5 box - 2 computer - Questions about Box number 2

[Xaga]

Ok, so my setup is 1 account on Box 1 (main toon)

4 accounts on Box 2 (slave)

I am trying to setup WoW Maximizer to make the screen split into 4 nice pretty windows, but not having any luck. If I am doing this, would AutoHotKey work or would I need to use Keyclone. If AHK does work, how do i get the screens to split? Screen Res 1024x768.

Thanks Guys!

[Katharsis]

Take a look at Hotkeynet (http://hotkeynet.com) which has the window resizing features. I like the toggle feature which lets me play all my windows at full size and toggle between them.

[Freddie]

Here's how you could do it with HotkeyNet. There are two hotkeys here. The first one renames the WoW windows so HotkeyNet can manipulate them individually. The second resizes and positions them. HotkeyNet can also remove the window borders and lots of other things but I'm keeping the example short. If you want to know more, ask away.


<Hotkey Ctrl R>
<Rename "World of Warcraft" wow1>
<Rename "World of Warcraft" wow2>
<Rename "World of Warcraft" wow3>
<Rename "World of Warcraft" wow4>

<hotkey F1>
<TargetWindow wow1>
<SetWinPos 0 0>
<SetWinSize 512 384>

<TargetWindow wow2>
<SetWinPos 512 0>
<SetWinSize 512 384>

<TargetWindow wow3>
<SetWinPos 0 384>
<SetWinSize 512 384>

<TargetWindow wow4>
<SetWinPos 512 384>
<SetWinSize 512 384>

[keyclone]

doing this in keyclone is fairly trivial. and you have many options to make this as easy as you'd like.

just click-drag the regions you want into the position you want on the layout editor. then just enable maximizer.
if you have auto-add enabled, then when you start your wow and it appears in the list... just right click and select 'maximize...' and select the region you want it to go to

also.. for your convenience, you could create a command for each wow... in each, specify the region you want it to run. then just type the command name in the front of keyclone when it starts.

beyond that, you could even put the commands into the startup-commmand section.. thus starting your wows when you start keyclone.

i would also fill-in the auto-connect field with the ip and port of the main machine... thus completing the process.

if you followed these instructions, just by running keyclone on both of your machines... they would end up connected with all your wows in maximizer and ready for password with just 2 double-clicks (1 per machine). it doesn't get any simpler then that (well... it does if you put keyclone in your startup group... but that only works if you have dedicated game machines)

if you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a note.

have a great day,

Rob

[Xaga]

Thanks for the replies guys. Trying to do this on hotkeynet before paying for keyclone (though from the tutorial keyclone looks to be pretty simple).

I have 4 wow folders, each named World of Warcraft1, 2, etc. I put in the lines above to change the window settings using the F1 hotkey, and it keeps telling me it can't find the windows. Can you explain to me where I am going wrong here?

Thanks guys!

[Xaga]

Ok,

got the the program to recognize and rename the windows, but it isn't positioning them on the screen. It just keeps them minimized at the bottom.

[Freddie]

The sample I gave you doesn't minimize windows, and it assumes you're starting out with open windows.

Edit: That sample gets used like this. Open your four WoW windows. They should be the only four things on your desktop named World of Warcraft. Then press Ctrl R to rename them. Then press F1 to resize and reposition them.

[Xaga]

ok, so here is what I am doing.

Open wow 1-4. run HKN, swap back over to wow# and then Ctrl-R(works) and F1. at that point, the window i am in gets shifted into position one (regardless which wow# it is) and the rest of the screen is black and flickering. Am I still getting the process wrong, or is there another way to do this?

Thanks Freddie.

[Freddie]

I'm sorry, I forgot you're using two PCs. I wrote that sample as if you would load it and run it and press keys for it on the second PC (the one with the four toons). But you probably want to press keys to do those actions on your main PC. If that's the case, the file has to be written as follows, then loaded into HotkeyNet on the main PC. Fill in the IP address of the second PC where indicated.


<Hotkey Ctrl R>
<SendPC SECOND_PC_IP_ADDRESS>
<Rename "World of Warcraft" wow1>
<Rename "World of Warcraft" wow2>
<Rename "World of Warcraft" wow3>
<Rename "World of Warcraft" wow4>

<hotkey F1>
<SendPC SECOND_PC_IP_ADDRESS>
<TargetWindow wow1>
<SetWinPos 0 0>
<SetWinSize 512 384>

<TargetWindow wow2>
<SetWinPos 512 0>
<SetWinSize 512 384>

<TargetWindow wow3>
<SetWinPos 0 384>
<SetWinSize 512 384>

<TargetWindow wow4>
<SetWinPos 512 384>
<SetWinSize 512 384>

[Xaga]

I would like to do it all on the 2nd box if possible, but if that is too messy then I can do it from box 1. I just don't understand where it is going wrong on box two.

[Freddie]

Sure you can do it all on the second box. I'm not sure what's wrong. To save time let me say three things at once.

1. You may have accidentally renamed some objects like folders, buttons, etc., on your desktop besides the WoW windows "wow1", "wow2", etc. I've noticed that people do that pretty often when they start out with HKN. The renamed objects may be invisible. If that's the case, then when you press F1, HKN will try to modify those things instead of the WoW windows. Your WoW windows -- when they are open -- should say wow1, wow2, etc. in the title bars on the tops of the windows.

2. I didn't understand what you meant when you said "Open wow 1-4. run HKN, swap back over to wow#". Did you mean you click on one of the WoW windows? That's not necessary. There's nothing in the sample that has anything to do with which window is active or in the foreground. And yet you say "the window I am in" behaves in a distinctive way. But the sample doesn't know which window you're in, so I'm guessing the sample got screwed up somehow. Which leads me to number 3.

3. Could you please post or email me the entire contents of your file?

[Xaga]

Swing and a miss. same issue. One screen gets put into position one, they others aren't there with a flickering screen to hold thier place.

[Freddie]

How about trying some simple things to figure out what's wrong. Reboot the PC to start from scratch. Load just one copy of WoW. Don't rename it. Load this new file. Press F2, F3, F4, F5. Each time it will try to move that single WoW to one of the four spots. I'm leaving renaming out completely in case that's the problem.


<Hotkey F2>
<TargetWindow "World of Warcraft">
<SetWinSize 512 384
<SetWinPos 0 0>

<Hotkey F3>
<TargetWindow "World of Warcraft">
<SetWinSize 512 384
<SetWinPos 512 0>

<Hotkey F4>
<TargetWindow "World of Warcraft">
<SetWinSize 512 384
<SetWinPos 0 384>

<Hotkey F5>
<TargetWindow "World of Warcraft">
<SetWinSize 512 384
<SetWinPos 512 384>

[Xaga]

Loaded it, and it sent it to the top left each time, same error. rest of the screen was flashing blank.



** I also added the closed braces at the end of the SetWinSize lines, not sure if you left them out intentionally. Initially, it would not recognize them**

[Freddie]

Yep, you did the right thing about the brackets.

I just realized -- are you doing this in fullscreen mode? To change a window size, you need to be in windowed mode. There's a check box in WoW's video settings for that. If that's the case, my apologies for not thinking of it sooner. I'm not used to doing customer support. :)

[Joe_Boxer]

Hey guys I'm dual-boxing on my laptop, I use hotkeynet and it works great, but my laptop won't support windowed modes, only fullscreen, so it's not possible for me to run them side by side. No problem, as my hotkey setup works well enough that I really never need to see my second character's screen... until I need to loot something or accept/turn in quests. At that point I alt tab between them to do whatever I need to do then alt tab back to my main's window. The alt tabbing process always takes several seconds to minimize the one and bring up the other, I wonder if there's a way using hotkeynet to INSTANTLY toggle between them without any delay?

[saabik]

I use Octopus for my 2-box (5-man) setup. The VM itself provides smooth transition even in non-window mode. I used the built in maximizer and have 4 cascaded windows on the 2nd computer running perfectly. I would recommend this option if you do not like your current ones.