Post Sun Mar 11, 2012 10:40 am

HOWTO: Reduce WoW graphics settings for "slaves" on the fly

Someone's asking me how to set it up so that when they switch windows, they get reduced graphics settings for background windows, and high settings for the active window. Here's how!

Install the macros
First, you will need a couple of WoW Macros from the thread "Some of my WoW Macro Sets", specifically the ones marked "Graphics HIGH" and "Graphics LOW". Follow the step by step instructions at the top of that thread to paste these two WoW Macros into the "Quick Setup 38" WoW Macro Set.

Assign Key Combos to the macros
After you have those two macros installed, you should give them Key Combinations. WoW Macros have two ways of being activated, one being with the "/click" command built into the game (which clicks on a GUI button for you when you enter this command, making it possible to activate one macro from another macro), and the other being with a Key Combination unique to that macro. By default, the two macros you just installed do not have a Key Combination assigned, so they could ONLY be activated from /click (i.e. through a different macro). Pick two unused Key Combinations and assign them to these macros, like Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Alt+X or something -- you will not need to manually hit these buttons in the game, ISBoxer's going to do it for you, so make it obscure.
To assign these Key Combinations:
1. In the top pane in ISBoxer, under Game Helpers, select World of Warcraft
2. In the bottom left pane, under WoW Macro Sets, locate where you pasted the Graphics HIGH and Graphics LOW macros (e.g. Quick Setup 38) and select one of them
3. In the bottom right pane, in the General tab (selected by default), underneath the Commands box, is a Key Combination box. Click the < to set the Key Combination, press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Z or Ctrl+Shift+Alt+X or some other unused combination of keys
4. You do not need to change any other options in the WoW Macros. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the other WoW Macro.

Add a Mapped Key to activate the new macros
I could paste a Mapped Key right here for you, but I'm going to tell you how to make it instead:
1. In the top pane in ISBoxer, under Key Maps, select Control
2. In the bottom left pane, right click Mapped Keys and select "New Mapped Key". Yeah just one, not the Many option.
3. Name our new Mapped Key "Graphics Toggle" or something to that effect. Short and sweet, to the point.
4. In the bottom right pane, do not touch anything. You CAN give this a Hotkey if you want to manually activate it at some point, but leave everything else default.
5. In the bottom left pane, EXPAND our new Graphics Toggle key so that under it you see Steps, 1
6. Click on the 1 under Steps, so that now in the bottom right pane you should see Step, Actions.
7. Right click Actions and, under Keystroke Actions, select New Named WoW Macro Action (it is under Keystroke Actions because it needs to send your Key Combination we already configured, in order to activate the macro)
8. First we'll make the one that sends Graphics HIGH to the current window. In the "Target" drop-down box, select "Window:Current"
9. Under "WoW Macro" there is a < like the Hotkey boxes, click the < to select a WoW Macro; pick Graphics HIGH under Quick Setup 38.
10. Now let's make the one that sends Graphics LOW to the OTHER windows. Right click Actions and, under Keystroke Actions, select Named WoW Macro Action
11. In the "Target" drop-down box, select "Window:All w/o current" (w/o means without, meaning all the windows except the current one, aka "all other" windows)
12. Click the < for the WoW Macro and this time pick Graphics LOW under Quick Setup 38.

Activate this Mapped Key when switching windows
Each Slot in your Character Set has an option "When I switch to this character... Do this Mapped Key". By default from the Quick Setup Wizard, this will include doing "JambaMaster" under the "Control" Key Map. (Even if you don't have Jamba installed, let alone know what it is, this is the default and it's okay to not have it or know what it is.) That means the easiest way to add this, is going to be to piggyback it on JambaMaster!

Here's how to piggyback this on JambaMaster:
1. In the top pane in ISBoxer, under Key Maps, select Control
2. In the bottom left pane, under Mapped Keys, expand JambaMaster so that under it you see Steps, 1
3. Click on the 1 under Steps, so that now in the bottom right pane you should see Step, Actions, and it has an Action in it to do the JambaMaster WoW Macro. Leave that Action alone ;)
4. Right click Actions and, under Key Map Actions, select New Do Mapped Key Action. (we're going to 'do' the mapped key we previously set up, which is going to set the graphics to high in the current window, and low in all other windows)
5. In the "Target" box select "Window:Current"
6. In the "Key Map" box select "Control"
7. In the "Mapped Key" box select "Graphics Toggle"

We're almost done. Just one last thing.
Export to Inner Space.

If you do this Export while playing, and you have modified WoW Macros through ISBoxer (e.g. by adding the one in this HOWTO), you will need to reload the ISBoxer Addon in order to activate the changed macros. To do so, "/console reloadui" in each game window, or log out to Character Selection screen and back into the game.