Implementing an FTL quite simple with templates

[Khatovar]

I really have to note that linking to many other threads however is what makes alot of these posts become irrelevant.
If the full explanation and walkthrough isnt in one single thread - then what happens (what has already happened) is the links you put in your post become dead, outdated, or moved and then the full explanation is no longer possible to get.
Basically every thread olipcs had written - although absolutely wonderful - fell into this hole. He didnt explain a big chunk of the process and instead inserted a link to a post that did - a link that is currently dead or removed - so there were gaping holes in all the explanations.
Perhaps you can even improve your post by removing all external links and simply making one post with all the actual info in it?
That would be a monument worth stickying at the very top and I'm sure also save many other people the same aggravation.

Anyway thank you so much for taking your time to help.

Yeah, this is an issue with old threads. This one is three years old and since it was made there has been at least 1 forum migration and several wiki rollbacks. I don't even recall the last time olpics was around. Since no one has touched it since it as created, there's never been any corrections or even mention that there should be corrections.

Honestly, it's rather a huge undertaking to update old content like this. It took me 4 hours to write the response, it would take me at least 2 days to write out an actual guide. Probably longer in this case, since I don't use FTL and would need to rewrite my script and all my macros in order to test. Since there's not a lot of new people interested in HotKeyNet, it's kind of hard to invest that much time in keeping the old guides up to date or trying to figure out what people want to see rewritten.

So I tend to opt for answering questions when they are asked and squirreling away interesting bits to put under the HKN section in the Newb's Guide Vol. 1 or sometimes on my site or in my blog here, though I haven't really done anything on the last two in ages.

Though I'm sure Lax wouldn't mind if I turned some of these mile-long posts into blog entries, lol.

[effep]

You my friend - kick ass and chew bubble gum...
Here, have some more gum...

Thank you very much.
Clearly understood now and your post should be stickied.

One thing that you might also want to add to your post is the clarification between "Hotkeys" and "FTL Hotkeys".
IE:
* HotKeys in HKN (or any other program) are BROADCAST EXACTLY AS PRESSED
whereas
* FTL HotKeys are TEMPLATED AND PASSED WITH MODIFIERS

Much of my confusion was that some threads were telling me to setup my hotkeys, ie:

<HotKey ScrollLockOn A-Z, F1-F6, Plus, Minus except A, S, W, D>

But those would be hotkeys that you broadcast - not hotkeys that FTL will be able to use.
So making that a clear definition could also help.

[krzr]

This is a very informative thread. I too use HKN but I want to have FTL with 10 characters(10 man raids). Has anyone tried that? If yes, can you post the script or some help on how to set it up?

Thank you

[Khatovar]

10 isn't going to be any different than 2 or 5, just more windows and modifiers. WoW does have the ability to use left vs right modifiers, as does HotKeyNet so you should still have plenty of modifier keys available for 10. But you'll need a macro extender like BindPad or SuperDuperMacro to list all the modifier combinations for that many toons.

[bluelol]

First of all, let me show my appriciation for forums like these and the people who contribute!

I'v been trying to read up on and converting into FTL from a basic focus setup, I always ended up with the slave facing my own char which becomes increasingly annoying. Right now I'm just trying to set up a dual box with two chars, and if that goes well work in a third char. The idea is to alternate, having two chars do dungeons, and having a maxlevel boost the other two. So I'm looking for something with 2 setup which can easily be increased to three.

I want to use HKN + jamba + SuperDuperMacro. So helpers using any of these are welcome and can be incorperated. And the chars I will run is either 2 priests or a boomkin/elemental combo

I got the startup and resizing of my windows setup as I want. I haven't had any luck setting it up so it identifies which window is the active one, allowing me to swap between chars.
The main issue here I believe is that If I broadcast AWSD to the slave while I'm on the master it just runs all over the place. But I want that char to identify my AWSD if I swap to that chars window.

So w/o all the fancy extras how would I go by setting this up? Two chars, seemless window swaps. where the master moves using AWSD.

This is the script I have so far is:

//---------------------------------------------------------------
//DEFINE HOTKEY FOR DISABLING HOTKEYS
//----------------------------------------------------------------
<hotkey pause>
<sendpc local>
<ToggleHotkeys>

//-----------------------------------------------------------
// SUBROUTINE TO Position Windows for 3 boxing.
//-----------------------------------------------------------
<Command ResizeAndPosition>
<SendPC Local>
<SendWinM %1%>
<SetWinRect 0 0 1280 1024>
<SendWinM %2%>
<SetWinRect 1280 0 640 512>
<SendWinM %3%>
<SetWinRect 1280 512 640 512>

//----------------------------------------------------------------
//Window Switching
//----------------------------------------------------------------
<Hotkey F1>
<ResizeAndPosition WoW1 WoW2 WoW3>
<Hotkey F2>
<ResizeAndPosition WoW2 WoW1 WoW3>
<Hotkey F3>
<ResizeAndPosition WoW3 WoW2 WoW1>

//-----------------------------------------------------------
// SUBROUTINE TO LAUNCH AND RENAME A COPY OF WOW.
//-----------------------------------------------------------
<Command LaunchAndRename>
<SendPC %1%>
<Run %2%>
<RenameTargetWin %3%>
<RemoveWinFrame>
<SetAffinity %4%>

//-----------------------------------------------------------
// HOTKEY TO LAUNCH AND RENAME YOUR WOW WINDOWS while 3 boxing
// Please configure the Path and processor afinitys correctly
//-----------------------------------------------------------
<Hotkey Alt Ctrl L>
<LaunchAndRename Local "C:\World of Warcraft\wow.exe" WoW1 1>
<LaunchAndRename Local "C:\World of Warcraft\wow.exe" WoW2 1>
<LaunchAndRename Local "C:\World of Warcraft\wow.exe" WoW3 2>
<ResizeAndPosition WoW1 WoW2 WoW3>


I so appriciate any help I can get

Cheers

[Khatovar]

The script you posted doesn't have any templates listed or any keys defined.

For the movement part, you need hotkeys defined to establish what gets passed to the slave windows. This is something that doesn't require the FTL Templates and should come pre-configuted in the HotKeyNet Starter Scripts. See section 6 here.

You'll see there that W, A, S, D, Q and E are listed as exceptions. This means those keys are only passed to the active window, not the background windows. So whatever is your current active window, be it the master or the slave, that is the one that will respond to the W, A, S, D, Q and E keys. Any background windows will not receive those keys.

The FTL templates only come in as part of things like casting and assisting.

[bluelol]

Thank you Khatovar! This quick reply was more then i was hoping for.

//——————
// DEFINE HOTKEYS FOR ALL KEY COMBINATIONS THAT WILL GET
// SENT TO BOTH WOWS. ADD MORE KEY COMBO’S IF YOU WANT.
//—————–
<Hotkey ScrollLockOn A-Z, 0-9, Plus, Minus, F1-F12 except W, A, S, D, Q, E>
<SendLabel w1, w2>
<Key %Trigger%>

I expect this is what you are referring to.

//————–
// DEFINE MOVEMENT KEYS THAT WILL GET SENT TO BOTH WOW’S.
// ADD MORE KEYS IF YOU WANT.
//—————
<MovementHotkey ScrollLockOn up, down, left, right>
<SendLabel w1, w2>
<Key %Trigger%>


Instead of left,right,up,down I use AWSD to move, how would that translate here, since in the example the: left, up, down, right, aren't exceptions.
I will copy the correct script i'm using in all detail later, my apologies for not doing so in my first post.

[Khatovar]

The part following except is the part that defines the keys you use for movement on the active window.

//——————
// DEFINE HOTKEYS FOR ALL KEY COMBINATIONS THAT WILL GET
// SENT TO BOTH WOWS. ADD MORE KEY COMBO’S IF YOU WANT.
//—————–
<Hotkey ScrollLockOn A-Z, 0-9, Plus, Minus, F1-F12 except W, A, S, D, Q, E>
<SendLabel w1, w2>
<Key %Trigger%>

Those are the keys that only go to the window that is in the foreground, be it the master or a slave.

In this part you are defining a different set of keys called MovementHotkeys -

//————–
// DEFINE MOVEMENT KEYS THAT WILL GET SENT TO BOTH WOW’S.
// ADD MORE KEYS IF YOU WANT.
//—————
<MovementHotkey ScrollLockOn up, down, left, right>
<SendLabel w1, w2>
<Key %Trigger%>

You are defining keys that always get sent to all windows, no matter what window is active. It is exactly the same as sending your number keys for casting, except that movement is a sustained keypress. To elaborate - if you press 1 in game, the game receives a key 1, just once, no matter how long you hold the key down. Movement works differently. If you do the same with the W key in game, your character will continue to move forward until you release the W key. This is why they keys above are defined as MovementHotkey. they continue to send the keydown action to all of the game windows until you release the key.

So what these two snippets of code are doing is 1 - defining the keys that should be sent to all windows anytime you are broadcasting. In this case, A-Z, 0-9, Plus, Minus and function keys F1-F12, but it is only sending W, A, S, D, Q and E to the currently active {main} window. Section 2 is defining a different set of keys {the arrow keys} as movement keys that get sent to all windows at the same time so that you can use the arrows to move everyone at the same time.

Because the arrow keys weren't included in the first part of the code, which defines keys that should broadcast to every window, they don't need to be excluded from that section of code. BUT, because they are going to be used to move everyone at the same time, they need to be defined separately as a different type of key {MovementHotkey instead of just Hotkey}.

[bluelol]

Oh I see the difference now. This actually helps me in a huge way as this was a main source of confusion when trying to translate the code snippets i kept adding and not seeing the supposed results.
I'll revise my code and re-evaluate it to see what other issues I can find.

Thanks again!

[bluelol]

So this is my current script:

//-----------------------------------------------------------
// DEFINE MAIL LABELS FOR SENDING KEY STROKES.
//-----------------------------------------------------------
<Label w1 Local SendWinM wow1>
<Label w2 Local SendWinM wow2>
<Label w3 Local SendWinM wow3>
<label win1 local SendWinM wow1>
<label win2 local SendWinM wow2>
<label win3 local SendWinM wow3>
<label mwin1 local SendWinS wow1>
<label mwin2 local SendWinS wow2>
<label mwin3 local SendWinS wow3>
<label current local SendFocusWin>
 
//----------------------------------------------------------------
// Resize and position the windows
<Command SetPip>
   <SendPC Local>
      <SendWinM %1%>
               <SetWinRect 0 0 1280 1024>
     <SendWinM %2%>
             <SetWinRect 1280 0 640 512>  
        <SendWinM %3%>
            <SetWinRect 1280 512 640 512>                   

 
//----------------------------------------------------------------
// Turn HotKeyNet on/off!
<Hotkey Pause>
  <ToggleHotkeys>
  <DisplayVars>
  <SendPC local>
    <Cancel>
 
//----------------------------------------------------------------
// Subroutine starts WoW and logs in
<Command WoWStart>
  <Run %1%>
  <WaitForWin "World of Warcraft" 20000>
  <WaitForWinEnabled 20000><wait 2000>
  <SetFocusWin>
  <SendWinSF "World of Warcraft">
  <Key Backspace><wait 500>
  <SendWin "World of Warcraft">
  <Text %3%><wait 100><Key tab><wait 100><Text %4%><wait 100><Key Enter><wait 500>
  <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" %2%>
  <WaitForWin %2% 20000>
//----------------------------------------------------------------
// Pressing ctrl+alt+w will launch and log into the toons below. 
// TODO: Add support for solo, 3box, 5box
  <Hotkey ctrl alt w>
  <SendPC local>
  <if WinDoesNotExist wow1>
    <WoWStart "C:\World of Warcraft_clean\wow.exe" wow1 Toon1 PassWord>
  <endif>
  <if WinDoesNotExist wow2>
    <WoWStart "C:\World of Warcraft_clean\wow.exe" wow2 Toon2 PassWord>
  <endif>
  <if WinDoesNotExist wow3>
    <WoWStart "C:\World of Warcraft_clean\wow.exe" wow3 Toon3 PassWord>
  <endif>
  <wait 2000>
  <SetPip wow1 wow2 wow3>
 
//----------------------------------------------------------------
// Cycle through windows with the F1-F3 keys
<Hotkey F1>
  <SetPip wow1 wow2 wow3>
<Hotkey F2>
  <SetPip wow2 wow1 wow3>
<Hotkey F3>
  <SetPip wow2 wow3 wow1>


//-----------------------------------------------------------
// DEFINE HOTKEYS FOR ALL KEY COMBINATIONS THAT WILL GET
// SENT TO BOTH WOWS. ADD MORE KEY COMBO'S IF YOU WANT.
//-----------------------------------------------------------
<KeyList MyList A-Z, 1-9, space except W, A, S, D, H,F>

<Hotkey MyList;shift MyList>
<SendLabel w1, w2>
<Key %Trigger%>
//-----------------------------------------------------------
// DEFINE MOVEMENT KEYS THAT WILL GET SENT TO BOTH WOW'S.
// ADD MORE KEYS IF YOU WANT.
//-----------------------------------------------------------
<MovementHotkey >
<SendLabel w1,w2>
<Key %Trigger%>


//-----------------------------------------------------------
// BROADCAST MOUSE CLICKS. HOLD DOWN OEM3 (ON U.S. KEYBOARDS,
// THAT'S THE SQUIGGLE KEY IN UPPPER LEFT CORNER) WHEN YOU
// WANT TO BROADCAST.
//-----------------------------------------------------------
<UseKeyAsModifier Oem5>

<Hotkey Oem5 LButton, MButton, RButton, Button4, Button5>
<SendLabel w1,w2>
<ClickMouse %TriggerMainKey%>



//----------------------------------------------------------------
// BEGIN: FTL Engine(Focusless Leaderless Targetless engine)
//----------------------------------------------------------------
//Added FTL Templates
//%1% : Master Key
// %2% : Slave Key
// %3% : Modifier
// %4% : SlavesToSend
<Template SendMasterAndSlave>
         <SendFocusWin>
                  <Key %1%>
         <Sendlabel %4%>
                  <Key %3% %2%>
<EndTemplate>


// %1% : master key
// %2% : slave key
// %3% : modifier
// %4% : Active window
// %5% : Slave Windows
<Template SendLeaderless>
        <If ActiveWinIs %4%>
            <ApplyTemplate SendMasterAndSlave "%1%" "%2%" "%3%" "%5%">
<EndTemplate>


// %1% : master-key
// %2% : slave-key
<Template FTL>
          <Hotkey %1%>     
                   <ApplyTemplate SendLeaderless "%1%" "%2%" "rctrl rshift" wow1 "w2,w3">
                   <ApplyTemplate SendLeaderless "%1%" "%2%" "rctrl ralt" wow2 "w1,w3">
                   <ApplyTemplate SendLeaderless "%1%" "%2%" "ralt rshift" wow3 "w1,w2">
        
<EndTemplate>

//----------------------------------------------------------------
// FTL Key assignments
// Create a new <ApplyTemplate FTL "x" "y">
// x = Key pressed in the current window
// y = Key to be sent to background windows.
//----------------------------------------------------------------

<ApplyTemplate FTL "h" "h">
<ApplyTemplate FTL "f" "f">

I don't have many templates specified right now cause I was trying different keybinds out.
My main issue right now is that I don't know how to specify Shift+F so it gets broadcasted to both windows. I use shift as my main modifier for spells ingame usually.
One way was to remove the F template and not have F as exclude. But the odd thing then was my slave never casted any spells except on one target. No matter what target the master was targetting.
And yes, If i choose to not exclude F and keep the template, then HKN complains that F has already been declared.