[WAR] Software Broadcasting Script

[Morganti]

Yeah, I was on vent this weekend while my old daoc guildmaster (from the old 8v8 days) played WAR. Tanks are apparently ungodly when it comes to being killed...he said they would last for forever. He was impressed by the melee dps damage, but not their survivability. He spoke lowly of casters in general, but short of running a tank with a drag along healer I see no other great options for boxing the game (which I really want to do). Besides, I'm fairly certain that at level 40 it won't be as one sided as it seems to be at low levels with melee just running wild. Wow is like that too (melee owning at lower levels). I'm still planning on an archmage and 2 bright wizards

[Freddie]

AutoHotkey has a very undesirable disadvantage, so I won't bother posting a script with it. Its only use is to reliably rename the WAR windows, for use in HKN.

How come you don't use HotkeyNet for renaming?

<Hotkey 1>
<TargetWin war2>
<SetActiveWin>
<SendFocusWin>
<Key 1>
This is the most reliable script, and fairly fast.

Here's a simpler way to write that hotkey:

<Hotkey 1>  // EQUIVALENT OF HOTKEY QUOTED ABOVE
<SendWin war2>
<Key 1>

Or even simpler (assuming you defined a label earlier in the script):

<BroadcastKey 1>  // EQUIVALENT OF HOTKEY QUOTED ABOVE
<SendLabel WAR2>

The function used to send input here is under testing. This script is the fastest, but causes very odd graphical anomolies for a couple milliseconds while the keys are being processed. I'm sure it can be worked out in the future.

As you know, SendWinX is a new experimental feature. When I get into the WAR beta I'll take a look at the black-screen problem. Thanks for letting me know about it.

[Freddie]

Using HKN, here is an examply Hotkey that you could copy which will Hotkey 3 networked computers:

<Hotkey 1>
<SendPC Local>
<SendWin "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Copyright 2001-2008 Electronic Arts, Inc.">
<Key 1>
<SendPC 192.168.0.2> //change to IP to whatever you have your networked comps set up as, and delete this remark
<SendWin "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Copyright 2001-2008 Electronic Arts, Inc.">
<Key 1>
<SendPC 192.168.0.3> //change to IP to whatever you have your networked comps set up as, and delete this remark
<SendWin "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Copyright 2001-2008 Electronic Arts, Inc.">
<Key 1>

Here's a simpler way to write that. The following does the same thing as what you wrote, but the advantage is that if you want to add more hotkeys, you just write more numbers after the "1":

<Label W1 Local SendWin Warhammer>
<Label W2 192.168.0.2 SendWin Warhammer>
<Label W3 192.168.0.3 SendWin Warhammer>

<BroadcastKey 1>
 <SendLabel W1, W2, W3>

[Bachner]

Those look alright. Hopefully people with more technical understanding will be interested in making multiboxing as friendly in WAR as it has become in WoW.
I'm looking to run a couple or three zealots to totally assist my guild's warband. Instant spike heals could own.
I can only imagine the bright wizard/sorceress morale skill nuking!

[Jezebel]

how recently did you test this? i was in the preview weekend and i couldnt get any kind of software to broadcast to another PC. tested with keyclone, AHK, HKN (using the scripts suggested in this thread).

mythic integrated punkbuster into the war client recently. that could have something to do with it?

[Lokked]

Hi Freddie,

When I tried simply using:
<Hotkey 1>
<SendWin war1>
<key1>

it would work if "war1" was the Active window, but when "war1" was in the background, it would successfully switch to "war1" but not send the keystroke through. I'm not sure if it needs a delay, but my example was the only way I could get it to work using SendWin.

The above also (of course) applies to <Broadcast>. When I played 2 instances, if coded like this:
<Label war1 Local SendWin war1>
<Label war2 Local SendWin war2>

<Broadcast 1>
<Sendlabel war1, war2>

This will successfully be registered by "war1" window, and then switch to war2 with no action.

If coded like this:
<Broadcast 1>
<Sendlabel war2, war1> //where war1 currently has keyboard focus

it will activate war2 and then war1 without a keystroke registering on either instance.

One thing I've noticed about SendWin with WAR as compared to AoC:
In AoC, a game that required much more processing power then WAR, can switch windows with SendWin so fluidly that you can be holding down your mouse in your main AoC window, hit a hotkey, sending keystrokes to other AoC windows, and still maintain your held down mouse button in your main window.
In WAR, using SendWin noticably takes up to 1 second to switch back and forth. I'm sure its not a HKN thing, but rather WAR being in beta and not being optimised.

Freddie, I haven't come up with a reliable way to rename multiple windows with the same name to different names with HKN. I have tried:
<Hotkey F1>
<RenameWin "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Copyright 2001-2008 Electronic Arts, Inc." war1>
<RenameWin "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Copyright 2001-2008 Electronic Arts, Inc." war2>

And a couple variations, but it acts sporatically, sometimes renaming the first window as war2 and the second as war1. This hotkey also doesn't rename them on the first press, but sometimes takes a few presses.

Jezibel, I had tried this again on Preview Weekend. The scripts that I derived and listed here worked for me as well as they were working before.

[Jezebel]

odd. maybe i was doing something wrong. ill have to give it another try on the 7th. i hope it does work. it will save me having to fork out more cash for a new USB multicaster heh

Jezibel, I had tried this again on Preview Weekend. The scripts that I derived and listed here worked for me as well as they were working before.

[Lokked]

I would use Freddie's script for broadcasting to different computers:

<Label W1 Local SendWin "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Copyright 2001-2008 Electronic Arts, Inc.">
<Label W2 192.168.0.2 SendWin "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Copyright 2001-2008 Electronic Arts, Inc.">
<Label W3 192.168.0.3 SendWin "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Copyright 2001-2008 Electronic Arts, Inc.">

<BroadcastKey 1>
<SendLabel W1, W2, W3>

Replacing the IP addresses listed above with your ethernet IPs.

[Freddie]

it would work if "war1" was the Active window, but when "war1" was in the background, it would successfully switch to "war1" but not send the keystroke through. I'm not sure if it needs a delay, but my example was the only way I could get it to work using SendWin....

In AoC, a game that required much more processing power then WAR, can switch windows with SendWin so fluidly that you can be holding down your mouse in your main AoC window, hit a hotkey, sending keystrokes to other AoC windows, and still maintain your held down mouse button in your main window.
In WAR, using SendWin noticably takes up to 1 second to switch back and forth. I'm sure its not a HKN thing, but rather WAR being in beta and not being optimised.

You analyzed the problem correctly. When a hotkey executes with SendWin, it initiates the "bring the window to foreground" process and then immediately sends the keystrokes. It does not wait between those two actions for the window to come forward. If the window takes a long time to come forward, then the keystrokes get typed before the window is able to see them. So yes, in order to make this type of hotkey work with an application that comes forward slowly, you need to insert a delay so the keystrokes don't get sent until the window is ready to receive them.

The length of time a window takes to come forward has nothing to do with HotkeyNet. It depends on the target application, screen resolution, CPU, amount of vram, video card, video card driver, graphics mode, window size, etc.

The reason I recently added SendWinX was to try to create a variant of SendWin that doesn't require a delay in this situation.

Freddie, I haven't come up with a reliable way to rename multiple windows with the same name to different names with HKN...

... it acts sporatically, sometimes renaming the first window as war2 and the second as war1.

Whichever window is higher in the Z-order (closer to the front of the screen) gets renamed first. If both windows are minimized you can judge the Z-order by the left-to-right order of taskbar buttons.

This hotkey also doesn't rename them on the first press, but sometimes takes a few presses.

If you're using build 118 or older on Vista, this may be the thumbnail bug that was fixed in 119. Or you may have found a new bug. Or you may have additional windows named "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Copyright 2001-2008 Electronic Arts, Inc." open on the desktop (they may be invisible so you might not realize it).

What blue or red messages do you get when you the renaming hotkey fails?

[Lokked]

I've updated HKN and just tested renaming WAR windows using HKN alone, and it works fine. I tested it 5 times, each time minimizing all windows using WindowKey + D, and then pressing the Hotkey made to rename 2 WAR windows.

It also renamed them immediately, on the first press.

Thanks Freddie!