Switching to ISBoxer, tips wanted.

[Tyval]

Hey all,

Up till now i have been using Keyclone and been quite happy with it for the most part, it got me up and running quickly, but I'm finding I desire a bit more functionality.

So decided since I have the weekend free, I should give ISBoxer a try.

I've read through the intro/faq to get a feel for things. Lots of good info, course much of it is confusing without having ISBoxer in front of me while reading.

I figure the best thing I can do to help my chance for success is swap over but do things in steps.

Currently with Keyclone I use focus based targeting, macros, and the supported 1:1 key mapping to do most everything, (I have added a couple key maps with hotstrings for some formation stuff.

Step 1)
Move to ISBoxer but keep the behavior the same as KeyClone(use all my macros , more or less use 1:1 key mapping). From what I gather I can get this pretty easily with just a toggle of repeater/keymap settings?

Step 2)
Hook up mouse repeater regions so I can use Healbot (I've used this before, are there better ones?). I think not having to target folks for healing, or losing my MT target while healing others in group would be a big win.

Once this is working and in place, I'll start looking into the ability to swap leaders, not using focus for targeting etc.

So with the above primary goals (Step 1 and Step 2) in mind,

Any tips, things to watch out for? Will this make my initial setup easier or more complicated. I'm hoping I can get setup with keyclone behavior in short order, and just a bit more time for the mouse /healbot setup. I'm excited for the healbot method as it means it will be easy-peasy to heal as solo groups when I get the itch, as will be use to everything.

Thanks for any tips/help with this.

Tyval

Team Update: My team is about ready for the fun stuff, Pali, Priest and 2x shamans are 80 (Shamans just dinged last night) Mage is 1.5 lvls from 80!!!

[Lax]

Your setup is inherently already more complicated than ISBoxer's Quick Setup. You can get what you're asking for, but you'll need to create at least one Mapped Key for toggling Repeater, because you will probably want to switch between having a white or black list, having no white or black list (for entering password, etc), and not broadcasting. It's not that hard to do, though. I need to add a wizard for that

[Ualaa]

Hey all,

Up till now i have been using Keyclone and been quite happy with it for the most part, it got me up and running quickly, but I'm finding I desire a bit more functionality.

So decided since I have the weekend free, I should give ISBoxer a try.

I too started with Keyclone and eventually migrated to IS Boxer.
There are a few basic differences between the two softwares, even on a fundamental level.

For example, KC uses 1:1 broadcasting where every key is pushed to all clients.
Unless you utilize a whitelist (only broadcast these keys) or a blacklist (don't broadcast these keys).

IS Boxer has two broadcast modes.
Repeater (which is 1:1 broadcasting, similar the KC -- by default this is both keyboard and mouse).
And Keymaps, which are highly configurable hotkeys or other IS Boxer internal actions.

Ideally, when playing you will have Repeater disabled and Keymaps enabled.
Ideally, each hotkey which you are reliant upon from your KC configuration will be built as a mapped key (Keymaps are groups of mapped keys).
For example, if you have a party buff on Shift F12, create a mapped key with Shift F12 as the trigger and send Shift F12 to each wow window that has a buff on that keybind.

Mapped Keys are an incredibly powerful feature of IS Boxer.
You can target:
- The Current Window Only (Window: Current)
- The Other Windows Only (Window: All without current)
- All Windows
- Any combination of teams/sets, classes, or preconfigured groups (Action Target Groups)... and you can even change who is in an ATG on the fly.

I've read through the intro/faq to get a feel for things. Lots of good info, course much of it is confusing without having ISBoxer in front of me while reading.

I figure the best thing I can do to help my chance for success is swap over but do things in steps.

Currently with Keyclone I use focus based targeting, macros, and the supported 1:1 key mapping to do most everything, (I have added a couple key maps with hotstrings for some formation stuff.

I would actually recommend against this.

Run the wizard, and it gets you a functional interface.
Your DPS keys (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, -, =) are FTL keys.
You will want to change your interface from Focus based macros, to spells straight out of the spell book (no macro).
When you press "1", it casts the spell on "1"... but it also has every other toon auto assist (FTL) the toon currently leading, and cast their spell on "1" too.

If you have heals which are based off of assisting the mob, modify these slightly.
a) Remove the Assist your Focus... the FTL will have the healer target the mob too.
b) Leave the [help][[help,Target=TargetTarget] logic in the macro.

Remember your Keyclone interface, absolutely.
But be more concerned with the hotkeys for your actions, rather then the macro which the hotkey calls.

I could take any of my boxing toons, log them on by themself and play them.
IS Boxer manages my round-robin effects, so the first press of the key gets my Fire Elemental or drops Tremor Totem etc, when I one-box a toon.
But it is still a round-robin effect, when I have my entire team playing.

Hook up mouse repeater regions so I can use Healbot (I've used this before, are there better ones?). I think not having to target folks for healing, or losing my MT target while healing others in group would be a big win.

You can use Healbot or Vuhdo, as an all-in-one option for this.
You can also use Grid or OpenRDX for the frames, in conjunction with Clique for the interpretation of mouse clicks.
Either approach works well.

The key will be an alphabetical sorting (or any other fixed order), which is the same on all screens.
That way any given frame refers to the same toon on every screen.

Tovya has an excellent video guide on Repeater Region healing, in the video section of www.isboxer.com

[Tyval]

Thanks for the info,

So if I understand correctly, to save hassle later on, best to just bite the bullet and move forward the right way.

My first step would be to setup the general ISBoxer (via the tutorial/guide/wizard ) etc.

Then I would change my macros to remove all targeting stuff, and to be simply the spell /cast sequence etc I use, heals same thing but leave in the targettarget stuff. (though less important as will be using healbot).

I will stick with healbot as I'm familiar with that, and use the tutorial.

You sold me on just redoing my macros/keys with the comment about being able to play the members of the team solo and not have to change anything.

Thanks as always, I'll make sure to give you credit for my referral

Tyval

[ghonosyph]

i did this as well, swap from keyclone over to isboxer. I had the cash left from a paypal transaction and figured i'd give it a shot. I had ONE HELL OF A TIME moving over from focus based systems and ftl, and i still to this day use the focus based system to a certain extent. The trick to doing it, is to turn isboxer into keyclone for repeating, (provided you don't wanna take full advantage of keymaps right away and the auto ftl)

The way i did it was to add a separate key for toggling repeating(keyboard) and repeating(mouse) so that i could use my pause keys button just like keyclones pause button. the mouse repeater part can be handy to click on targetted spells and stuff but you dont always want it on, it makes for messy mouse movement issues lol.

The next thing i did was to set up how my focus making would work. Since i already had my macros on a bar for focus toon 1, focus toon 2 and so on, already had keybinds set up this way on f9 thru f12 and shift f12, there was an EASY way to make it transfer over in isboxer. If you click into your character sets, for example i have a character set called paladins, click on that you'll see in isboxer toolkit, on the left hand pane, a box that lists all your toons in that set. click on the number one, in the right hand pane you're going to see on the top line "hotkey to switch to this character" make this hotkey whatever toon one's hotkey to /focus toon one is. IE i had it set up for F9, then the next /focus toon2 was on F10 and so on.

One more thing to do before you click outta this area, is to check mark "when i switch to this character, check mark the dot that says "broadcast this keystroke" and make it match the above hot key to switch to that toon. This way if you switch by clicking on the other screen instead of pressing the button, it will press the button for you anyway and you'll have the correct toon focused!


I had a rough go setting up keymaps, i use them now, as i've started to figure everything out, however its tricky if you're coming from a focus based system and swapping over to a ftl with keymaps, as you're going to have to "relearn" everything you've taught yourself about playing. Old habits die hard and it can get complicated

Good luck tho! if you'd like more info i'll be glad to answer any questions to how i have my focus system set up lol just pm me !

[dRiN]

I switched the day before last and tried to setup using the wizard. One thing that got me stuck was that I used a copy of an instance I had. I previously used different folders for different accounts so my setup would stay solid and the same over time for my characters. I used a focus based system with octopus. So after using the wizard I had some double bindings and some trouble figuring out how the parts are connected. Innerspace itself, ISBoxer, ISBoxer WoW Addon, Jamba, etc.

So after a few minutes of help from Jax looking at my ISBoxer exported profile on IRC I had the thing running with FTL for most of my bindings and I changed a binding so my chars would follow on every active screen.

Only thing I wished I would have done was start all clean so I did not have conflicting stuff from the transition and using the old instances of WoW because it can get a bit confusing if you try to do it all at once. So start as clean as possible and see where it takes you with the wizard and work from there. Recreating what you already had is reusable over all characters if you manage them well and name items properly.

Yesterday I got my different character sets going, with ISBoxer it is much easier to control this in a right fasion. Play two shammies, three shammies, a tank and a few shammies, a pala and a mage with some guildies, etc. Its all ready to go when you start them up.

Today I setup my healer region in combination with Vuhdo and alfabetic name sorting, LOVE IT!

Tomorrow I will start to tacle some of the things I did not felt up to doing, like oculust and its macro hassle. Now I will just setup some custom mapping with action steps that make sure I handle my rotations well. And for my PVE team get a dedicated healer in the mix so I can do the new ICC 5 man instances properly (4 elemental shammies healing is not cutting it anymore).

[Tyval]

Hmm, I'm a bit confused by what you meant with instances?

Are there some folders I need to clean up before I switch to ISBoxer? Currently I do use jamba, Keyclone, only trivial keymaping (for formation).

Want to make it as painless as possible, I suppose starting from scratch is fine, but unclear what I need to remove.

Tyval

[pinotnoir]

One problem I ran into with ISboxer which is really not a problem with the software is the region layout. If you want the mouse repeater to be accurate on your alts all regions need to be the same aspect ratio. In order to do this I had to switch to boxing on 1 pc and using 2 monitors instead of 2pc and 3 monitors like I had with keyclone. Its a small sacrifice but the software is by far better than keyclone. It goes a step beyond keyclone. Once you heal your group with the mouse repeater regions you will wonder how you did it without it.

[dRiN]

Hmm, I'm a bit confused by what you meant with instances?

Are there some folders I need to clean up before I switch to ISBoxer? Currently I do use jamba, Keyclone, only trivial keymaping (for formation).

Want to make it as painless as possible, I suppose starting from scratch is fine, but unclear what I need to remove.

Tyval

By instances I ment several folders with WoW.

So I have one main folder with my original wow. And in this I have the data and interface folder. The data and interface folders I symbolic linked to other wow folders so when a patch hit I only had to update the files in the WoW folder. The WTF folder was unique to each folder. Using Inner Space this is not needed anymore because inner space handles the instancing of the different accounts you log on with and need their own files.

For my first Inner Space experience I made a copy of the original wow folder. Which I had filled up with addons for solo play (raiding mods, bar mods, unit frame mods) and multiboxing play. By trying this in combination with inner space, ISBoxer wow addon, jamba, etc. it got a bit confusing for me.

Maybe this is more clear in what I was trying to say. My advice is to keep it simple and clean and work from that to recreate and expand from that to make it better. During the recreation of your old system you probably find many better ways to do stuff so it can be reused in different setups.

[JackBurton]

If you have any questions please ask. Want me to share my config setup with you? Send me a PM if you're scared of asking a stupid question in public.

Jedi Master
Zanthor said that boxing is one of those things that you're always be improving upon. Easy to learn hard to master.

Videos
The fastest way to learn about ISBoxer capabilities is by studing the videos. ISboxer is limited only to your imagination. It comes loaded only with minimal mapsets and scripts. You can get idea's for macros and mapsets by studying the video's seeded on youtube, and studying www.dualboxing.com. We all learn three ways. By Doing, reading, and seeing. Video training gives both reading and seeing.

Troubleshooting
If you are a ISBoxer noob the sure way to fix problems would be to get on Lax's chat. He's pretty good about sifting out problems if you present him your config setup. Personaly I have two problems that always get me even though im a relative ISBoxer pro. I keep forgetting you have to assign toons to both Mapsets (tree) and Actions/Steps (branches attached to that tree). My second problem that happens to me the most is key conflicts. This is hard to explain so I'll try to explain it at a different time.

Centralized Setup
An advanced tool of ISBoxer, is ISBoxer WoWMacros replacing ingame actionbars for spells and macros. All my spells and abilities are macroed into ISBoxer. Why do i do it this way? Four reasons.
1.The first reason is to Tweak macros out of game saving alot of time.
2.The second reason is to have very few visual actionbars on my UI. Macros dont need to be assigned to spots on a actionbars. Very nice if you are a UI Minimalist like me. I use cooldown watcher addons to see what abilities are available. The Macro's the ISBoxer addon creates simply needs to have Key Combinations bound to them. All my key bindings and hotkeys are allready in mustle memory.
3.The third reason is macros can have failsafes bult into them that vanila spell action bars dont have. For example if you spam the plain-default actionbar for Mind Blast it will keep recasting the spell. A macro can be set to not try to recast if you are allready casting.
4. The fourth reason you want centralized setup you can troubleshoot Key Combinations.

Click
You can use ISBoxer to perform a click action. A click is kinda like an inteligent castsequence macro. letting you spam one button to make your toons cast spells at the right time.

Testing
Test your planed setup first at your cities Dumies. This way you can test your clicks for any air pockets or gaps in the spell casting. Some good Addons for seeing visualy gaps in casting is the visual GCD spark in Quartz and the cooldown addon "Event Horizon". After your semi confident that everything is good validate your setup in a normal or heroic instance.

Movement
1. My formation is a simple split. the 4 slaves bug out in all four directions like an X.
2. You can also set up a simple Interact With Target Mapset with one Key Binding. The mapset i programed does this for me. on the keypress of pagedown my slaves assist me and move towards the target. when i let go of pagedown my slaves stop.
3.My simple other micromanage movement is all slaves: strafe left, strafe right. forward, backward, turn left, and turn right.