Advantages of Using PiP & Focus Switching (Looting/PVP)

[wougoose]

I've been doing some testing with some trials to get my setup fine tuned before starting my hunters back up and found some really great advantages to using keyclone's PiP functionality: Looting and PVP. I Have also mentioned the disadvantages in the following post. I'm looking for some creative ideas people have at tackling those disadvantages :)

What does this require?
All clients on one machine keyclone Focus targeting/assisting Same class makeup (All shamans / All hunters / etc) to give you the flexibility of changing mains easily
The reason I feel this setup is advantageous is due to being able to switch your main almost instantaneously. With one key press, you can switch screens AND change focus at the same time, creating a new main. You don't have to move your eyes to another smaller screen to the right or left of your normal viewing area, which can really make a difference when it comes to efficiency. I will now explain the major benefits with regards to looting and PVP:

Looting:

Collection quests are a pain because you have to actually loot on your alts. I don't know about you, but I feel it to be more work than it is worth the majority of the time. However, with the method of switching the screen and main via PiP and focus, you can seamlessly change to the next character once your main is full up on items and continue looting on your new main. Once the next character is full, you can immediately switch to the next.

PVP:

In arenas, smart teams will inevitably figure out who your main is and focus fire or cc that character first, giving you the disadvantage. However, with this seamless main switching, they will have a much more difficult time figuring out who the main is. Yes they can watch the following...but at least they can't immediately figure it out based on character name.

Most boxers are using focus switching to switch mains if the main dies. Now along with the change of focus, you get the added benefit of still looking on your primary screen.

How did I set it up?

I currently have a 4x Hunter group, so I can use one key with all of the modifiers(none/shift/alt/ctrl) to specify the character.

I set it up by doing the following:
Create a focus macro similar to the following:
/focus [target=toon1,nomod]; [target=toon2,mod:shift];[target=toon3,mod:ctrl];[target=toon4,mod:alt] Bind a key to that macro (I'm currently using the Home key) Bind each region's PiP shortcut in keyclone to those 4 bindings (Home, Shift+Home, Ctrl+Home, Alt+Home)Now you can enjoy the seamless switching. When I want to change mains, a quick key press will switch screens and focus and I can immediately hit the follow key, giving me a complete change in less than a second. All of my macros are set up to assist the current focus.

Current issues with this method:
Small bug with keyclone where you can't use the alt key in a PiP hotkey. Rob is working on fixing this. Moving formations - Can't think of a way to dynamically change moving formations based on who the main is. I suppose if you flare out in an equal square it would be fine, but more advanced formations will need some work. Any ideas on this? PiP switching performance - My machine switches very quickly, but others may find it to be too slow for their pvp needs if they are running a slower machine. I'd imagine a Quad Core + 8800gt or better will be smooth as silk. (note: I'm only running a Quad Core + 7800GTX)

I'm looking for valuable feedback if anyone has any. If you see any other big benefits or have any ideas, please let me know. I'm sure the community would appreciate it!

[Rew017]

me likey. I have been using 4 seperate keys as my focus change and alt+tab between windows when I change focus. I hadn't explored the pip functionality in keyclone, but I will be using it from now on. I'll probably still leave it as 4 seperate keys as I find it easier than 1 button with mods. (G15 gaming, I have the keys to spare. granted, i sometimes use g buttons as mod-clicks anyways, but you get the point)

[wougoose]

me likey. I have been using 4 seperate keys as my focus change and alt+tab between windows when I change focus. I hadn't explored the pip functionality in keyclone, but I will be using it from now on. I'll probably still leave it as 4 seperate keys as I find it easier than 1 button with mods. (G15 gaming, I have the keys to spare. granted, i sometimes use g buttons as mod-clicks anyways, but you get the point)Yeah, I just chose to use 1 key with mods because of my limited keys and macros. Either way works great :)

[Skuggomann]

GREAT writupp man, im so gona tet this out!

[hankplayswow]

Thanks for this post. Previously I have been using two montiors, with 4 clients on one and my main on the other monitor. Having to focus on those little screens during gathering quests is actually quite anonying, I'm looking forward to setting up PiP. Thanks for bringing it to my attention :)

[Maz]

I'm using a similar setup to this but I'm using target instead of focus. I'm saving focus in case I can come up with a use for it later.

My macro looks the same but uses /target in place of /focus.

My offensive spell cast macros look like this:

/cast [target=targettarget,harm][target=target,harm] Lightning Bolt
My healing spell cast macros look like this:

/cast [target=targettargettarget,help][target=targettarget,help][target=target,help][target=player] Healing Wave

[Nifter]

Sweet, I didn't even think about the modifiers. I previously had them all bound to CTRL+(F1-F5).

Question: Can the modifier key be only shift, alt, ctrl? Is there a way to make a different key a modifier, for instance F1? so CTRL could remain my macro button, but I would use F1-F5 as modifiers?


EDIT:
Inside the blizzard macro. mod=shift/alt/ctrl. I was asking if it was possible to do mod=F1, or something similar. After checking the macro portion on wowwiki, inapparently it isn't possible.

Does this mean that the method of PiP switching mentioned in the OP is impossible with 5 toons? Since there are only 4 modifier keys?

[keyclone]

huh? F1 as a modifier? i'm confused ?(

[Rew017]

Does this mean that the method of PiP switching mentioned in the OP is impossible with 5 toons? Since there are only 4 modifier keys?That is correct. You can only switch 4 characters using 1 button. However, it might make sense to use 1 button as your main, and then your 4 alts on the button next to it.

[Kaynin]

hmm, having some issues with PiP myself at the moment, busy with work tho will post about it in the right forum later. xP

[KvdM]

I've also been using this pip setup for several days now. I didn't bother posting about it, because I thought it was an obvious thing to do. The setup works quite well, but there are some minor issues:


Sometimes the pip switching creates a seam between my main and secondary windows. It looks like a one pixel wide gap that still displays the contents of the previous window.
Sometimes it switches to the wrong main window. It usually happens after I've switched a lot of windows and then try to switch back to the window of first character. Sometimes I end up having to the window of my second character as the main window. Pressing the same switching button again fixes the issue.
WoW doesn't always respond to the switch button and the sometimes focus fails the call the set focus macro (although this might also have something to do with the speed of my computer). When this happens you'll notice that the character on your main window will try to follow the preview focus character.
Since I don't have a main character anymore, all my character macro's try to assist the focus target. Having the current focus character assist himself sometimes makes you target the previous target (while your alts target the current target). If someone has a suggestion for how to prevent a character from assisting himself, you'd make me very happy.
Also, switching focus while keeping a movement button pressed is not a good idea. In my setup, the movement keys are on the keyclone "do not pass" list. This allows me to use the movement keys with every character separately. It also means that a window won't get any movement key updates when it loses focus. When you switch focus while keeping a movement key pressed, you can end up with a character that won't stop moving until you focus that window again. It looks funny when this happens to someone else, but it usually happens at the worst possible moment.
A lot of minor issues, but its still a very good setup.

[keyclone]

@Kvdm
please confirm that you are using v1.8g

[wougoose]

I've also been using this pip setup for several days now. I didn't bother posting about it, because I thought it was an obvious thing to do. The setup works quite well, but there are some minor issues:


Sometimes the pip switching creates a seam between my main and secondary windows. It looks like a one pixel wide gap that still displays the contents of the previous window.
Sometimes it switches to the wrong main window. It usually happens after I've switched a lot of windows and then try to switch back to the window of first character. Sometimes I end up having to the window of my second character as the main window. Pressing the same switching button again fixes the issue.
WoW doesn't always respond to the switch button and the sometimes focus fails the call the set focus macro (although this might also have something to do with the speed of my computer). When this happens you'll notice that the character on your main window will try to follow the preview focus character.
Since I don't have a main character anymore, all my character macro's try to assist the focus target. Having the current focus character assist himself sometimes makes you target the previous target (while your alts target the current target). If someone has a suggestion for how to prevent a character from assisting himself, you'd make me very happy.
Also, switching focus while keeping a movement button pressed is not a good idea. In my setup, the movement keys are on the keyclone "do not pass" list. This allows me to use the movement keys with every character separately. It also means that a window won't get any movement key updates when it loses focus. When you switch focus while keeping a movement key pressed, you can end up with a character that won't stop moving until you focus that window again. It looks funny when this happens to someone else, but it usually happens at the worst possible moment.
A lot of minor issues, but its still a very good setup.Your last point about movement keys being held down has also caused me minor issues.

@Rob: Do you believe there is a way to release key presses after a PiP change occurs to avoid the issue of the key getting locked during the switch? Or maybe there is another solution?

@Kvdm: I haven't had any of the issues you mentioned besides the movement keys getting stuck. Are you using 1.8g? In terms of performance, what are the specs on your machine?

[Totek]

Can PiP be used with multiple monitors/video cards? (maybe desktop spanning?)

--Tot

[Djarid]

Like Wougoose, I use one modified key for setting focus and PiP, I also add /script PromoteToLeader(focus) at the end of the script which will, if possible, promote that character to leader, allowing me to use ZQB effectively

I assign each keystroke to a separate GKey (G1,G2,G3-5) this saves me keybindings ;)

[Crucial]

I'm experiencing a lot of the same issues KVDM - using keyclone 1.8g. The performance is so bad switching swapping characters (can be 5 seconds or more) its pretty much unusable especially when theres a lot of action going on (ie. pvp). I have the focus key binding the same as my PiP swap key (Ctrl-1 to Ctrl-5 for each character/region) and all characters get the new focus except for the character being swapped when I press the hotkey - I basically have to press the key again after the windows have swapped so that I can ensure they all get the proper focus. Would the the bad performance be a result of the aspect ratios between my main window and 4 clones are different? Running on an 8800 GTS, 4 gigs ram and Quad core - main window is 1920x1200, other screen is 1280x1024 split 2x2.

[keyclone]

a quad core and you're having performance issues? whoa. even my single core isn't that slow (although.. if i'm in orgrimmar.. i avoid pip swap)

when you try to swap, is it in a busy area? if so, please try it somewhere like cross roads. also, try setting your details to low and see if that helps (altho, you shouldn't have to for a quad)

resolution issues have been addressed in v1.8h, so now the game resolution is not tied to the size of the region. i'm still shaking what i can out of this version before release.

[Crucial]

a quad core and you're having performance issues? whoa. even my single core isn't that slow (although.. if i'm in orgrimmar.. i avoid pip swap)

when you try to swap, is it in a busy area? if so, please try it somewhere like cross roads. also, try setting your details to low and see if that helps (altho, you shouldn't have to for a quad)

resolution issues have been addressed in v1.8h, so now the game resolution is not tied to the size of the region. i'm still shaking what i can out of this version before release.

Regardless of zone its still slow (just worse in busy areas). Details are on lowest - even used the /console command to minimize it further. Maybe 1.8h will resolve it. I haven't tried making the regions the same aspect ratio, thats about the only option I can think of at this point.

[KvdM]

I'm using keyclone 1.8g on a 5.5 year old dual 2.4 xeon cpu system with a gforce 7900 GS. The pip switching will take between 1-5 seconds depending on what I'm doing and where I am at. In my case that's probably caused by the old hardware.

I've looked into some of the issues and I've got reproducable cases for two of the issues:

Keys getting stuck. This is related to focus switching. It doesn't just happen when doing a pip switch, it also happens when the focus follows the mouse to another window. Place the movement key on the do-not-pass list, start 2 wow instances, press the move forward key, move the mouse over to the other wow instance and release the key. Notice that the first client won't stop running until it receives focus and the movement key is pressed and subsequently released.

The screens switching to the wrong region of the monitor isn't actually a bug. In its current implementation, pip switching switches the current focus window with another window. This is counter-intuitive and when used together with wow macros it will mess up the main window and the main focus. This is how it gets messed up with my setup:

I'm using 3 regions: a bigger main region and two smaller alt regions (alt1 and alt2). I've got 3 keys for switching the windows:


F9 switches to the main window and places the wow focus target on my main character
F10 switches to the first alt window and places the focus on him
F11 switches to the second alt window and places the focus on him
The setup switches my main and alt characters to my main window region as long as I keep my mouse on the main window region. It starts to mess up when I place my mouse on one of the alt windows. When I place my mouse over the window of alt 1 and press the switch to alt 2 key, keyclone will switch the alt 1 with the alt 2 window and wow will set the focus to alt 2. Leaving me with one of the smaller alt windows as my main window :(

Its not a bug, but its clear why its counter-intuitive. It would probably be better to have a set of fixed screen lay-outs (one lay-out per key), so the windows will always switch in the same way, regardless of the current focus.

[king.pa]

I can just add my two cents to this thread ...

It seems that the PIP feature only works if the WOWq windows are located on the same screen ...
with my 20" and 24" configuration .. here's the ugly result :

Normal viewing Char 1 (reduced to 1280 px)
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/9169/pip1pc0.th.jpg ('http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pip1pc0.jpg')

PIP view with Char 2 focused (reduced to 1600 px)
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/1402/pip2sm2.th.jpg ('http://img293.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pip2sm2.jpg')

ugly isn't it ? and this happens with char 3 too
I start playing without the 20" on the side ... and the PIP feature was working as planned ... not anymore with tho displays

[keyclone]

@king.pa
when you pip swap to regions that are not the same aspect ratio, you will see that effect

keep your regions the same width/height ratio