Hotkeynet comming back?

[Freddie]

I am trying to multibox 6 ffxi accounts on two PC's, so naturally I ran into the problem of keystrokes not being broadcasted to non-active FFXI windows. HotKeyNet offers me some solution to this problem, but it's not 100%.

Thanks for the detailed report.

My basic Hotkey file looks like this...

Those 70 ms delays really add up when you're running that many clients on a single PC. I certainly understand why you want to send the commands in the background.

So far, all the other <send> commands do not work in this game. I have tried the same macro with <sendwinM> + <SetBackgroundFocus> and <KillBackgroundFocus> and <sendwinMF>. These hotkeys do not send any keystrokes to any window...

There are two issues here. First, whenever you're trying to get a game to receive keystrokes while it's in the background, start off with a macro that sends a simple printing key like 1 by itself instead of a combination like <LCTRL 1>. I say this because when you try to specify the shift state -- in other words, when you try to send a combination like LCTRL 1, or ALT 1, or SHIFT 1 -- you introduce additional issues that make the problem much harder.

Second, I've been experimenting a bit with several games, trying to get them to accept keystrokes in the background, and each game has presented unique problems. So far the only games that I've gotten to work pretty decently are DAOC and WoW. (The WoW stuff is in my current work build which is not yet published.) Therefore it wouldn't surprise me if the send methods that are currently in HKN don't work with background FFXI even if you limit yourself to printing keys.

Are there any future plans of incorporating FFXI into the program, such as the DoaC send command? I would really appreciate that.

I probably won't play around with FFXI myself, but I plan to add some new low-level commands to HKN which will enable users to create new varieties of <sendwin> and experiment with them and try to find a version that works with their particular game. In other words, users will be able to do pretty much the same thing that I would do myself if I had time to try to find a <sendwin> method that works with their games.

Another thing that users can do to help is experiment with AutoHotkey. (I single out that program because it has a rich set of send methods and also because it's open source, so I can watch it execute in a debugger and see what it's doing.) If you can get AutoHotkey to send to FFXI in the background, I can duplicate the required functionality in HKN.

[Freddie]

Im finding a program that works for free and i found this post and was wondering how this works? And yes i found the guide on the websites but i really didnt get it... There you didnt tell where you should put those hotkeys etc? Im sorry im noob but im an amateur

The reason the instructions don't tell you where to put your hotkey file is because there's no special place. You can put it anywhere you like. (You can also name it anything you like.) When you click "Load hotkeys" on HotkeyNet's main screen, HotkeyNet asks you to show it where the file is.

[Draku]

Im finding a program that works for free and i found this post and was wondering how this works? And yes i found the guide on the websites but i really didnt get it... There you didnt tell where you should put those hotkeys etc? Im sorry im noob but im an amateur

I'm using it for wow....and the latest version is robust, easy to install and easy to configure

[Dareon]

Could you give me a link where to get it pls?

[zuvio]

Those 70 ms delays really add up when you're running that many clients on a single PC. I certainly understand why you want to send the commands in the background.

I have to include those delays, otherwise the <sendwin> command goes too fast. FFXI has some inherent laggyness and if I use <sendwin> without ms delays, most characters won't do anything. Simply pressing ctrl to bring up the macro window has like a one second window delay in one FFXI account.

There are two issues here. First, whenever you're trying to get a game to receive keystrokes while it's in the background, start off with a macro that sends a simple printing key like 1 by itself instead of a combination like <LCTRL 1>. I say this because when you try to specify the shift state -- in other words, when you try to send a combination like LCTRL 1, or ALT 1, or SHIFT 1 -- you introduce additional issues that make the problem much harder.

Second, I've been experimenting a bit with several games, trying to get them to accept keystrokes in the background, and each game has presented unique problems. So far the only games that I've gotten to work pretty decently are DAOC and WoW. (The WoW stuff is in my current work build which is not yet published.) Therefore it wouldn't surprise me if the send methods that are currently in HKN don't work with background FFXI even if you limit yourself to printing keys.

I will attempt to send a simple /hi command using <sendwinM(F)>, but I doubt it would work, that would be too easy

I probably won't play around with FFXI myself, but I plan to add some new low-level commands to HKN which will enable users to create new varieties of <sendwin> and experiment with them and try to find a version that works with their particular game. In other words, users will be able to do pretty much the same thing that I would do myself if I had time to try to find a <sendwin> method that works with their games.

Another thing that users can do to help is experiment with AutoHotkey. (I single out that program because it has a rich set of send methods and also because it's open source, so I can watch it execute in a debugger and see what it's doing.) If you can get AutoHotkey to send to FFXI in the background, I can duplicate the required functionality in HKN.

Alright, I'll get AutoHotKey and see if I can send a command to background windows and report my findings. Funny thing is, I opted for HotKeyNet because it looked easier then AHK, but for the sake of multiboxing, i'll learn the program

Thanks for your reply!

[Freddie]

I have to include those delays, otherwise the <sendwin> command goes too fast.

I know you do. I was just making an observation that the delays are especially annoying when you have a lot of clients on the same machine because the delays happen one after another, so they add up. In comparison, if the clients were on separate machines, the delays would take place simultaneously. I'm not suggesting that you should buy more pc's -- I was just commenting on the situation.

Funny thing is, I opted for HotKeyNet because it looked easier then AHK, but for the sake of multiboxing, i'll learn the program

Heh, good point.

[zuvio]

I have managed to send keystrokes to both a non-active and an active FFXi account using the following code:

WinGet, polid1, ID, Zuvio
WinGet, polid2, ID, Carsomyr

#IfWinActive, Zuvio

F1::
ControlSend,,/p hi{enter}, ahk_id %polid1%
ControlSend,,/p hi{enter}, ahk_id %polid2%
return 

This results in both chars 'typing' /p hi in there chat input screen whenever I press F1 when they main window 'Zuvio' is active. However: the {enter} key is not processed, thus /p hi remains on the chat input bar. The message never actually gets send to the chat window. This is consistent with the following piece of code:

WinGet, polid1, ID, Zuvio
WinGet, polid2, ID, Carsomyr

#IfWinActive, Zuvio

F1::
ControlSend,,{u down}{u up}, ahk_id %polid1%
ControlSend,,{u down}{u up}, ahk_id %polid2%
return 

When I press F1 now, nothing happens. The u key, which is supposed to be a single key input to bring up my menu screen in FFXI, does not have any effect in game.

I will keep on trying and experimenting with other scripts to produce more results when necessary. Particularly I will attempt to send a 'Ctrl+ key' to both accounts to start a macro.

EDIT: so far, only {space} works in FFXI. Space brings up an empty chat input bar. {enter} etc do not work.


EDIT 2: Ok I think I have gotten something better. I have made a small script which will activate my first macro in-game which is normally activated by Ctrl+1. It's very simple:

#IfWinActive Zuvio

1::
Send {ctrl down}{1 down}{1 up}{ctrl up} 

This macro works whereas

WinGet, polid1, ID, Zuvio

#IfWinActive Zuvio

1::
ControlSend,,{ctrl down}{1 down}{1 up}{ctrl up}, ahk_id %polid1%
return 

does not work. For multiboxing purposes however, this blows

[Freddie]

That was fast. Great work. Just for purposes of understanding what's going on, could you modify the first script so {enter} is sent not by ControlSend but by Send? I might not have the syntax quite right but it would look something like this:

WinGet, polid1, ID, Zuvio

#IfWinActive, Zuvio

F1::
ControlSend,,/p hi, ahk_id %polid1%
Send {enter}
return

[Freddie]

Could you give me a link where to get it pls?

Sorry Dareon, a link for what?

[zuvio]

Your code was spot-on.

WinGet, polid1, ID, Zuvio

#IfWinActive, Zuvio

F1::
ControlSend,,/p hi, ahk_id %polid1%
Send {enter}
return 

This results in me saying 'hi' in the party chat window. which means that {enter} was received by the active window. I'm kind of stumped here, because my knowledge of AHK is not that great to go to the next step, that is sending the {enter} key to my background window. I'm searching the AHK forums etc. but it feels like this particular topic has not been adressed all that much. (for stubborn games at least)