Program to set hotkey to bring WoW Clients to front?

[LancerX]

Iv tried this before with keyclone and although it works , it just does not work as fast as id like and I will explain what im trying to do. I play five clients all full screen window mode, I have five hotkeys setup to change leaderand what not, so I wanted a way to switch clients just like as if I was clicking the wow bar on the bottom taskbar. If I click on it on the bottom it switches instantly to the client I want to go to, and during heated pvp I just dont have time to be clicking on different things while fighting. I was thinking you could do this with my autohotkey but not sure. I know Keyclone can do this but it's PIP function swaps the windows which can take a second or two and with me hitting buttons in combat sometimes this cancels the window swap or either it just is not fast enough or sometimes it just starts flashing instead of swapping. So I was wandering if there is a way I could basicly set up a hotkey to bring the window of a client to the front just as if I just clicked it with my mouse on the taskbar? Anyone know if this can be done or how , it would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Katharsis]

Hotkeynet works instantly for me but I'm only working with two clients.
http://hotkeynet.com/ref/toggle.html

[Freddie]

Instantly going from one full-screen window to another full-screen window? I didn't think that was possible. :)

[Katharsis]

Instantly going from one full-screen window to another full-screen window? I didn't think that was possible.

Ppppthffft! For some, yes. For some, no. It wasn't possible until you told me it was. nya nya

[Freddie]

Lol, that was a serious question. Is that really happening? I thought Windows always shifts back to the desktop between full-screen game windows. I just timed it on this PC (with a 256mb XT1950pro) and it takes about 3.5 seconds. If there's a way to do it fast, I'd like to know. Especially if my own program is doing it. I just hate it when my programs know more than me !!! :)

[LancerX]

Lol, that was a serious question. Is that really happening? I thought Windows always shifts back to the desktop between full-screen game windows. I just timed it on this PC (with a 256mb XT1950pro) and it takes about 3.5 seconds. If there's a way to do it fast, I'd like to know. Especially if my own program is doing it. I just hate it when my programs know more than me !!! :)

With my PC I run 5 wow clients in windowed mode but maximized. I click on the bottom client to change clients and it switches instantly to the client I switch on, works good like that so I will check out that software to see if it can do that.

[Freddie]

Windowed mode is totally different. The original poster asked about full-screen mode, and that's what I'm asking about too.

Edit: oops he actually said "full screen window mode." I'm not sure what he's referring to.

[LancerX]

Windowed mode is totally different. The original poster asked about full-screen mode, and that's what I'm asking about too.

Edit: oops he actually said "full screen window mode." I'm not sure what he's referring to.

Actually I am the originall poster and yea what I said was full screen window mode which is my retarded way of saying windowed mode maximized hehe. Sorry about that. I downloaded your program and kudos on the nice work. Im not to familiar with those hotkeys so I will just ask you and maybe you can just point me in the right direction. Is it possible for me to run your program and set up 5 hotkeys for my 5 clients so when I press 1-5 hotkey it will bring one of my clients to the front as if I had just clicked on the client in the bottom taskbar. Again keep in mind I am running window mode maximized. Is this possible? Any help or info would be greatly appreciated.

[Freddie]

With my PC I run 5 wow clients in windowed mode but maximized. I click on the bottom client to change clients and it switches instantly to the client I switch on, works good like that so I will check out that software to see if it can do that.

Doh, sorry Lancer, you ARE the original poster! I need to cut down on the caffeine ... or up the caffeine .. or something. :)

K is right, you can use HotkeyNet to bring windows forward. The speed should be exactly the same as with the mouse because HKN and the mouse call the same internal Windows function. Your hotkeys should use the HKN keyword "SetForeground."

Like K said, Toggle works also but it only switches back and forth between two windows. If you want to use Toggle I'll make it cycle through any number of windows. I've been planning to make that improvement all along but was waiting for somebody to ask for it.

[LancerX]

With my PC I run 5 wow clients in windowed mode but maximized. I click on the bottom client to change clients and it switches instantly to the client I switch on, works good like that so I will check out that software to see if it can do that.

Doh, sorry Lancer, you ARE the original poster! I need to cut down on the caffeine ... or up the caffeine .. or something. :)

K is right, you can use HotkeyNet to bring windows forward. The speed should be exactly the same as with the mouse because HKN and the mouse call the same internal Windows function. Your hotkeys should use the HKN keyword "SetForeground."

Like K said, Toggle works also but it only switches back and forth between two windows. If you want to use Toggle I'll make it cycle through any number of windows. I've been planning to make that improvement all along but was waiting for somebody to ask for it.

Ok great man thanks a ton. So I will take my 5 wow clients and rename the windows so I can use the <TargetWindow window> command correct? Then I just need to figure out how to make the macro's so when I press f1 it calls window wow1 and so on through f5. I think it may look something like this below.

<Hotkey F1>
<SendPC local>
<TargetWindow WoW1>
<SetForeground>

Is this right? and is it case sensitive?

[Freddie]

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah you can do that. You have to rename at least four of the windows first so they each have a different name. You can make a hotkey that renames them like this:

<hotkey Ctrl N>
<sendpc local>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow1>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow2>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow3>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow4>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow5>

Now let's make a hotkey that brings window #3 to the foreground. Let's suppose you want to use F3 for that:

<hotkey F3>
<sendpc local>
<TargetWindow Wow3>
<SetForeground>

That's the whole thing.

[Freddie]

Lol we're crossing posts like crazy. As you can see you did it right. The only thing that's case sensitive is the names of windows (because Windows handles them that way).

[LancerX]

Lol we're crossing posts like crazy. As you can see you did it right. The only thing that's case sensitive is the names of windows (because Windows handles them that way).

Wow Thank you so much you just read my mind, I was fixing to ask you if it was possible to make a hotkey to rename the windows but you already told me, thank you. Now how do I set a hotkey for Control Shift Alt R hehe, ima go look now.

edit:

Which I do believe is like this

<hotkey Ctrl Shift Alt r>
<sendpc local>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow1>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow2>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow3>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow4>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow5>
<Hotkey F1>
<SendPC local>
<TargetWindow WoW1>
<SetForeground>
<Hotkey F2>
<SendPC local>
<TargetWindow WoW2>
<SetForeground>
<Hotkey F3>
<SendPC local>
<TargetWindow WoW3>
<SetForeground>
<Hotkey F4>
<SendPC local>
<TargetWindow WoW4>
<SetForeground>
<Hotkey F5>
<SendPC local>
<TargetWindow WoW5>
<SetForeground>

[Freddie]

To learn the name of a key in HKN, press the key and look in HKN's upper right corner. But I'll save you some time:

<Hotkey ctrl alt shift R>

if you want to distinguish the left and right side keys so you can make two different hotkeys, you can do this instead:

<Hotkey Lctrl Lalt Lshift R>
<Hotkey Rctrl Ralt Rshift R>

(You don't have to capitalize the R's and L's that way -- I just did it for emphasis.)

[LancerX]

To learn the name of a key in HKN, press the key and look in HKN's upper right corner. But I'll save you some time:

<Hotkey ctrl alt shift R>

if you want to distinguish the left and right side keys so you can make two different hotkeys, you can do this instead:

<Hotkey Lctrl Lalt Lshift R>
<Hotkey Rctrl Ralt Rshift R>

(You don't have to capitalize the R's and L's that way -- I just did it for emphasis.)

Awesome Thank you so much.

I ran the script above and it said it could not find the windows after I ran the hotkey to rename it did rename them but just not in order that I loaded them for some reason. So anyway it would not bring any of the windows to the front for some reason. Any suggestions what I am doing wrong?

[Freddie]

Looks good but it's hard to check a long script like that by eye, so load it into HKN and see what happens. Good luck. :)

[LancerX]

Looks good but it's hard to check a long script like that by eye, so load it into HKN and see what happens. Good luck. :)

Ok so I ran the script and this is what it says.

From this pc: <TargetWindow WoW1><SetForeground>
<TargetWindow> failed: Window not found.
<SetForeground> failed: No window is targeted.

From this pc: <TargetWindow WoW2><SetForeground>
<TargetWindow> failed: Window not found.
<SetForeground> failed: No window is targeted.

From this pc: <TargetWindow WoW3><SetForeground>
<TargetWindow> failed: Window not found.
<SetForeground> failed: No window is targeted.

From this pc: <TargetWindow WoW4><SetForeground>
<TargetWindow> failed: Window not found.
<SetForeground> failed: No window is targeted.

From this pc: <TargetWindow WoW5><SetForeground>
<TargetWindow> failed: Window not found.
<SetForeground> failed: No window is targeted.


Also is there a way to maximize the windows? and is there a way to get it to rename them in order wow1,wow2 and so forth, it seems to rename them in random order.

Thanks in advance for the much needed help and advice. Very much appreciated.

[Freddie]

The windows are not found because of the case sensitivity issue. Wow vs WoW (final W).

[LancerX]

The windows are not found because of the case sensitivity issue. Wow vs WoW (final W)

Duh, thanks allot, I just figured that out when you wrote this. Thanks a ton, I feel stupid for bothering you now but thanks allot.
I am going to go see if I can find any functions to maximize the windows on your site.

[Freddie]

I don't mind helping like this. It's actually useful to me beause it gives me a chance to see which aspects of the program give people trouble. Big software companies have to pay specialists to observe paid users in test rooms to obtain that kind of info ... but here we are doing it for free. :)

The answer on maximize is, I don't think I implemented that but I'll add it now if you want it ... it has to get added eventually so now is a good time.

The answer on the renaming order is that normally HKN gives you three methods to control that, but only two work with WoW because of WoW's security features. (I could probably get around them but I don't want to do anything that could put users at risk.)

One way to handle it is to keep the hotkey we just defined. What it's doing is renaming the windows in Z-order from front to back. (The foreground window is in front). So what you have to do is arrange the windows from front to back before you hit the key.

The other way is to make five new hotkeys, one for each window. Click each window individually so it's in the foreground, then hit the appropriate hotkey.

[scottig]

Lancer did you get it working?

[Freddie]

I just added Maximize to the program. It's in build 69 on the website now.

In case the website isn't available (my host company is horrible), you can download it here:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hotkeynet/files/

[LancerX]

I don't mind helping like this. It's actually useful to me beause it gives me a chance to see which aspects of the program give people trouble. Big software companies have to pay specialists to observe paid users in test rooms to obtain that kind of info ... but here we are doing it for free. :)

The answer on maximize is, I don't think I implemented that but I'll add it now if you want it ... it has to get added eventually so now is a good time.

The answer on the renaming order is that normally HKN gives you three methods to control that, but only two work with WoW because of WoW's security features. (I could probably get around them but I don't want to do anything that could put users at risk.)

One way to handle it is to keep the hotkey we just defined. What it's doing is renaming the windows in Z-order from front to back. (The foreground window is in front). So what you have to do is arrange the windows from front to back before you hit the key.

The other way is to make five new hotkeys, one for each window. Click each window individually so it's in the foreground, then hit the appropriate hotkey.


Ok, so first off, thanks again for the help, its very much appreciated. This is what I did so far and it fixed me right up as far as the naming order

//Set hotkey to rename WOW windows with a delay
<hotkey Ctrl Shift Alt r>
<sendpc local>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow5>
<wait 500>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow4>
<wait 500>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow3>
<wait 500>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow2>
<wait 500>
<rename "World of Warcraft" Wow1>
<wait 500>


This allows me to keep it striaght on my screen and in my head :) .

I tried playing around with Setwinsize like this
<hotkey Ctrl Shift Alt m>
<SendPC local>
<setwinsize Wow1 1680 1050

But that did not work. Would kinda be nice to set up a macro to maximize say, 5 clients with some delays in place similar to that of the renaming process. Again thanks a ton , this is so helpfull to me and so much faster then what I was doing. I was just clicking on t a window then hitting a hotkey to change leader and set focus to my new leader. This way which is so awesome, I can have say F1 set to change all my guys focus to a new leader, and setforeground to my new leaders screen. Thanks again for the help.

[Freddie]

Welcome. :)

Why did you need wait's in the rename command? I wouldn't think they are necessary.

> I tried playing around with Setwinsize like this ... but that did not work.

Yeah, you needed Maximize. It's in the new build that you can download now.

Don't forget you can send WoW commands to the background windows without bringing them to the foreground. People tell me SendWinM works okay for that with WoW. If not, SendWinMF works, although you may have to adjust the Background Focus Delays.

[LancerX]

Welcome. :)

Why did you need wait's in the rename command? I wouldn't think they are necessary.

> I tried playing around with Setwinsize like this ... but that did not work.

Yeah, you needed Maximize. It's in the new build that you can download now.

Don't forget you can send WoW commands to the background windows without bringing them to the foreground. People tell me SendWinM works okay for that with WoW. If not, SendWinMF works, although you may have to adjust the Background Focus Delays.

Ok cool. I used the wait command because if you dont wait it was mixing up the renaming, ie. not renaming the windows in the correct order like 4,3,5,1,2 or something wierd like that, it was not consistent but after I put in the wait it was perfect 1,2,3,4,5. That make sense? Thanks for help

[Freddie]

Yeah makes sense, I just didn't expect Windows to behave that way with renaming. Live and learn. :)

You have great instincts, trying the wait's to see if they would help. I'm constantly writing to people who have problems, "Try putting in a few waits ..." Waits are to HKN problems as chicken soup is to sore throats. Something like that. :)