Microsoft Sidewinder Keyboard

Hi

In process of switching from Hotkey to ISBoxer. Having an issue & have searched around for solution with no luck. Hopefully someone has already nutted this out & has a solution

Using Microsoft Sidewinder X6 keyboard for WoW. Setup ISboxer OK thru Quick Setup Wizard. Follow on Window Switch works fine, but I would rather have that disabled & manually hit follow with a 1 button keybind. So first thing I do is bind a key to Alt-F as this sequence is already in the quick setup & working otherwise. But this macro will not work ingame from the keyboard macro buttons.

I have enabled the MS intelliype software to run as administrator and when I press the macro button (Alt-F) it will only pass the "F" in game (no Alt) and only to the active window. (So it just performs assist, as that is the default keybind for F in wow)

I bound the same (Alt-F) to a button on my mouse & this works fine, Also manually pressing Alt-F works fine, but for whatever reason ISboxer will not accept the macros from my keyboard. This is the first of quite a few keybinds that i use, so I do not have enough space on my mouse buttons to keep it there.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[lax]

Unfortunately I don't think I can test that. I don't know why the macro system built into your keyboard isn't functioning properly (by not holding alt or such).

I THINK that the sidewinder buttons should be supported natively by IS and ISBoxer, though -- MS products typically should be supported without any extra work on my part (oddly enough, something that can't be said of most other input device manufacturers!). I don't know if they have special names or what but you might be able to find them in the drop-down box in a hotkey picker window. To find out the names of each button on your keyboard, and whether it is natively supported:

1. Download buttontest.iss (attached) and place in the SCRIPTS folder of your Inner Space installation -- typically C:\Program Files\InnerSpace\Scripts
2. Right click the IS icon in the system tray and select Console
3. In the Uplink window that comes up (this is the main IS window) there is a Console window, it might be hiding behind a patcher window, but click on the Console window
4. Enter the following command:

Code:

run buttontest

the buttontest script should begin to run. If not, it will say runscript failed.
5. Click OFF of the Console window, e.g. in the black area of the uplink window, but do not close or hide the console window
6. Press buttons and observe the spam in the Console window for the names of the buttons you press. If you push a button and it does NOT spam, this means it is not natively supported by IS/ISBoxer.

If it works then you can just bind directly through ISBoxer instead of having the sidewinder press something for you. Let me know if this helps

Thanks Lax,

I ran the button test & I think I see the problem now.

For some reason in the Macro Editor for the keyboard, it does not allow Alt to be programmed by direct presses, rather you have to pick "Left Alt" or "Right Alt" from a dropdown (Unlike other modifers I can just press the sequence & it detects it)

There is no option to hold alt, then F, then release. The button test showed the presses as:

Alt = True
Alt = False
F = True
F = False

So basically treating as seperate presses rather than as a macro.

The other modifiers seem to work normally, god knows why alt is different to them. I will change around all the macros to keys other than alt & see how I go, but that looks the goods.

Thanks for your time, you da man!

**Just a follow up, found a few ways since that "Alt" can be added to macros successfully on this Keyboard. Just not in the standard macro creator. This is a good keyboard, just not totally noob proof

[lax]

Huh, that is weird. Glad to have helped figure that one out

I have the sidewinder keyboard and killing the itype.exe process and running buttontest produces no key notification from the macro keys ( macros set and itype on the programmed macro appears in console ) Would be nice if there were a nice tie in with ISBoxer as with the g13, but ( my conjecture ensues ) it appears to have lower level access requiring itype to interface with it.

I attempted to get around this by changing keyboard layouts to produce non-english character sets in the macro editor thereby setting each macro key as an individually set key easily mapped in ISboxer, but wasn't able to get the editor to accept that input. ( i.e. accented "e" was just "e" )

I'll see if I can find anything about setting these keys to ascii codes beyond standard us keyboard sets.

[lax]

Would be nice if there were a nice tie in with ISBoxer as with the g13, but ( my conjecture ensues ) it appears to have lower level access requiring itype to interface with it.

I have a program that can collect the data required to support this and other devices.

http://www.lavishsoft.com/downloads/Lavish.ButtonTester.exe

To use it:
1. Make sure the device is plugged in and operational
2. Run Lavish.ButtonTester.exe. It will open a DOS window to show its output.
3. When it says "Waiting for input..." it is ready for you to start hitting buttons on the device
4. Press each button in an order that makes some sort of sense -- the program is going to tell you some numbers, in the order your buttons are pressed. If you hit a button and do not see anything happen, the device may be emulating a keyboard at the hardware level, which means it either needs to be reconfigured, or it will not work. Otherwise, you should see output like this:
[code]050D-0815 v210 (Unnamed Device): Button 1 at bit 72[/code[
5. Get me the complete list
6. Wait for me to add support for the device

That's about it. As far as device configuration and not producing output, here's an example. The output example I gave is with a Nostromo Speedpad n52 (not n52te). The n52 by default emulates the keyboard, and to show up as buttons on the device instead of keyboard buttons, each button had to be configured as a "DI Button" (Direct Input Button). With a Logitech G15 keyboard, each button must be "Unassigned" (via the Logitech Keyboard Profiler), so I would expect the same from a G13 or G19.

I'll see if I can find anything about setting these keys to ascii codes beyond standard us keyboard sets.

That wouldn't help.

I'm not sure excactly what you are trying to do, but itype.exe proccess needs to be running for macros to work. I'm not sure why you are stopping it. You might be trying to do something funky over my head?

If it helps also itype needs to run as administrator to pass macros to game via ISboxer.

I followed the instructions from this link to run it from startup (there may be an easier way, but hey it works) http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/asp ... blems.aspx

I can get all macro buttons to register in the button tester that Lax linked.

[lax]

I'm not sure excactly what you are trying to do, but itype.exe proccess needs to be running for macros to work. I'm not sure why you are stopping it.

If I get native support working correctly, it wont matter if itype.exe is running or not. This would allow configuration directly through ISBoxer instead of having to run that software.

I can get all macro buttons to register in the button tester that Lax linked.

What do they register as?

Hey Lax

This is the output i get.

The Macro button numbers on the keyboard are (S1 - S30) I did this in order with no macros programmed, this is what you need?

045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 1 at bit 8
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 2 at bit 9
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 3 at bit 10
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 4 at bit 11
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 5 at bit 12
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 6 at bit 13
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 7 at bit 14
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 8 at bit 15
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 9 at bit 16
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 10 at bit17
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 11 at bit18
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 12 at bit19
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 13 at bit20
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 14 at bit21
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 15 at bit22
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 16 at bit23
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 17 at bit24
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 18 at bit25
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 19 at bit26
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 20 at bit27
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 21 at bit28
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 22 at bit29
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 23 at bit30
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 24 at bit31
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 25 at bit32
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 26 at bit33
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 27 at bit34
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 28 at bit35
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 29 at bit36
045E-074B v260 (12,1,8)(Microsoft« SiderWinderTM X6 Keyboard): Button 30 at bit37

[lax]

That is exactly what I need, thank you