Advantages of Using PiP & Focus Switching (Looting/PVP)

[KvdM]

I've also been using this pip setup for several days now. I didn't bother posting about it, because I thought it was an obvious thing to do. The setup works quite well, but there are some minor issues:

• Sometimes the pip switching creates a seam between my main and secondary windows. It looks like a one pixel wide gap that still displays the contents of the previous window.
• Sometimes it switches to the wrong main window. It usually happens after I've switched a lot of windows and then try to switch back to the window of first character. Sometimes I end up having to the window of my second character as the main window. Pressing the same switching button again fixes the issue.
• WoW doesn't always respond to the switch button and the sometimes focus fails the call the set focus macro (although this might also have something to do with the speed of my computer). When this happens you'll notice that the character on your main window will try to follow the preview focus character.
• Since I don't have a main character anymore, all my character macro's try to assist the focus target. Having the current focus character assist himself sometimes makes you target the previous target (while your alts target the current target). If someone has a suggestion for how to prevent a character from assisting himself, you'd make me very happy.
• Also, switching focus while keeping a movement button pressed is not a good idea. In my setup, the movement keys are on the keyclone "do not pass" list. This allows me to use the movement keys with every character separately. It also means that a window won't get any movement key updates when it loses focus. When you switch focus while keeping a movement key pressed, you can end up with a character that won't stop moving until you focus that window again. It looks funny when this happens to someone else, but it usually happens at the worst possible moment.

A lot of minor issues, but its still a very good setup.

[keyclone]

@Kvdm
please confirm that you are using v1.8g

[wougoose]

I've also been using this pip setup for several days now. I didn't bother posting about it, because I thought it was an obvious thing to do. The setup works quite well, but there are some minor issues:

• Sometimes the pip switching creates a seam between my main and secondary windows. It looks like a one pixel wide gap that still displays the contents of the previous window.
• Sometimes it switches to the wrong main window. It usually happens after I've switched a lot of windows and then try to switch back to the window of first character. Sometimes I end up having to the window of my second character as the main window. Pressing the same switching button again fixes the issue.
• WoW doesn't always respond to the switch button and the sometimes focus fails the call the set focus macro (although this might also have something to do with the speed of my computer). When this happens you'll notice that the character on your main window will try to follow the preview focus character.
• Since I don't have a main character anymore, all my character macro's try to assist the focus target. Having the current focus character assist himself sometimes makes you target the previous target (while your alts target the current target). If someone has a suggestion for how to prevent a character from assisting himself, you'd make me very happy.
• Also, switching focus while keeping a movement button pressed is not a good idea. In my setup, the movement keys are on the keyclone "do not pass" list. This allows me to use the movement keys with every character separately. It also means that a window won't get any movement key updates when it loses focus. When you switch focus while keeping a movement key pressed, you can end up with a character that won't stop moving until you focus that window again. It looks funny when this happens to someone else, but it usually happens at the worst possible moment.

A lot of minor issues, but its still a very good setup.

Your last point about movement keys being held down has also caused me minor issues.

@Rob: Do you believe there is a way to release key presses after a PiP change occurs to avoid the issue of the key getting locked during the switch? Or maybe there is another solution?

@Kvdm: I haven't had any of the issues you mentioned besides the movement keys getting stuck. Are you using 1.8g? In terms of performance, what are the specs on your machine?

[Totek]

Can PiP be used with multiple monitors/video cards? (maybe desktop spanning?)

--Tot

[Djarid]

Like Wougoose, I use one modified key for setting focus and PiP, I also add /script PromoteToLeader(focus) at the end of the script which will, if possible, promote that character to leader, allowing me to use ZQB effectively

I assign each keystroke to a separate GKey (G1,G2,G3-5) this saves me keybindings ;)

[Crucial]

I'm experiencing a lot of the same issues KVDM - using keyclone 1.8g. The performance is so bad switching swapping characters (can be 5 seconds or more) its pretty much unusable especially when theres a lot of action going on (ie. pvp). I have the focus key binding the same as my PiP swap key (Ctrl-1 to Ctrl-5 for each character/region) and all characters get the new focus except for the character being swapped when I press the hotkey - I basically have to press the key again after the windows have swapped so that I can ensure they all get the proper focus. Would the the bad performance be a result of the aspect ratios between my main window and 4 clones are different? Running on an 8800 GTS, 4 gigs ram and Quad core - main window is 1920x1200, other screen is 1280x1024 split 2x2.

[keyclone]

a quad core and you're having performance issues? whoa. even my single core isn't that slow (although.. if i'm in orgrimmar.. i avoid pip swap)

when you try to swap, is it in a busy area? if so, please try it somewhere like cross roads. also, try setting your details to low and see if that helps (altho, you shouldn't have to for a quad)

resolution issues have been addressed in v1.8h, so now the game resolution is not tied to the size of the region. i'm still shaking what i can out of this version before release.

[Crucial]

a quad core and you're having performance issues? whoa. even my single core isn't that slow (although.. if i'm in orgrimmar.. i avoid pip swap)

when you try to swap, is it in a busy area? if so, please try it somewhere like cross roads. also, try setting your details to low and see if that helps (altho, you shouldn't have to for a quad)

resolution issues have been addressed in v1.8h, so now the game resolution is not tied to the size of the region. i'm still shaking what i can out of this version before release.

Regardless of zone its still slow (just worse in busy areas). Details are on lowest - even used the /console command to minimize it further. Maybe 1.8h will resolve it. I haven't tried making the regions the same aspect ratio, thats about the only option I can think of at this point.

[KvdM]

I'm using keyclone 1.8g on a 5.5 year old dual 2.4 xeon cpu system with a gforce 7900 GS. The pip switching will take between 1-5 seconds depending on what I'm doing and where I am at. In my case that's probably caused by the old hardware.

I've looked into some of the issues and I've got reproducable cases for two of the issues:

Keys getting stuck. This is related to focus switching. It doesn't just happen when doing a pip switch, it also happens when the focus follows the mouse to another window. Place the movement key on the do-not-pass list, start 2 wow instances, press the move forward key, move the mouse over to the other wow instance and release the key. Notice that the first client won't stop running until it receives focus and the movement key is pressed and subsequently released.

The screens switching to the wrong region of the monitor isn't actually a bug. In its current implementation, pip switching switches the current focus window with another window. This is counter-intuitive and when used together with wow macros it will mess up the main window and the main focus. This is how it gets messed up with my setup:

I'm using 3 regions: a bigger main region and two smaller alt regions (alt1 and alt2). I've got 3 keys for switching the windows:

• F9 switches to the main window and places the wow focus target on my main character
• F10 switches to the first alt window and places the focus on him
• F11 switches to the second alt window and places the focus on him

The setup switches my main and alt characters to my main window region as long as I keep my mouse on the main window region. It starts to mess up when I place my mouse on one of the alt windows. When I place my mouse over the window of alt 1 and press the switch to alt 2 key, keyclone will switch the alt 1 with the alt 2 window and wow will set the focus to alt 2. Leaving me with one of the smaller alt windows as my main window

Its not a bug, but its clear why its counter-intuitive. It would probably be better to have a set of fixed screen lay-outs (one lay-out per key), so the windows will always switch in the same way, regardless of the current focus.

[king.pa]

I can just add my two cents to this thread ...

It seems that the PIP feature only works if the WOWq windows are located on the same screen ...
with my 20" and 24" configuration .. here's the ugly result :

Normal viewing Char 1 (reduced to 1280 px)


PIP view with Char 2 focused (reduced to 1600 px)


ugly isn't it ? and this happens with char 3 too
I start playing without the 20" on the side ... and the PIP feature was working as planned ... not anymore with tho displays