Some questions getting started

Ok I admit (as much as I hate to) that I am having a hard time with this. This is such a great piece of software (Lax), and I got hooked from the first video of it (MiRi). My mind just got carried away with thinking of all the stuff you could make a group of characters do with it. But the implementation of it has not matched what I was thinking. I have poured over the videos and read every guide I could find. And I have to hand it to you Firerescue17, you have really got this down pat with your profile. But man, I can't seem to figure out how to get it to work the way you describe. In all the posts and vids I keep seeing, "If you can't figure it out then ask questions". So that is exactly what I am going to do. I am not a programmer but a long time PC user, but trying to get a handle on the nuts and bolts of this setup is beyond me I guess. So I figure I can start from the beginning and work our way through it. For posterity's sake.

1. Logging in -Is ISB supposed to login all the chars in the char set you told it to launch? I understand about the password thing but is it supposed to pick the right char at the char select screen? (I have used the ISB wizard to create the chars in Everquest and supplied the account info and server name to each char). Also the Repeater function doesn't seem to work at login screen when I go to enter password on both accounts, is this correct? The repeater symbol is up on the login screen but is greyed out and doesn't work when I click on it. Something I did wrong?

2. Inviting the group - I have been through the post you have written up about this section of the profile and was just amazed with all the stuff you could do with it. And I said to myself, "thats what I want mine to do". Setting chars to auto accept invitations, assigning roles to each char or merc, including mercs in your group/slots, and then telling yourself it is completed, way cool. So I started fiddleing with it and diving into your profile, wow, that is when I found out just how sophisticated it really was.

Ok lets clear up some concepts I have that may be right or wrong at this point. From what I have read and seen you can issue commands to the game withOUT setting up social keys being made in game? Through virtulized key maps, right? I see it and it's wonderful but I just can't wrap my head around how to accomplish this. EQ is not like WOW, where you can go into the keybindings and set up things like that. So how do you setup EQ to recognize that when I hit Alt F on my keyboard and have EQ recognize the Follow command without having a social to tell it what to do? Same goes for Alt I, you said that EQ would use Alt I automatically whether is was sending or recieving it. How exactly do you do that?

The whole "inserting virtual key maps" thing really has me confused. I think this is the biggest problem I have right now. Like where do you put the virtual key maps (that I haven't created yet) at? I realized that they probably go in the Char key map section, just not too sure. I see where I have to build the "Do Invite" routine, like in your example, made for my char sets but I am having trouble doing that too, I look at the screen shots and I can't seem to figure out what I have to put in there to make it do what you say it should do. Most of the screen shots don't show a command or anything.

As you can probably tell by now, I am just a newb at this. I hope that doesn't put you off too much. I get the concept pretty well, I think with just a few pointers in the right direction I can get this. Thanks in advance for any and all help with this. I appreciate it.

[firescue17]

EQ is not like WOW, where you can go into the keybindings and set up things like that. So how do you setup EQ to recognize that when I hit Alt F on my keyboard and have EQ recognize the Follow command without having a social to tell it what to do? Same goes for Alt I, you said that EQ would use Alt I automatically whether is was sending or recieving it. How exactly do you do that?

It's exactly like that. Put a social on a Hotbar. Map a Keybind to it in the game options. ISBoxer doesn't do anything "automatically."

[bob]

1. No. You choose and login the chars yourself. ISBoxer has NO ability to determine where in the char select page that the correct button for a given character should be. It is up to you padawan, to get it right.

And we stopped with the numbers??

For Follow/Assist/Invite you can issue slash commands, but it is not necessarily the ONLY way. It is cool, but it does take some time to setup.
Firescue17 does this key sending a bunch of keystroke commands (one character at time) /TAR CHARNAME, /ASS CHARNAME, /INV CHARNAME. This works well if you have characters with names of 9 characters or less, because of a limit of how many keystrokes can be sent at once (well, more how many EQ will deal with incoming at the same time). The virtualisation is so you can configure it as an abstract setup, then setup character specific key maps/mapped keys which just switch in when those characters are present in your Character Set.
You could probably issue a /FOLLOW slash command if you really wanted to (after you /TAR first), but I suspect it is easier to just set this up as a social.

The other option with small teams, and the default setup in ISBoxer is to use virtual keystrokes. This is where each slot (character) in the character set has it's own definition of what a particular named keystroke action means.
e.g. if you have 6 characters in a character set, then Target Johnny might be F3 for character Tommy, but for Jimmy Target Johnny might be F4. ISBoxer takes this a little further and calls this Target Slot 1 (or in other words, "for the character in this slot to Target the Character in this numbered slot"). This is described in a number of places, but the wiki link is http://www.isboxer.com/wiki/Common_modi ... eting_keys.
This setup takes care of the Targeting by using the game inbuilt Target Party Member settings (usually F1 - F6, depending on the game).
Then you use the Follow/Assist setup as per viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2247.

Virtual Key Maps are no different to other key maps. The main part is the substitution, and this mostly takes place on the Character settings (you can set this at a Character Set level too).

In a virtualise setup, you have 3 key maps.
Key Map 1, let call it Hotkeys, has a bunch of mapped keys which have hotkeys on them, and they mainly call Do Mapped Key Actions, and call a mapped key in the Virtual keymap
Key Map 2, is called Virtual. This is purely a place holder that you can substitute.
Key Map 3, is the implementation. This is what will actually be run. The substitution is set on the character as per above.

The substitution itself is based on the name of the mapped key. You have the Virtual key map, and it has a bunch of mapped keys in it. Each mapped key has a name that you give it. It doesn't need any actions or anything because it will be substituted. It is a placeholder. Because the substitution happens by name, then each implementation needs to have a mapped key with the same name in order for it to execute. If you don't have a matching mapped key in your implementation, then nothing happens when you press the hotkey. Sometimes you might actually want this to happen too.

There is a wiki page on setting up the MMO-Pro config (a virtualised setup), and MiRai did a bunch of videos on it too.
http://www.isboxer.com/wiki/Style:MMO_-_Pro
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6826

bob (1924 is it?)

Thanks for the pointers and detailed description. It is starting to get clearer (well sorta) and I keep watching the videos and reading, although the understanding isn't there yet, I am feeling better about it. I know I will be posting more questions and just wanted to say how much I appreciate all the help, thanks guys.