtual/software based, because it’s easier to be exploited and run bigger teams with.

sadly, exploiters for personal gain and abusers will continue to cut down the limitations we are having.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they limit to one pc with hardware casting only for input actions. That would clear things up, sadly it’s a political game of cat and mouse in the fog....

[nodoze]

cloud/Vm are of the same technology and creates a easy environment to box larger numbers.

this is possibly the kind of tools blizzard wants to not promote, hence hardware route limits numbers and technology within.

this is why I believe blizzard would be ok with raw tech than virtual/software based, because it’s easier to be exploited and run bigger teams with.

sadly, exploiters for personal gain and abusers will continue to cut down the limitations we are having.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they limit to one pc with hardware casting only for input actions. That would clear things up, sadly it’s a political game of cat and mouse in the fog....Almost every Cloud Computing offering leverages virtualization but virtualization does not mean Cloud Computing...

If I understand correctly I believe Blizz's issue with Cloud Computing was more Intellectual Property (IP) related and related to 3rd parties externally hosting their games and streaming them to you (like NVIDIA's proposed cloud hosing service).

I agree that virtualization technology enables advanced configs for less than equivalent purely physical setups and helps amply abusive techniques/approaches.

The official broadly published stance taken thus far was against MultiCast input capable software and not against MultiCast input capable hardware which is why folk are trying to pursue hardware based MultiCasting approaches in keeping with the "letter of the law" (at least for now).

The smartest thing folks in the community can do, regardless of what approach they take, is to get in keeping with the "spirit of they law" and follow the "1-1-1 rule":

"1 human input can only cause only 1 action in only 1 client (whether enabled via software or hardware)."

[boxblizzard]

Almost every Cloud Computing offering leverages virtualization but virtualization does not mean Cloud Computing...

If I understand correctly I believe Blizz's issue with Cloud Computing was more Intellectual Property (IP) related and related to 3rd parties externally hosting their games and streaming them to you (like NVIDIA's proposed cloud hosing service).

I agree that virtualization technology enables advanced configs for less than equivalent purely physical setups and helps amply abusive techniques/approaches.

The official broadly published stance taken thus far was against multicast input capable software and not against multicast input capable hardware which is why folk are trying to pursue approaches in keeping with the "letter of the law".

The smartest thing folks in the community can do, regardless of what approach they take, is to get in keeping with the "spirit of they law" and follow the "1-1-1 rule":

"1 human input can only cause only 1 action in only 1 client (whether enabled via software or hardware)."

We know such virtualisation technology would present a can of worms, we can only hope to get some guidelines from blizzard soon, otherwise as you say the fail-safe is the 1-1-1 input rule to be followed.

This is a really crazy situation, no one knows what is acceptable or not and I doubt we will ever get confirmation for political reasons.

fun times!

[jak3676]

I may have to type up the shiftwindow setup.

ShiftWindow was kicking my butt early on, but it is pretty simple once you figure it out. At 1st I was just running my 5 different rules, but it was applying those rules to only 1 client (makes sense - all the client windows have the same name). So then, I was thinking I had to rename each window, then run the rule for that named window - which works, but holy cow is that a lot of effort just to launch your games. Maybe if I knew how to save and script that to run automatically - but I don't know how to do that.

After failing at ShiftWindow I tried FancyZones, but couldn't get it to work with WoW for some reason. So then I tried "Actual Window Manager" which worked, but it was a PITA to set up and it screwed up so many other things. Then I went back to trying GUIPropView in conjunction with some other tools - which also sorta worked. At that point someone in discord explained what I was doing wrong on ShiftWindow, so I went back and figured that out. But by then I was launching my 5 clients in windowed mode, so I tried "Windowed Borderless Gaming" to strip the window piece and I thought it all looked pretty good. But then someone pointed that there was no need to launch in windowed mode - just launch in full screen and ShiftWindow still works find - plus no need to strip out the window boarders then. Eureka! Screen setup finally looks great and its easy enough to launch everything. https://gyazo.com/038d7d1d9dc3ff0fa92287772152fbbb

I imagine JMB will make the screen setup even easier to configure and launch. So there's no reason to get super invested in something else for now. But a quick ShiftWindow config is easy enough.

Now back to actual control setup and testing - my goal is a combination of mouseover and macro keys on my Razer Tartarus keypad.

[Wepwewet]

A "mental gymnastic" workaround I myself am kinda okay with: Making use of the fact that a keypress indeed consists of two events (stumbled across that again while playing around with Arduinos and the USB-HID implementation there) : onPress and onRelease.

-Find a Windowmanager that let's you hotkey the window to focus
-Make use of the HID-Driver of your programmable keyboard (if it is capable to mimic that behavior) :
onPress - - - > send hotkey to focus window X
onRelease - - - -> cast spell hotkey of client X

If MIDI Hardware is involved and/or translated to Keystrokes it would be the terminology NoteOn / NoteOff.

Not saying that this will be tolerated, really no one knows, but from my perspective a setup like that can only send one key to one client at a time while minimizing keypresses / not injecting to background windows. Also the first event is only used within the OS while only the second event is processed by a client.

I would also try a "mixed" solution as you proposed, only handling the most important spells that way while maintaining the hover over solution for stuff like pots/cds/reg

[Mordikai]

What are the resolutions of the Windows in https://gyazo.com/038d7d1d9dc3ff0fa92287772152fbbb?

[jak3676]

This is all on a 4k 32" monitor (3840x2160), but for whatever reason ShiftWindow puts it at 2560*1440 - I'm assuming that's due to 150% UI Scaling on my windows desktop.

So in ShiftWindow I have my main screen set for 2060*1400, then my smaller screens at 500*350 - which leaves room for the 40 pixel taskbar at the bottom.

Within the game, it recognizes that I'm running a custom resolution of 3090*2100 and then 750*525.

[nodoze]

https://gyazo.com/038d7d1d9dc3ff0fa92287772152fbbb?

This is all on a 4k 32" monitor (3840x2160), but for whatever reason ShiftWindow puts it at 2560*1440 - I'm assuming that's due to 150% UI Scaling on my windows desktop.

So in ShiftWindow I have my main screen set for 2060*1400, then my smaller screens at 500*350 - which leaves room for the 40 pixel taskbar at the bottom.

Within the game, it recognizes that I'm running a custom resolution of 3090*2100 and then 750*525.That is really well done and looks nice. I may make my scaling 150% also on my 3840x2160 and try those settings.

[jak3676]

@Wepwewet - what are you using for a window manager? I tried "actual window manager". It works, but I hated that tool - it messed up so much of the rest of my config.

As for "on-press" controlling where you have focus and "on-release" actually doing the in-game action - I suppose that works, but that limits you to only pressing 1 key at time. I'm trying to get it down so I can either just roll my fingers across 4 or 5 keys, if not just press 4 keys at the same time - so I'm trying to get the focus change as close as possible to in-game action

[Wepwewet]

I must admit I haven't done very much of testing, more conceptual stuff. I tried a open source Javascript solution called HyperKeys, it does work well if you rename the windows beforehand (Titlechanger is what I used for that). But there's still some mild annoyances, mainly that it autodrags your mouse to the new window. Guess one can easily comment out some of the code...
But to be honest I won't dwelve further into all that window management stuff as I expect JMB to handle exactly those annoyances quite well / better without having 4 tools to start up and configure every time. I think the big point on all this is: splitting key down/release does work and - from my understanding it should be okayish within the TOS.
Next step for me is to wait for JMB and see how well it is handling hotkey focus. I guess we won't see instant mashing of 4 buttons, but more of a letting your four fingers slide across 4 adjacent buttons for your main AoE rotation. I'm cool with that.

[Nodoby]

I may have to type up the shiftwindow setup.

ShiftWindow was kicking my butt early on, but it is pretty simple once you figure it out. At 1st I was just running my 5 different rules, but it was applying those rules to only 1 client (makes sense - all the client windows have the same name). So then, I was thinking I had to rename each window, then run the rule for that named window - which works, but holy cow is that a lot of effort just to launch your games. Maybe if I knew how to save and script that to run automatically - but I don't know how to do that.

After failing at ShiftWindow I tried FancyZones, but couldn't get it to work with WoW for some reason. So then I tried "Actual Window Manager" which worked, but it was a PITA to set up and it screwed up so many other things. Then I went back to trying GUIPropView in conjunction with some other tools - which also sorta worked. At that point someone in discord explained what I was doing wrong on ShiftWindow, so I went back and figured that out. But by then I was launching my 5 clients in windowed mode, so I tried "Windowed Borderless Gaming" to strip the window piece and I thought it all looked pretty good. But then someone pointed that there was no need to launch in windowed mode - just launch in full screen and ShiftWindow still works find - plus no need to strip out the window boarders then. Eureka! Screen setup finally looks great and its easy enough to launch everything. https://gyazo.com/038d7d1d9dc3ff0fa92287772152fbbb

I imagine JMB will make the screen setup even easier to configure and launch. So there's no reason to get super invested in something else for now. But a quick ShiftWindow config is easy enough.

Now back to actual control setup and testing - my goal is a combination of mouseover and macro keys on my Razer Tartarus keypad.

Thanks for the tip regarding ShiftWindow. I didn't understand how you found a way to easily configure all your windows without renaming them first. For anyone looking for an alternative to renaming windows, this executable does only that and supports batch - https://github.com/lcapaldo/SetWindowText

Example.cmd:


$echo off
start "" "C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\WowClassic.exe"
ping localhost -n 2
"C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\SetWindowText.exe" "World of Warcraft" "WoW1"
start "" "C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\WowClassic.exe"
ping localhost -n 2
"C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\SetWindowText.exe" "World of Warcraft" "WoW2"
start "" "C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\WowClassic.exe"
ping localhost -n 2
"C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\SetWindowText.exe" "World of Warcraft" "WoW3"

Tip for this setup:
Control Panel > Ease of Access Center > Make the mouse easier to use
Enable "Activate a Window by hovering over it with the mouse"

[jak3676]

I went even more basic - I just made 5 copies of the WoWClassic.exe in the same folder (wow1.exe, wow2.exe, wow3.exe, etc). Both the retail and classic exe files are fairly small anyway (35-50MB). This way not only are the windows already renamed when launched, but I can pin each exe to the taskbar separately (you can't pin the same exe 5 times). I needed them all pinned separately that way I could use windows shortcuts to switch between them <windows key> + 1 will either open or focus the 1st item pinned on your taskbar, + 2 does the 2nd one, etc.

[Nodoby]

Batch script that renames windows dynamically with SetWindowText (https://github.com/lcapaldo/SetWindowText)so you only need one shortcut.
Remove the two first lines that launches the client and waits, and this should even work when run after launch from Battle.net .


$ECHO OFFSTART "" "C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\WowClassic.exe"
TIMEOUT /T 1
TASKLIST /FI "WINDOWTITLE eq WoW_BG" | FINDSTR "WowClassic.exe"
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 "C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\SetWindowText.exe" "World of Warcraft" "WoW_BG"
TASKLIST /FI "WINDOWTITLE eq WoW1" | FINDSTR "WowClassic.exe"
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 "C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\SetWindowText.exe" "World of Warcraft" "WoW1"
TASKLIST /FI "WINDOWTITLE eq WoW2" | FINDSTR "WowClassic.exe"
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 "C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\SetWindowText.exe" "World of Warcraft" "WoW2"
TASKLIST /FI "WINDOWTITLE eq WoW3" | FINDSTR "WowClassic.exe"
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 "C:\Games\World of Warcraft\_classic_\SetWindowText.exe" "World of Warcraft" "WoW3"
REM .... add code for the number of clients.

[jak3676]

Have two instances of WoW with different graphics or config settings : woweconomy (reddit.com) (https://www.reddit.com/r/woweconomy/comments/9pmh1k/have_two_instances_of_wow_with_different_graphics/)
[WoW] Console Variables for Video Settings (Shadowlands) (dual-boxing.com) (https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/52701-Console-Variables-for-Video-Settings-(Battle-for-Azeroth))

I need to figure out some options for changing gfx settings on my followers - both of these approaches seem useful.

[Nodoby]

Have two instances of WoW with different graphics or config settings : woweconomy (reddit.com) (https://www.reddit.com/r/woweconomy/comments/9pmh1k/have_two_instances_of_wow_with_different_graphics/)
[WoW] Console Variables for Video Settings (Shadowlands) (dual-boxing.com) (https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/52701-Console-Variables-for-Video-Settings-(Battle-for-Azeroth))

I need to figure out some options for changing gfx settings on my followers - both of these approaches seem useful.

This is some of what I'm fiddling with at the moment. I'm trying to create dynamic settings in a custom addon based on the different window resolutions created by ShiftWindow. The SetCVar commands seems to be what you are looking for. I've used it to set UI Scale, but I also added different Antia-Aliasing settings as an example.
https://www.dual-boxing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2449&stc=1
https://www.dual-boxing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2441&stc=1

Folder: MyStuff

File MyStuff.toc

## Interface: 11305
## Title: MyStuff
## Version: v1.13 Classic
## Notes: Stuff
myUI.lua
myFunc.lua

File MySettings.lua


local function SetPosition(frame, ...)
if type(frame) == 'string' then
UIPARENT_MANAGED_FRAME_POSITIONS[frame] = nil
frame = _G[frame]
message("text")
end
if type(frame) == 'table' and type(frame.IsObjectType) == 'function' and frame:IsObjectType('Frame') then
local name = frame:GetName()
if name then
UIPARENT_MANAGED_FRAME_POSITIONS[name] = nil
end
frame:SetMovable(true)
frame:SetUserPlaced(true)
frame:SetDontSavePosition(true)
frame:SetAttribute('ignoreFramePositionManager', true)
frame.ignoreFramePositionManager = true
if ... then
frame:ClearAllPoints()
frame:SetPoint(...)
end
frame:SetMovable(false)
end
end


local function HorizontalBars()
for i,v in ipairs{"Left","Right"} do for i = 2, 12
do local n = "MultiBar"..v.."Button" local btn = _G[n..i] btn:ClearAllPoints()btn:SetPoint("LEFT", n..i - 1, "RIGHT", 6, 0)
end
end
end


SetCVar('useuiscale', 1)
SetCVar('uiscale', 1)
UIParent:SetScale(1)
width = GetScreenWidth()
height = GetScreenHeight()
print("UI ", width, " ", height)

-- 3440x1440
if math.floor(width) == 1834 then
print("3440x1440")
-- FULLSCREEN SETTINGS
end

-- MULTIBOX MASTER
if math.floor(width) == 1190 then
print("MULTIBOX MASTER")

-- ACTION BARS
HorizontalBars()
SetPosition(MultiBarLeftButton1, "BOTTOMLEFT", MultiBarBottomLeftButton1, "TOPLEFT", 0, 7)
SetPosition(MultiBarRightButton1, "BOTTOMLEFT", MultiBarBottomRightButton1, "TOPLEFT", 0, 7)
--SetPosition(StanceBarFrame, "CENTER", PlayerFrame, "CENTER", 0, -50)
SetPosition(StanceBarFrame, "BOTTOMLEFT", MultiBarLeftButton1, "TOPLEFT", -235, 90)
--SetPosition(PetActionButton1, "BOTTOMLEFT", MultiBarLeftButton1, "TOPLEFT", 0, 7)
SetPosition(PetActionButton1, "BOTTOMLEFT", MultiBarLeftButton1, "TOPLEFT", -400, 100)

-- CASTING BAR
SetPosition(CastingBarFrame, "CENTER", WorldFrame, "CENTER", 0, -300)
--CastingBarFrame.Border:Hide()
--CastingBarFrame.Text:Hide()
--CastingBarFrame.Flash:Hide()
--CastingBarFrame:SetScale(0.7)


-- PLAYER FRAME
SetPosition(PlayerFrame, "CENTER", WorldFrame, "CENTER", -200, -250)
--SetPosition(rBFS_BuffDragFrame, "RIGHT", PlayerFrame, "LEFT", 0, 0)
SetPosition(TemporaryEnchantFrame, "RIGHT", PlayerFrame, "LEFT", -2, -93)
--PlayerFrameManaBarTextLeft:Hide()
--PlayerFrameManaBarTextRight:SetScale(0.8)
--PlayerFrameManaBarText:SetScale(0.8)
--PlayerFrameHealthBarTextLeft:SetScale(0.8)
--PlayerFrameHealthBarTextRight:SetScale(0.8)
--PlayerFrameHealthBarText:SetScale(0.8)


-- TARGET Frame
SetPosition(TargetFrame, "CENTER", WorldFrame, "CENTER", 200, -250)
SetPosition(TargetFrameToT, "BOTTOMLEFT", TargetFrame, "TOPRIGHT", -25, -25)
TargetFrameToT:SetScale(1.3)


-- PARTY FRAME
SetPosition(PartyMemberFrame1, "RIGHT", PlayerFrame, "LEFT", 0, 0)
PartyMemberFrame1:SetScale(1.3)
PartyMemberFrame2:SetScale(1.3)
PartyMemberFrame3:SetScale(1.3)
PartyMemberFrame4:SetScale(1.3)


-- RAID Frame
SetPosition(CompactRaidFrameContainer, "BOTTOM", MultiBarLeftButton12, "TOPRIGHT", 3, 7)
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderTop:Hide ()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderTopLeft: Hide()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderTopRight :Hide()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderLeft:Hid e()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderRight:Hi de()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderBottom:H ide()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderBottomLe ft:Hide()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderBottomRi ght:Hide()


-- UI SCALE
SetCVar('useuiscale', 1)
SetCVar('uiscale', 0.64999997615814)
UIParent:SetScale(0.64999997615814)


-- CONFIG
SetCVar('MSAAQuality', "3,0")

end


-- MULTIBOX SLAVE
if math.floor(width) == 1410 then
print("MULTIBOX SLAVE")

-- MENUBAR
--SetPosition(MainMenuBar, "BOTTOMRIGHT", WorldFrame, "BOTTOMRIGHT", -120, 0)

-- ACTION BARS
HorizontalBars()
SetPosition(MultiBarLeftButton1, "BOTTOMLEFT", MultiBarBottomLeftButton1, "TOPLEFT", 0, 7)
SetPosition(MultiBarRightButton1, "BOTTOMLEFT", MultiBarBottomRightButton1, "TOPLEFT", 0, 7)
SetPosition(PetActionButton1, "BOTTOMLEFT", MultiBarLeftButton1, "TOPLEFT", 0, 7)
--SetPosition(StanceBarFrame, "CENTER", PlayerFrame, "CENTER", 0, -50)
StanceBarFrame:SetScale(0.8)
SetPosition(StanceBarFrame, "BOTTOMLEFT", MultiBarLeftButton1, "TOPLEFT", 0, 7)

-- CASTING BAR
SetPosition(CastingBarFrame, "CENTER", WorldFrame, "CENTER", 0, -300)
--CastingBarFrame.Border:Hide()
--CastingBarFrame.Text:Hide()
--CastingBarFrame.Flash:Hide()
--CastingBarFrame:SetScale(0.7)

-- PLAYER FRAME
SetPosition(PlayerFrame, "CENTER", WorldFrame, "CENTER", -200, -140)
--SetPosition(rBFS_BuffDragFrame, "RIGHT", PlayerFrame, "LEFT", 0, 0)
SetPosition(TemporaryEnchantFrame, "RIGHT", PlayerFrame, "LEFT", -2, -93)

-- TARGET FRAME
SetPosition(TargetFrame, "CENTER", WorldFrame, "CENTER", 200, -140)
SetPosition(TargetFrameToT, "LEFT", TargetFrame, "RIGHT", -20, -20)
TargetFrameToT:SetScale(1.3)

-- PARTY FRAME
SetPosition(PartyMemberFrame1, "RIGHT", PlayerFrame, "LEFT", 0, 0)
PartyMemberFrame1:SetScale(1.3)
PartyMemberFrame2:SetScale(1.3)
PartyMemberFrame3:SetScale(1.3)
PartyMemberFrame4:SetScale(1.3)

-- RAID FRAME (TOGGLE IN GAME: /click CompactRaidFrameManagerDisplayFrameLockedModeToggl e)
SetPosition(CompactRaidFrameContainer, "TOPLEFT", WorldFrame, "TOPLEFT", 0, 0)
CompactRaidFrameContainer:SetScale(1.4)

CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderTop:Hide ()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderTopLeft: Hide()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderTopRight :Hide()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderLeft:Hid e()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderRight:Hi de()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderBottom:H ide()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderBottomLe ft:Hide()
CompactRaidFrameContainerBorderFrameBorderBottomRi ght:Hide()

CompactRaidFrameManagerToggleButton:Hide()
CompactRaidFrameManagerDisplayFrame:Hide()
CompactRaidFrameManager:Hide()
CompactRaidFrameManagerBg:Hide()
CompactRaidFrameManagerBorderTopRight:Hide()
CompactRaidFrameManagerBorderRight:Hide()
CompactRaidFrameManagerBorderBottomRight:Hide()

-- CHAT FRAME
FCF_Tab_OnClick(ChatFrame3)

-- UI SCALE
SetCVar('useuiscale', 0)

-- CONFIG
SetCVar('MSAAQuality', "1,0")

end



File myFunc.lua

hooksecurefunc("BuffFrame_UpdateAllBuffAnchors", function() for i = 1, BUFF_ACTUAL_DISPLAY do
_G["BuffButton"..i]:ClearAllPoints()


if i > 1 and mod(i, BUFFS_PER_ROW) == 1 then
_G["BuffButton"..i]:SetPoint("TOP", _G["BuffButton"..(i-BUFFS_PER_ROW)], "BOTTOM", 0, -BUFF_ROW_SPACING)
elseif i == 1 then
-- USE THIS TO CHANGE POSITION OF BUFF FRAME (IN RELATION TO PLAYERFRAME)
_G["BuffButton"..i]:SetPoint("TOPLEFT", PlayerFrame, 95, -75)
else
_G["BuffButton"..i]:SetPoint("TOPLEFT", _G["BuffButton"..i-1], 35, 0)
end
end
end)


hooksecurefunc("DebuffButton_UpdateAnchors", function (buttonName, index)
local buff = _G[buttonName..index]
local numBuffRows = math.floor(BUFF_ACTUAL_DISPLAY/9) + 1


buff:ClearAllPoints()
if index > 1 and mod(index, BUFFS_PER_ROW) == 1 then
buff:SetPoint("TOP", _G[buttonName..(index-BUFFS_PER_ROW)], "BOTTOM", 0, -BUFF_ROW_SPACING)
elseif index == 1 then
-- USE THIS TO CHANGE POSITION OF DEBUFF FRAME (IN RELATION TO BUFFBUTTON1)
buff:SetPoint("TOPLEFT", _G["BuffButton1"], 0, (60 + (numBuffRows * 45)))
else
buff:SetPoint("TOPLEFT", _G[buttonName..(index-1)], 35, 0)
end
end)


-- Remove flashing PlayerFrame in rested area
hooksecurefunc("PlayerFrame_UpdateStatus", function()
if IsResting("player") then
PlayerStatusTexture:Hide()
PlayerRestGlow:Hide()
PlayerStatusGlow:Hide()
end
end)

[jak3676]

For everyone doing the focus-follows-mouse - what did you set your delay to?
Change Time to Activate Window by Hovering Over with Mouse in Windows | Tutorials (tenforums.com) (https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/113268-change-time-activate-window-hovering-over-mouse-windows.html)

Also - has anyone found quicker, more convenient way to turn mouse-focus on and off? (instead of clicking through the control panel) Bit of a PITA going back and forth manually.

[woloss]

For everyone doing the focus-follows-mouse - what did you set your delay to?
Change Time to Activate Window by Hovering Over with Mouse in Windows | Tutorials (tenforums.com) (https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/113268-change-time-activate-window-hovering-over-mouse-windows.html)

Also - has anyone found quicker, more convenient way to turn mouse-focus on and off? (instead of clicking through the control panel) Bit of a PITA going back and forth manually.
0ms delay ofc, but still some delay may happen. On the other hand, they don't want to unban me yet, maybe pretty fast mouse move with high dpi may flag account and it's better to keep default 500ms.

As for turn on/off, there is registry value for this, but will require relog/restart to system. Probably best approach to make shortcut right to mouse settings or make another virtual desktop with Control Panel opened.

[Nodoby]

For everyone doing the focus-follows-mouse - what did you set your delay to?
Change Time to Activate Window by Hovering Over with Mouse in Windows | Tutorials (tenforums.com) (https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/113268-change-time-activate-window-hovering-over-mouse-windows.html)

Also - has anyone found quicker, more convenient way to turn mouse-focus on and off? (instead of clicking through the control panel) Bit of a PITA going back and forth manually.

MouseWinX can change settings without needing to log off and on.
https://www.dual-boxing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2445&stc=1
https://www.dual-boxing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2447&stc=1
You do need to compile it yourself with Windows Driver Kit Version 7.1.0
Download: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11800
Moun the ISO-file and install (you only need to build option).
Download and extract: https://github.com/cuviper/mousewinx/archive/master.zip
Run x86 Free Build Environment from Start Menu
In the console, change to source files directory and type build.
https://www.dual-boxing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2448&stc=1
https://www.dual-boxing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2446&stc=1

[jak3676]

For whatever reason I've fond it easier to mouse left-right instead of up-down. World of Warcraft (gyazo.com) (https://gyazo.com/757e83ca0e36c3d85e1eb1e5d74b204b)

Main window is 2560x1000 (3840x1500 in game), followers are 640x400 (960x600 in game).

I recorded a quick clip of testing with focus-follows-mouse. I believe the default is 500ms delay between window swaps - this would be totally unusable for instant casts. https://youtu.be/51-WvBj7hXY

Then I tried again with my keypad macros set in Razer Synapse to change window focus and send a single keystroke to that window. (Razor Synapse macro is: <windows> key-down, "5" key-down, "5" key-up, <windows> key-up, "6" key-down, "6" key-up. I have the whole thing set for 0 delay). That worked much better for me. https://youtu.be/g8DGhXKTaOQ

I did some quick testing to see how its working in combat - something is off. Multibox Testing - 1st Combat - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhcMEbf5lxw) you can see something is pressing the windows button, but not sending the screen swap. Overall DPS is good - doesn't seem like I'm loosing too many global cool downs by doing it this way.

[Moorea]

I'm looking forward to contributions and input for
https://github.com/WowOpenBox/WowOpenBox/issues
to make it the best, most suitable to (what is left of) wow multiboxing - please lmk

[nodoze]

I went even more basic - I just made 5 copies of the WoWClassic.exe in the same folder (wow1.exe, wow2.exe, wow3.exe, etc). Both the retail and classic exe files are fairly small anyway (35-50MB). This way not only are the windows already renamed when launched, but I can pin each exe to the taskbar separately (you can't pin the same exe 5 times). I needed them all pinned separately that way I could use windows shortcuts to switch between them <windows key> + 1 will either open or focus the 1st item pinned on your taskbar, + 2 does the 2nd one, etc.The swapping of Focus using this approach has been fast for me. The main issue I have had is that if I press the key twice I swap to the window and then minimize it. Anyway to turn the minimization off if you do <windows key>+1 while already having that window active?

[Nodoby]

Microsoft Powertoys (https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys)
I found a use for the included Keyboard Manager in ShiftWindow setups. I can remap shortcuts like Ctrl+C to any other key combination, but specify that it only applies to WowClassic.

I also map the same shortcuts to macros in game.
Lets say I have my Hunter in the main window. If I press Ctrl+C, the remapped command Ctrl+Alt+Numpad0 tells ShiftWindows to put my tank in the main window. Ctrl+Alt+Numpad is also mapped to a bindpad (https://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info25196-BindPadClassic.html)macro on my hunter which passes leader to the tank and changes hunters action bar from 1 to 2. If i repeat the Ctrl+C when my tank is in the main window this does the same thing but changes my tanks action bar from 2 to 1.

All characters have similar configurations and on action bar 2 that have macros using /follow Party1 or /assist Party1. With MouseWinX mentioned earlier its easy to enable the "activate Window when I hover over it" setting in Windows.

Heres a Pic of my current setup. I even configured a second way of opening VLC player to use the remaining space on my second monitor in a no windows decoration setup. I think Im getting quite pleased with my setup. (Thanks again jak3676!)

https://www.dual-boxing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2455&stc=1

[Dougn0782]

Determined to not be shutout by Bliz here is my HW boxing solution. 8 pedals and 35 buttons. Via relays one button press can send a signal to 1-4 arduino keyboards. The arduinos send the key press to the connected
PC. Its a lot of work to build but works well so far. Currently only have 2 PCs running but will have a few more soon.
https://www.dual-boxing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2462&stc=1

[nodoze]

Determined to not be shutout by Bliz here is my HW boxing solution. 8 pedals and 35 buttons. Via relays one button press can send a signal to 1-4 arduino keyboards. The arduinos send the key press to the connected
PC. Its a lot of work to build but works well so far. Currently only have 2 PCs running but will have a few more soon.
[pictures]Now that is some serious dedication to boxing! Would love to see future updates.

[jak3676]

I would suggest that if anyone is still doing the 'roll-your-own' approach with ShiftWindow, FancyZones or other window managers, and X-Mouse or Microsoft accessibility (focus-follows-mouse) options, WoW Open Box is a much better solution - it easily integrates the functionality of all those other tools. [WoW] Wow Open Box is released - fully functional open source, free, verifiably compliant multiboxing software (dual-boxing.com) (https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/58076-Wow-Open-Box-is-released-fully-functional-open-source-free-verifiably-compliant-multiboxing-software?p=433861#post433861)

I'm sure there's some argument that people will make between JMB and WoW Open Box, and there are some minor differences. But in my opinion they are very feature-comparable. If you're going with non-broadcast software multiboxing, I think those 2 are the only viable options right now.

(If you're going full hardware - that's a whole other discussion).

[rubicon]

Determined to not be shutout by Bliz here is my HW boxing solution. 8 pedals and 35 buttons. Via relays one button press can send a signal to 1-4 arduino keyboards. The arduinos send the key press to the connected
PC. Its a lot of work to build but works well so far. Currently only have 2 PCs running but will have a few more soon.
https://www.dual-boxing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2462&stc=1

That's amazing. Please update us as you progress!

[xHaplo]

I find Fuii-Boxing perfect, had no issues using it, I just adjusted the layout a little to my needs which you can easily do with the script.

A few tips:

- Order team list by name
- Use BT4 (or any other equivalent addon) to create HUGE buttons for heal / shield / buff / decurse etc. next to each member using macros to target party members (so the bars are always located next to the party member) for easy clicking
- Use EMAC auto intive / follow / unfollow keybinds
- Leatrix plus for extras

[Dougn0782]

I've been working with my 5 account setup for a while now. Here is a simplified explanation of how my rig (seen if previous posts) works. The example here is how I am controlling the 3 DPS accounts for my 5 man team.

Press and hold the button > This activates a relay for each of the boards > The relay closes a circuit that inputs to the Arduino board > The Arduino is running a keyboard code to repeat the keypress ever 20ms. The keypresses are sent to each PC separately. All I have to do is hold the button down (pedal in my setup) and the DPS assist my tank and cast away.

After a few weeks working with this setup I feel I have about 90% of the functionality I had with SW broadcasting. I've been back to running dungeons as well. Farming in the open world. No messages from Bliz.

[MiRai]

Press and hold the button > This activates a relay for each of the boards > The relay closes a circuit that inputs to the Arduino board > The Arduino is running a keyboard code to repeat the keypress ever 20ms. The keypresses are sent to each PC separately. All I have to do is hold the button down (pedal in my setup) and the DPS assist my tank and cast away.
Holding down a key to repeat a command is against the rules of the game.

[Dougn0782]

Holding down a key to repeat a command is against the rules of the game.

I have never seen a clear bluepost about this specifically. It's a gray area at best. I have used a Steelseries mouse for years that repeats my keypress while held down.

[MiRai]

I have never seen a clear bluepost about this specifically. It's a gray area at best. I have used a Steelseries mouse for years that repeats my keypress while held down.
It's well-known information, and you can find several answers to this already on the Blizzard Customer Support forum:

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/is-keyspamahk-allowed/659664/3
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/clarification-on-tos-automation/606080/2
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/question-about-macros/587089/5

It took me 60 seconds to find the above three posts, but I'm not going to rummage through an entire Customer Support forum just to appease you, and if you need a response from Blizzard, then feel free to put in a ticket and ask them directly. You won't, because you do know the answer to this, and just because you didn't get in trouble doesn't mean it isn't against the rules of the game.

It's like saying that you speed around town at 10 over the limit, but because you haven't been caught yet, it's just gray area. In fact, you may be able to freely continue that behavior until the day you're no longer able to drive, but that never once meant that it wasn't against the law to do so.

With that said, the rules of the forum are clear, and so if you're looking to assist others with setting up that "feature" of your setup, it won't be tolerated here.

[Dougn0782]

Those still aren't official blue posts. I've stopped SW broadcasting as they specified. Until more details are clarified it will be business as usual for me, just without the SW broadcasting.

[jak3676]

I was got a ticket for 9 MPH over the limit - probably a decade ago and I'm still pissed about it.
Cop pulls me over, "Do you know how fast you were going?"
Me, "Um, 65".
Cop, "I clocked you at 64".
Me, "Isn't the speed limit 55?"
Cop, "Let me see your license and registration please".
Cop then goes back to his car, comes back like 10 min later with a ticket for $130. Its not even any points against your license here in VA...

Moral of the story - don't use autoclickers

[nodoze]

Those still aren't official blue posts. I've stopped SW broadcasting as they specified. Until more details are clarified it will be business as usual for me, just without the SW broadcasting.Easy to get the correct answers in the forums from non-blue posters as they are long standing and well known policies.

Multiple well understood examples of the original blue posts those others were basing their answers upon:

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/46453-Blues-on-Boxing?p=354852&viewfull=1#post354852