Determining Party #'s [target=party2]

[Vociferate]

Searched here, wow forums, and google. Wasn't sure what key terms I needed (party1 and such gave me hundreds of macros)

How do you determine:

party1
party2
party3

Keys 1-5 are associated with the party number.

Is there a way to determine Key 1 will always be [target=party1]

Screenshot attached to see if this is correct:
http://i34.tinypic.com/vgq3he.jpg

Tweadledee (my druid) is included the party for dualboxing & targeting purposes.

[Vociferate]

Ok, now it makes sense.

The unit frames decypher which party(#) they are.

Now, the question...

Is there a way to make sure that my two toons will always be in a specific spot?

I have Pitbull setup to organize them by name. But if someone has a name that begins with A, then it alters how my healing macros go.

What can I do?

(Aside from doing full on F Keys + following with a heal.)

[Ualaa]

For heals, I'd go a completely different route.
But go with whatever makes the most sense to you.
No one else knows what is easiest for you, or what you need for your set up.

I personally used to go with a few keys for the healer which are assist based.
IE, a priest has:
/assist Tank/MasterToon
/castsequence [target=targettarget,help] [target=targettargettarget, help] reset=8 Penance, Flash Heal, Flash Heal, Flash Heal.

/assist Tank/MasterToon
/cast [target=targettarget,help] [target=targettargettarget, help] Renew

/assist Tank/MasterToon
/cast [target=targettarget,help] [target=targettargettarget, help] Power Word: Shield

If you were using a Resto shaman for healer, you'd likely go with Earth Shield, Riptide, Chain Heal and Lesser Healing Wave (pvp) or Healing Wave (pve).

These work, because whatever the master toon is killing, your priest is targeting.
And then the heal goes to whoever that creature is targeting, which is generally your tank or someone else tanking (even if its a DPS who overnuked).

In addition to assist heals, I used to go with toon specific heals.
This works just like the /cast [target=party1] Flash Heal.
Except they read /cast [target=Toon1Name] Flash Heal.

If you have the Jamba addon (very much recommended)...
You have options for a toon to announce when they're hit.
They also have options to announce when they drop below a configured hit point percentage.
Instead of generic buttons here, you want specific instructions.
The default is something like "Help I'm hit". And "Help, I'm below xx percentage".
These come up as raid warnings.
My priest has five wow macro's. Each is on it's own keybind.
The macro is something like:
#show Renew
/cast [nomod:alt, target=ToonA] Renew; [mod:alt, target=ToonA] Flash Heal
Within Jamba I've changed the "Help, I'm hit" to read, "ToonA is hit, press F8".
I've also set the health percentage to 66%, with the message, "ToonA needs a heal, press Alt F8".
Pick the keybinds you find easy to press quickly.
*Edit* - You do not want to use "Push to Characters" here, you want each toon to broadcast their own specific keybind. */Edit*

I still use the assist based heals, because they're fast and easy and don't require thinking much.
I'm moving towards Mouse Repeater regions, via InnerSpace (and ISBoxer Toolkit).
Basically use something like Vuhdo or GridCustomLayouts, to display the party in a fixed order (alphabetical) on every screen.
Then with Clique (for Grid) or Vuhdo does it in one addon, configure a Left Click to be Renew and a Right Click to be Flash Heal. (Can also use modifiers, like Alt + Left Click = Greater Heal).
Then use a "Mouse Repeater Region", so when I click on the Vuhdo/Grid window, it sends the click to the priests window in the same position.
The priest is of course set up to heal the unit frame it is clicking on.

[BobGnarly]

I believe there are unit frame mods out there that will let you specify what you are asking, but why would you want to. At first I thought you were trying to do something I did myself, which was setup healing macros based on unit frame instead of char name. That way, whatever toon is in the second slot, you always use the same button to heal them. Is this not what you are doing?

[Jafula]

If you are really feeling brave, have a look at Jamba-Macro. You can set up macros that have variables in them, write once, use many times.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=24694

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Ok, now it makes sense.

The unit frames decypher which party(#) they are.

Now, the question...

Is there a way to make sure that my two toons will always be in a specific spot?

I have Pitbull setup to organize them by name. But if someone has a name that begins with A, then it alters how my healing macros go.

What can I do?

(Aside from doing full on F Keys + following with a heal.)

Sounds like you're hitting the same problem I found, which is that "partyX" doesn't always mean the same toon will be targeted. Group order for the default unit frames is in order by who joins first, with the first person at the top and on down. The other problem is that party1 is always the party leader but you don't know where in the list party 1 is, so it's hard to determine who needs heals based on what you see on your leader's screen.

Something like this:

Key:
LP = leader/player
L1 = leader's party1
L2 = leader's party2
etc.

Leader:
target=player <-- top unit frame (LP)
target=party1 <-- party frame (L1)
target=party2 <-- party frame (L2)
target=party3 <-- party frame (L3)
target=party4 <-- party frame (L4)

1st alt:
target=player (L1)
target=party1 (LP)
target=party2 (L2)
target=party3 (L3)
target=party4 (L4)

2nd alt:
target=player (L2)
target=party1 (LP)
target=party2 (L1)
target=party3 (L3)
target=party4 (L4)

3rd alt:
target=player (L3)
target=party1 (LP)
target=party2 (L1)
target=party3 (L2)
target=party4 (L4)

4th alt:
target=player (L4)
target=party1 (LP)
target=party2 (L1)
target=party3 (L2)
target=party4 (L3)

Which means you have to change each alt's ordering of your heal spells independently if you use "/cast [target=partyX] healspell" style targeting. Fall-through conditionals are OK but I'm not a clicker, so hitting CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+BACKSPACE+LEFT+LEFT+RIGHT+UP+DOWN+S QUARE+TRIANGLE in the middle of a fight just isn't feasible. And targeting by name works assuming you don't change leaders, so it works great for PVE. I've yet to find anything satisfactory for situations where leaders need to change frequently, except just setting everyone up for AoE heals and not even bothering with single-target heals.

I believe there are unit frame mods out there that will let you specify what you are asking, but why would you want to. At first I thought you were trying to do something I did myself, which was setup healing macros based on unit frame instead of char name. That way, whatever toon is in the second slot, you always use the same button to heal them. Is this not what you are doing?

Yeah, but the problem is that "party2" isn't the same toon, depending on who's leader and in what order you join the party. /shrug

[Ualaa]

It used to sort the party frames based on the order in which the characters (or was it accounts) were made.

Now it sorts based on the order in which you invite the toons to the group.

I used to use a party leader based assist.
I believe Party1 is the leader of the party for everyone except the party leader (same as pressing F2).
Unfortunately, F2 (or /cast [target=party1]) gets a different result for the party leader then for everyone else.

The solution in the party leader system is to page action bars.
The party leader switches to actionbar2 when they become the leader.
And everyone else switches to actionbar1, when they become a slave toon.
And then everything on actionbar1 is "/cast [target=party1target] Spell".
While everything on actionbar2 is "/cast Spell".
Actionbar2 doesn't use assist because that toon is the leader.

The F3, F4 and F5 commands, or party2, party3 and party4 will work as expected based on the order you invite the toons to the party.
Unfortunately F1 (target=player) and F2 (target=party1) will vary for each toon.
Party1 will be the group leader for everyone who is not the leader, but will be the first toon in the party for the leader.
For this reason, premade macro's using party1 through party4 aren't an ideal targeting system for heals.

Honestly, assist based heals are by far the easiest.
Heals by toon name, accomplish everything heals by party position does, when you're the whole group.
It will fail, when your buddy is running with you.

Even still you can have your slave cast at the lead toon's target if its friendly, or assist off of the lead toon's target if that target is hostile. But then you need to switch targets to force a heal.

/assist TankName (or Party1 for leader, or Focus for focus)
/cast [help] Renew; [help, target=targettarget] Renew; [help, target=targettargettarget] Renew

I believe a mouse broadcast option to be the best, but think an assist based heal system is very easy and quite powerful too.

[zanthor]

In a key rich environment and a fixed group I found macro based heals incredibly useful. My macro's were all:

/target Name
/cast Heal

This allowed me to have 5 macro's for 5 heals, I used my X-Keys pro to manage this and it was pretty easy to heal no matter who the leader was. Once I stepped into raiding, 10 man pvp raids or mixed groups (drop a guildmate in to help out, etc) this became unusable.

Thus I switched to Innerspace and used Mousebroadcasting.

[Vociferate]

Ok, quite a bit to digest.

A couple of you hit the nail on the head "partyx" factor.

Right now, I am playing with a laptop, so I can only reliably dual-box. (Maybe Tri-box, we'll see!).
So, I have my priest and my druid, which their roles are straight forward.

Macros+Binds:
A: "party1" Heal that muppet
S: "party2" Now that muppet
D: "party3" And maybe this muppet, too
Z: "focus" Healy Bear!
X: "player" HALP! I am low.

The players names are Tweadledee and Tweadledah, so generally they have been in party4 and party5 position. But if someone comes in named Xzhibit, then my toons get moved up!

Not a biggy for them, since the targets are getting them directly. But now, Bind D is messed! And Xzhibit is out too fend for himself.


I am using Pitbull to add myself to the group, and then organize by names. But still having issues with it.


----
Ualaa

I have been looking at the mouse broadcasting, but I can't seem to get my head around it. Not yet at least, I'll have a gander again this afternoon.

But can you possibly point me in a direction for it?

[Ualaa]

I've recently switched from Keyclone to Inner Space.
I know people mouse broadcast successfully with HKN as well.

Keyclone is a great program as far as key broadcasting goes.
It has great support and decent functionality.

Inner space has the same level of support.
But it also has automatic FTL (via a wizard), strong mouse broadcasting and near enough to instant PiP swaps.

I've not played with HKN at all, so cannot really comment on it, although various boxers swear by it too.
HKN uses scripts, which I'm not totally sure how to play with, but you can research them too.
I believe HKN is a free program.

Inner Space is $36/year for up to five computers. There is a reduced rate for a shorter period. And you can get a free trial too.

Zanthor has a sticky post, "From Zero to Hero in 30 Minutes" or something with a very similar name.
He describes the mouse broadcasting in a lot of detail towards the end of his guide.
The IS Wizard now sets up more then 90% of what his post covers, but its still a good read as it explains how you would manually do what the wizard does for you. Which greatly helps when you want to make your own system.

Most of the set up takes place with a program called ISBoxer Toolkit.
Once you're done there, you export the changes to Inner Space.

There's an option in the toolkit for a hotkey for the in game GUI.
Press the hotkey to open the GUI.

There's a drop down box where you pick which clients will duplicate the clicks from the current wow window.
I believe my options are 1, 2, 3, 4 or All Others (I five box).
Once you choose an option, click the arrow thing which makes a box appear on the screen.
Drag the box where you want it and pick a name for it.
Then save it.

This is a "mouse repeater region", which means any mouse movement or click (including modifier keys such as Alt, Shift, Control) that takes place in this region is passed to the preselected other clients in the same position.

So with an addon like Open RDX or Vuhdo or Grid (with GridCustomLayouts), which can list your party or raid in alphabetical order, instead of your name and then others names, will let you broadcast to the desired target.

I'm personally using Grid + GridCustomLayouts. I have a window which lists my five toon's names in alphabetical order. I've set it to display this list when I'm in a party or a raid. If i want, I can type /Grid Config and then click Layouts and pick the default option for raids, to be able to visually see everyone in a raid. At the moment, my group only cares that my priest can heal my own members.

So on all screens I have the same Grid layout, which lists my five team members alphabetically. I have this repeater region created on four of my five toons (not on the priest, as I'd just heal from that account and not need to pass a click to anyone else). No matter which account I'm on, it only passes the click to the priests account, since I've configured it that way. I have also checked KVM mode, which means the click does not apply to the window in which I'm clicking in.

Then the Clique addon is pretty simple. There is an extra tab on my spell book, which opens a window beside the spell book. When this extra window is open, and click or combination of clicks done to a spell is recorded. I've recently experimented with my mouse side buttons (thumb forward and thumb backward). So far I have Renew, Penance, Flash Heal and PW: Shield on binds.

From any window other then the priests, I can click on my mouse repeater region and have the same click broadcast to the priest. So an Alt Left Click will renew, while a thumb forward button will cast Penance. I like to not have anything on a no-mod left click, so the priest will still be able to select a toon to say open a trade window, without casting on that toon instead of targeting them.

The strength of the mouse repeater region is that clicks are automatically broadcast when within the window, but I don't need to turn mouse broadcasting on. With InnerSpace, you can enable mouse broadcasting, so any click anywhere (or for that matter, mouse movement) is broadcast to all clients. I used this for clicking pumpkins on all toons at once, earlier today. However, most of the time I won't want total mouse broadcasting (repeater mode) to be on, as that would make simultaneous right/left button presses for movement awkward.

Just moving to the repeater region and it turns broadcasting on automatically. Move the mouse out of the region and its off. Incredibly fun and powerful.

I highly recommend InnerSpace.