Hotkeynet comming back?

[Freddie]

I decided to do this in two steps so we can do some testing in between. That will make it easier to catch bugs.

The first step, which I just finished, was to rewrite the keyboard hook. That's in build 64 which is on the website now. It doesn't do anything new, but it's designed in a way that will make it possible to add the new feature. If you could test it a little bit, I'd appreciate it, because there's a lot of new code inside.

The second step will be to add the new feature. I think that will be easier than step one.

[Freddie]

Here's the documention page for the new modifiers. We can look at this page now as a specification for the code that I'm about to write. if you think the design should be changed, and you can tell me now before I start writing, that would be a big help.

http://www.hotkeynet.com/ref/usekeyasmodifier.html

By the way this new keyword isn't necessary for technical reasons. I could just simply let people use any keys in any order in hotkey triggers. But they can disable keys by doing that, so I thought it's a good idea to require this keyword to alert them to the consequences.

It's a tradeoff: a little more typing for everybody to reduce confusion for certain users.

[Basilikos]

if you think the design should be changed, and you can tell me now before I start writing, that would be a big help.

No, not at all. That is quite a bit simpler than I had imagined it being.

By the way this new keyword isn't necessary for technical reasons. I could just simply let people use any keys in any order in hotkey triggers. But they can disable keys by doing that, so I thought it's a good idea to require this keyword to alert them to the consequences. It's a tradeoff: a little more typing for everybody to reduce confusion for certain users.

This sounds perfectly reasonable.

I've really enjoyed using HKN and am looking forward to this feature. Thanks so much.

[Freddie]

Okay, it's done. Build 65 is on the website now with enough key combinations for a bazillion hotkeys. Here's an example of the new "anything-goes" hotkey triggers:



I used the feature for about 20 minutes after I finished it today, and I really like it. You can make "chords" (like guitar chords) to send commands. I'm glad you talked me into this. It's very cool.

I was careful to implement this in a way that lets you have as many as 16 keys in a trigger. But when I finished the work and tried it, I had a major doh! moment. Because the keyboard (or device driver or something in the chain) won't send more than five pressed keys at a time to the system. If you press a sixth key, nothing is received. So the maximum number of keys in a trigger (on my test PC, anyway) is five.

I wrote this pretty fast and didn't test very carefully so there are probably some bugs. Let me know if you find any and I'll fix them right away.

Thanks for the kind words in your last message, and thanks again for suggesting this. I'm glad it's in the program now.

[Freddie]

Build 66 is on the website now. It contains a new function called ThirdPartyCommandLine which works exactly like the existing CommandLine function except for one crucial detail.

With the old function, you enter your command in HotkeyNet's pop-up window. With the new one, you enter your command in a text-entry field that belongs to whatever program you're using.

Why was this added? Because the old function doesn't work in full screen mode. The new one does.

[Basilikos]

ThirdPartyCommandLine[/url] which works exactly like the existing CommandLine function except for one crucial detail.

With the old function, you enter your command in HotkeyNet's pop-up window. With the new one, you enter your command in a text-entry field that belongs to whatever program you're using.

Why was this added? Because the old function doesn't work in full screen mode. The new one does.

That is Hawt. I was just wondering about how to do this.

[Freddie]

I just rewrote the tutorial for commands. I think it's much clearer now:

http://www.hotkeynet.com/p/doc7.html

[Draku]

New Build seems really stable......so....I am going to push my luck.

We are back to the 'state' question. What I would like to do is define a bank of keys (F5-F8) to have different meanings based on a toggle that I can dynamically change. This would allow me to configure my attack commands depending on the situation. eg Grinding/Boss Fight/PVP

I would prefer not to use key modifiers for this (purely because it would be more effort to press/mash the keys!). In my mind, I imagine something like a sticky modifier key similar to how <caps locks> works in a normal environment. ie you press it once, and all keys are sent as if you were pressing <SHIFT> and the key press it again and they revert to their unshifted state

So I would like to have F5 send F5 to the clients unless the caps lock had been pressed, in which case it would send something else (perhaps <CTRL> <LWIN> F5). HKN would need a feedback mechanism to indicate the state of the toggle, (conveniently most keyboards have an indication for caps lock)! Would also be nice to have an indication on the HOTKEY tray icon. I guess it would be good to consider having the ability to define what key is the toggle, but then the feedback mechanism would be less good (ie just within HKN)

Just to be clear, I would need to be able to specifiy that a key behaves differently depending on the state of a toggle

Another similar implementation is the Logica G15 keyboard's ability to provide 3 different configs of one bank of of keys, switched by a dedicated 3 buttons (M1, M2, M3). This is more of a 'radio button' metaphor though than a toggle, ie one of the 3 must be down, and this determines which code the G15 sends.

What do you reckon?

Product is the dogs bollocks (as us brits say!)

[Freddie]

New Build seems really stable......

That's good to hear.

HKN would need a feedback mechanism to indicate the state of the toggle

Yeah I think that's essential. Unfortunately the tray icon is already used to show whether hotkeys are on, so we seem to be limited to the three keys whose toggle state is shown by LEDs on the keyboard.

Of those three keys, Num Lock already does what you want without my having to do anything, provided you assign your hotkeys to the shiftable numpad keys instead of function keys. There are eleven of them, so you'd get 22 hotkeys in all.

Product is the dogs bollocks (as us brits say!)

I hope that's a good thing

[Draku]

Could the Tray Icon have more than 2 states? eg-:

Could we make the tray icon show more than 2 states?

Grey - HKN disabled/Non-Grey -HKN enabled and Icon looking like a T - Toggle on/ Not looking like a T toggle off - or something like this?

I thought about the num lock situation, however it doesn't really help me. The thing is the number pad (with numlock off) duplicates keys that I already use (home, delete, up arrow etc)

The Dogs bollocks is indeed good