Comparative analysis? HKN vs. GCP vs. ISB?

[Fuzzyboy]

Um, menus are standard on all GUi based OS's... Wizards menu, quick setup... 40 seconds later you can log in and kill shit

What are you talking about? Are you claiming that it's impossible to make a custom GUI on a GUI based OS? In that case I think you need to read up on your programming skills :-)

Because setting up FTL in KeyClone is so transparent... and I don't believe you are calling a SCRIPTING LANGUAGE more intuitive than ANY GUI.

Where did I write anything about FTL and Keyclone? And where did I say that a scripting language is intuitive? My point was simply that to set up HKN (which I assume is the scripting based program you're talking about), there's a pretty steep learning curve, especially if you wan't to use the program to it's full extent. With ISBoxer + toolkit it's easy to get up and running but if you want to do the advanced stuff, there seems to be as much of a learning curve as HKN - which is partially due to the interface.

I'm not bashing ISBoxer here, so don't take it too personal - I think $10 is a fair price for three months, but as far as I can tell, HKN just works better for me :-)

[Lax]

The keymaps is pretty flexible and easy to set up(Though I wish you could set conditional keys).

Conditional keys? If you want to elaborate maybe I can explain how you can accomplish what you're looking for. You can use a "Key Map Action" or "Mapped Key Action" to turn on or off different Key Maps or individual Mapped Keys (so for example if you have a mapped key set up on Alt+Q, you can disable it and turn on a different one that's on Alt+Q) if that helps. Otherwise I'm not quite sure what you meant

[zanthor]

And where did I say that a scripting language is intuitive? My point was simply that to set up HKN (which I assume is the scripting based program you're talking about), there's a pretty steep learning curve, especially if you wan't to use the program to it's full extent. With ISBoxer + toolkit it's easy to get up and running but if you want to do the advanced stuff, there seems to be as much of a learning curve as HKN - which is partially due to the interface.

I find ISBoxer / IS to be a bit user un-friendly and cluttered and not very intuitive compared to keyclone/HKN

Right there... HKN is a scripting language, and right there you said it's more intuitive than ISBoxer's GUI...

[Iceorbz]

The configuration is only as confusing as you want to make it -- for someone with complex ideas it will take more work. I can only imagine that your issues stem from liking your configuration a very specific way, and trying to immediately duplicate it in ISBoxer has a learning curve (which is one reason why a couple dozen people hang out in the ISBoxer chat room to share their ideas and help newcomers). Not everyone is the same, in fact most people have no idea how they want it set up, and are quite happy that the Quick Setup Wizard can get them up and running in a couple minutes, and then they can make tweaks later when they think of something else they want it to do.

lol amen to this, I have a "setup" that for some reason I cant function if not like it is now. Trying to replicate it in innerspace is very hard and difficult for me.

[Eggy]

Conditional keys? If you want to elaborate maybe I can explain how you can accomplish what you're looking for. You can use a "Key Map Action" or "Mapped Key Action" to turn on or off different Key Maps or individual Mapped Keys (so for example if you have a mapped key set up on Alt+Q, you can disable it and turn on a different one that's on Alt+Q) if that helps. Otherwise I'm not quite sure what you meant

Yeah, that was pretty much what I was on about, and like you explained that's what i figured I could do to solve it, though I havn't messed with it yet =)

[Fuzzyboy]

Where did I write anything about FTL and Keyclone? And where did I say that a scripting language is intuitive? My point was simply that to set up HKN (which I assume is the scripting based program you're talking about), there's a pretty steep learning curve, especially if you wan't to use the program to it's full extent. With ISBoxer + toolkit it's easy to get up and running but if you want to do the advanced stuff, there seems to be as much of a learning curve as HKN - which is partially due to the interface.

I find ISBoxer / IS to be a bit user un-friendly and cluttered and not very intuitive compared to keyclone/HKN

Right there... HKN is a scripting language, and right there you said it's more intuitive than ISBoxer's GUI...

You're playing the too-literal game, but if you insist: The fact that A > B only says something about the relative sizes of A and B - and nothing about their absolute values. Or: The fact that I find HKN more intuitive than ISBoxer does not imply that either are overly intuitive - simply that one is more intuitive than the other. And yes, I find a scripting language more intuitive than ISBoxer, _when it comes to the advanced features_.

[Bettysue]

Intuitive can easily apply to a scripting language especially when your computer background is taken into consideration. I work with UNIX all day at work, a GUI is non-existent for most of what I do, in fact I don't even have a mouse. So when I get home to the point and click world, I still find myself using keyboard shortcuts and arrow keys to get most things done.
Then scripting comes into play, I can look at HKN figure out what commands I have at my disposal and be up and running with full FTL in about 2 hours. Now that I have a base script setup, any new char, or even switching computers takes as little as a minute to copy paste the appropriate file over and DL+install HKN again.
I won't say that this is unique to any one of the programs, but each piece of software has its respective market. IS+ISBoxer looks amazing, I really like the idea or visible clues for mouse broadcasting. Other than that one feature I see nothing I can't do with HKN. Instant PiP swap is not taken into consideration for that statement, however, with good script management the difference can be made negligible, instant looks just like 55ms.
HKN can be daunting for non-programmers, but the demo scripts can have you running in seconds, much like the wizard setup for other software. Given the capabilities of the scripting language there is probably nothing you couldn't do with HKN, aside of course from graphical display components. A huge plus for me was HKN is free, as well as powerful, and well supported, like the other software options.
I also like the hands off approach HKN has, no macros or portions of the program that will fail should Blizz update or change a feature of the built in macro language. It just does it's job of sending keys and window management.

Keyclone, ISBoxer, and GCP all have decent GUIs that provide access to the real workings of each program. HKN is a simple scripting language that provides this same access. If you are a programmer or even just a computer hobbiest, I would say all of the above programs could get you to a functional state of boxing quite quickly. For advanced features the learning curve is probably the same GUI or otherwise. Remembering a command is just as difficult as remembering where on a menu a feature is. I think the real selling point for any of these boxing solutions is simply personal taste.

[Lax]

If scripting is your thing, ISBoxer is a configuration program + open source scripts (that run on Inner Space). There was no GUI until earlier this year, and if you don't want to use the GUI you also get "hands off"!

Other than that one feature I see nothing I can't do with HKN. Instant PiP swap is not taken into consideration for that statement, however, with good script management the difference can be made negligible, instant looks just like 55ms.

That's two then, and I'd love to see you try to implement the other IS-exclusive features with HKN! I like the 55ms number you picked, but to be fair that'd be comparing worst case ISBoxer to best case HKN (or otherwise), and that's a bit disingenuous. Worst case HKN (being in a laggy area), with your good script management idea, is still going to be several seconds, compared to ISBoxer's worst case of probably 50-100ms in the same situation. I don't blame you though, it's hard to make the comparison without experiencing it yourself.

I take it as read that your personal preference leaned more toward the free part than any particular set of features :P

[Bettysue]

Free is quite hard to argue with...free and currently supported is indeed better. Currently HKN is doing this for me and meeting my needs.

I make no argument that IS outperforms the competition in the PiP market, those swaps are fast as hell and consistently so. 55ms was the lowest switch time I saw in Dalaran with HKN, I was using activewindow tracking in Windows to get that time. The highest time I saw was 230ms. ISBoxer did the same switch consistently at 42ms in the same conditions.