[HotKeyNet] Sending keystrokes from slave to master?

[Nomahd]

I've been using HotKeyNet for a little while now and it works very well for me. But I decided to try and get a FTL setup going between my 2 computers. I also use Input Director to allow me to control the second computer screen as if I had dual monitors.

The problem that I am having is I cannot get anything to transmit to the master if the slave system has focus. Transmitting to the slave when the master has focus is no problem. Am I missing something or is this just not possible? I've tried various sample FTL scripts and nothing has worked yet. If I could just get it to work once then I would be able to continue with my setup.

Here is a test script I tried and it sends from the master to the slave but not from the slave to the master.

<Label w1 192.168.0.110 SendWinM WoW1>
<Label w2 192.168.0.109 SendWinM WoW2>

<Hotkey ScrollLockOn Alt Ctrl L>
    <SendPC 192.168.0.110>
    <Run "D:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\WoW.exe">
    <RenameWin World WoW1>
    <wait 10000>
    <SendWinM WoW1>
        <text "Account">
        <wait 500>
        <key Tab>
        <wait 500>
        <text "Pass">
        <wait 100>
        <key Enter>
    <SendPC 192.168.0.109>
    <Run "D:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\WoW.exe">
    <RenameWin World WoW2>
    <wait 10000>
    <SendWinM WoW2>
        <text "Account">
        <wait 500>
        <key Tab>
        <wait 500>
        <text "Pass">
        <wait 100>
        <key Enter>

<Hotkey Numpad1>
    <If ActiveWinIs WoW1>
        <SendLabel w2>
        <Key Numpad1>
    <Else If ActiveWinIs WoW2>
        <SendLabel w1>
        <Key Numpad1>

[Khatovar]

What does HKN say when you try to send the key from the slave?

[Freddie]

The If-statements in your <Hotkey NumPad1> are asking which WoW has the focus on the local PC.

But one of the WoWs is running on the remote PC. It never has the focus on the local PC. Therefore, one of the If-statements in your hotkey can never be true and it can never execute.

If you want HotkeyNet to do something conditionally based on conditions on the remote PC, you need to load a script on the remote PC. Put a hotkey in that script with the appropriate If-statement. Then trigger that hotkey from the local PC with a second hotkey definition that includes <DoHotkey ...>.

P.S. Each of your machines has its own active window (a window that has the focus). Input Director (like all KM programs) disguises this fact from you by making it appear that there is only one active window for both machines. But really there are two active windows at all times, one on each machine. You may need to take this into account.

[Nomahd]

Okay, that makes sense. I was thinking that might have been the problem after I posted this but I wasn't sure what to do about it. I wasn't aware I could load a script into the slave client. I'll mess around with it some more tomorrow and post back the results. Thanks for the input.

[Freddie]

You can load scripts into any copy of HotkeyNet and press hotkeys on any keyboard, but you probably don't need to bother.

If you can assume that when the local WoW's not active, the remote one is, you can just replace the second If with Else.

And you don't need to rename the WoWs. Renaming is only necessary to distinguish multiple instances on the same PC.

<Hotkey Numpad1>
   <If ActiveWinIs "World of Warcraft">
       <SendLabel ....>
       <Key Numpad1>
   <Else>
       <SendLabel ....>
       <Key Numpad1>

[Nomahd]

Yeah, I'm aware of that. I did the renaming because I actually run 4 toons on one box and 1 toon on the other box. So I just rename them all WoW1-WoW5 so I know which window is which. I was only doing 1 on each box until I get this issue worked out. So using "Else" will not work for me because I have 3 other toons.

[Nomahd]

I understand how it works.

I don't understand why World of Warcraft can still receive hotkeys from the Slave, Notepad can receive hotkeys from the Slave, but Ventrilo cannot.

Why block events to Ventrilo but not to other programs? What is different about Ventrilo?

Input Director also allows hotkey macros, but they can't be held down. Otherwise I could do it that way. Does Mojo have the ability to create hotkeys that can be held down and sent to any system?

[Freddie]

I understand how it works.

I don't understand why World of Warcraft can still receive hotkeys from the Slave,

Probably because you're using SendWinM or SendWinS in those hotkeys. Those send modes don't generate keyboard events. Those send modes communicate directly with the WoW client and tell WoW that a keyboard event occurred even though it didn't really. Input Director has no way to know that HotkeyNet is sending those messages to WoW.

Unfortunately, those send modes probably won't work with Vent because Vent is intercepting keystrokes on a system wide basis, which means it's probably receiving its keyboard input with either a low-level keyboard hook (see my last post about launch order) or else it's using an operating system registered hotkey.

Does Mojo have the ability to create hotkeys that can be held down and sent to any system?

The old Mojo never got beyond its first two months of development. It's just a bare bones KM program. It has a really nice hotkey entry window (one of the best pieces of programming I ever did in my 30 year programming career) but it can't do what you describe.

[Nomahd]

I unchecked it after restart and it had no effect. I started Input Director last but achieved the same results. I forgot that HotkeyNet was targeting a direct window in the cases other than Vent which explains why they still receive the events. Targetting Vent directly has no effect, probably because it reads keys in the way you stated above. It's starting to make sense.

But while cooking I had a new idea...

I can move Vent to my Slave and use HotkeyNet to send the hotkey to the slave instead. The Slave keyboard is not blocked while the Master has the focus of my Master keyboard, so Vent should still receive the event, and when my Slave has the focus of my Master's keyboard it should send directly anyway. I think this will work... there's only one way to find out. I don't care which system I have to use for Vent so long as I can talk while using either.

[Freddie]

I was thinking the same thing. Good luck!