Launch ignores computer assignment

If I launch a character set or slot in a character set that is marked to live on another computer, ISBoxer launches it on the current computer. Can it be fixed to relay the launch request to the appropriate home?

[lax]

Er.. you're supposed to launch the remote sets by launching the set that goes on your current PC. The appropriate home is not guaranteed to be connected in the first place without launching the main Character Set.

When you use the standard launching process -- from the IS menu, without even needing ISBoxer Toolkit open at all -- the ones that live on other PCs are not even listed; technically the problem here is that ISBoxer Toolkit lets you launch those at all.

Not to anger you, but my preferred option would actually be to fix that problem by removing the Launch option in ISBoxer Toolkit for remote sets, and to remove the desktop shortcut option for them as well, so that the same thing is expected from any of the launch methods. I mean, launching on the current PC is exactly what one would expect from a shortcut on the desktop, right? It shouldn't "randomly" have different behavior in different situations.

Anyway, I think I can just mark the remote ones in the right click menu so that it specifically says it will launch on the given PC, and also remove the desktop shortcut. However, it won't work at all if the connection to the other PC wasn't already made. I do recommend using the IS menu rather than ISBoxer Toolkit to do your launching in any case..

Er.. you're supposed to launch the remote sets by launching the set that goes on your current PC. The appropriate home is not guaranteed to be connected in the first place without launching the main Character Set.

When you use the standard launching process -- from the IS menu, without even needing ISBoxer Toolkit open at all -- the ones that live on other PCs are not even listed; technically the problem here is that ISBoxer Toolkit lets you launch those at all.

Not to anger you, but my preferred option would actually be to fix that problem by removing the Launch option in ISBoxer Toolkit for remote sets, and to remove the desktop shortcut option for them as well, so that the same thing is expected from any of the launch methods. I mean, launching on the current PC is exactly what one would expect from a shortcut on the desktop, right? It shouldn't "randomly" have different behavior in different situations.

Anyway, I think I can just mark the remote ones in the right click menu so that it specifically says it will launch on the given PC, and also remove the desktop shortcut. However, it won't work at all if the connection to the other PC wasn't already made. I do recommend using the IS menu rather than ISBoxer Toolkit to do your launching in any case..

I'm not angered, but I was a little frustrated by the discrepancy between the ISBoxer vision of character sets and my own vision of what I want to do at the moment.

I think I've found a satisfactory workaround for my purposes, using some trivial .bat files to call Innerspace with commands to launch my characters. Eventually, if I ever get the energy to learn how to code Innerspace scripts, I may make a more sophisticated version.

I love what ISBoxer+Innerspace does for me. Window layouts that let me see everyone, all that coordinated keystroke passing... it is a boxers dream come true.

But as I tried to explain in my earlier posts, I want a more flexible approach to forming ad-hoc character sets on the fly. The ISBoxer character set paradigm is fine if you have relatively stable purpose-built teams that you want to play with the same makeup for a while. However, my current focus is mostly on running multiple groups at various levels through many quick tasks in different zones, and I find myself frequently swapping out characters for alts. Sometimes just to bring in a porter or a buffer for a minute, other times to keep the alt in for a few minutes to do a task. The situation is complicated by the use of different configurations of pairs of computers with different capabilities. I tried making character sets for each of the configurations I needed, but wound up with dozens and a real headache trying to keep it all straight.

I usually play with two machines (not always the same two), and I want to be able to launch whatever characters I need at the moment, whenever I decide I need them, on whichever machine I want them to run. And when I need to swap in an ALT for one of those characters, I want to camp that character to character select and load the alt character. I can make that swap in under 30 seconds if I'm in POK, or under a minute if not in a place where "fast camp" is enabled. I don't have to do anything with the characters that are staying the same.

My solution is to associate session slots with accounts. I define a character set with the main characters on each account, another set with the first alt for each account, then another with the second alt, and so on, until I have covered all the characters that I might play. For accounts that don't have the maximum number of alts, I just put any character in as a place holder, so each of these character sets has the same number of slots as there are accounts, all in the same order.

So all the characters from account 1 load in slot 1, all from account 2 load in slot 2, and so on.

I made a layout for the desktop machine and the better laptop, with 1920x1080 screens, that has a big main region and tiny regions around the edges to provide homes for all the slots. For the weaker laptop with a smaller screen I have the same character sets but no window layout... just let them stack up if I run more than one character there.

To launch I could enter the commands at the innerspace uplink console, but to reduce typing I made some trivial batch files:

RLINK.BAT: (establish link to the computer I want as secondary. %1=computername)
set rlink=%1
c:\innerspace\innerspace.exe remoteuplink -connect %rlink%

LC.BAT: (launch a character on the main computer %1=charset, %2=charnum)
c:\innerspace\innerspace.exe run isboxer -launchslot %1 %2

LRC.BAT: (launch a character on the remote computer %1=charset, %2=charnum)
c:\innerspace\innerspace.exe relay %rlink% run isboxer -launchslot %1 %2

It is the equivalent of that last function that I was hoping to get you to supply in the right-click menu of ISBoxer, but it you don't want to that's ok too.

This will do for now. Eventually I want to make a UI version that reads the ISBoxer character sets and lets you click character names to launch them.

[bob]

You can do this already. The window layouts are the biggest drawback as you only have one tied to a character set, but if you create appropriate character sets for each desired window layout, then you'll be away. You will need to have the combinations needed for each machine group though, which from your description of you setup means you may have a few.

Anway the alternative approach:
If you want to be able to exit to the character select screen, and then select a different character, you can. The problem stems around the resulting keymap actions that are sent to that character, may be different to the previous character. To get around this, you setup Action Target Groups (ATG), and ensure all your keymaps are targetting the ATG's as appropriate. Then you setup some more keymaps which will add/remove the current character to various ATG's. Generally you will need 1 keymap to remove the current character from all ATG's, and another keymap per combat style ATG to add the character to all appropriate ATG's (you may even be able to get fancy here and just do this all in one).

Then you switch character, press the appropriate swap ATG commands, and away you go. No need to log out completely and relaunch. All you do initially is launch the appropriate character set which will setup your desired window layout.

If you want to change window layouts:
To switch to a layout with less windows, close the highest numbered one, e.g. if 6 boxer windows, close the game in IS6, and launch another character set using 5 boxer windows, while the other games are still running. If you need a different layout with an additional window, then launch that character set and it will startup another game instance.

You can do this already. The window layouts are the biggest drawback as you only have one tied to a character set, but if you create appropriate character sets for each desired window layout, then you'll be away. You will need to have the combinations needed for each machine group though, which from your description of you setup means you may have a few.

Hmm. Not sure I follow what you are suggesting. What I wound up using was a superset window layout and superset character sets, with a separate slot and region available for each account. This layout is assigned to all of my MAINS, ALTS1, ALTS2, etc character sets. Since there can be at most one character loaded from each account at a given time, that means I can load any combination that the game will permit and every loaded character will always go to the same slot and region: the one reserved for that account. There can never be a conflict.

Anway the alternative approach:
If you want to be able to exit to the character select screen, and then select a different character, you can. The problem stems around the resulting keymap actions that are sent to that character, may be different to the previous character. To get around this, you setup Action Target Groups (ATG), and ensure all your keymaps are targetting the ATG's as appropriate. Then you setup some more keymaps which will add/remove the current character to various ATG's. Generally you will need 1 keymap to remove the current character from all ATG's, and another keymap per combat style ATG to add the character to all appropriate ATG's (you may even be able to get fancy here and just do this all in one).

Then you switch character, press the appropriate swap ATG commands, and away you go. No need to log out completely and relaunch. All you do initially is launch the appropriate character set which will setup your desired window layout.

I'm still confused. If I camp to character select and just load another character without a launch, then innerspace will not know that I switched, and among other things will be using the wrong virtual files. You may be able to fix the ATG connections, but as soon as you load a different alt you have messed up at least the LastCharSel for the first character you launched.

My way, I camp to character select, launch the new character (as an individual slot launch from one of the master character sets), then switch to it in game. This way Innerspace always knows which character is in which slot and anything associated with that character (such as virtual files or ATGs) should be processed properly. Since InnerSpace sees that the slot is already active, it just updates it to reflect the new character and does not attempt to load the game again: everything happens quickly.

If you want to change window layouts:
To switch to a layout with less windows, close the highest numbered one, e.g. if 6 boxer windows, close the game in IS6, and launch another character set using 5 boxer windows, while the other games are still running. If you need a different layout with an additional window, then launch that character set and it will startup another game instance.

Again I am completely confused about what you are saying here. If I leave some slots running and launch a different character set, InnerSpace will re-assign the currently running slots to whatever characters are named in the new character set, without doing anything to ensure that those are actually the correct characters.

The way I am doing it, I never need to change window layouts. The one layout has a big main region, and enough smaller regions around the edges to hold the maximum number of characters. Once I initially get all the accounts I intend to use loaded, I can pick whichever alts I want to play from any of those accounts by using character select and individual slot launch, which is much faster than camping to desktop and reloading.

I can have the equivalent of IsBoxer character set launches with batch files that launch the particular characters I want to work with. So it is still a single manual action to get things started.

I just have to be careful to get any new slot launches done before I actually change the characters in game.