Follow and Assist from any window in EQ

[bob]

The reasons ISBoxer/InnerSpace will not respond to hotkeys (CTRL+F10) is if you have key maps disabled, you are not launching your character set (but rather launching individual games), the key maps are not assigned to your character set, it is a new key map not under the Activate Maps control, and I could probably go on.

Now seeing as you had this working yesterday, then I know that you are probably not doing any of those things.

I do see that under Variable Keystrokes -> Follow Target, the default key combination is set to 9. According to what you wrote

Variable Key strokes Follow Target is set to F10 * note I have cleared out any eq game other references to that key

it should be F10. It is not.

refute.png (18.32 KiB) Viewed 216117 times

Bob,

I had taken a copy of the profile before I did my last test moving it back to F10, Here is the current profile with F10 and it does not work.
http://privatepaste.com/8030679013

You mentioned
The reasons ISBoxer/InnerSpace will not respond to hotkeys (CTRL+F10) is if you have key maps disabled, you are not launching your character set (but rather launching individual games), the key maps are not assigned to your character set, it is a new key map not under the Activate Maps control, and I could probably go on.

Can you tell me how to test for a number of these conditions and I will start working through them, I am downloading the entire manual tomorrow and will try and dig into this in depth this week-end but I have to make a call to buy this in 3 days and I only want to do that if I can get this basic feature working.

Can you explain how to test for:
if I have my key maps disabled?
how I would confirm that I am not launching the character set (but rather launching individual games?
not sure about this as it appears they are from the screen, is there a way to tell if the key maps are not assigned to your character set?
how do I check if it is a new key map not under the Activate Maps control?

Again really appreciate anything you can do to point me in a direction to test this.

Cheers
Dian

Dian;
I loaded your setup and simulated your hotkeys ect., the auto-follow seems to be targeting using the function targeting system (I.E. F1, F2, F3 ect) and thus only works correctly with a specific character setup. To better example this I'll say:

Character 1 (In-Game) AND SLOT 1 (ISBOXER) - Invites other characters
Character 2 (In-Game) AND SLOT 2 (ISBOXER) - Joins
Character 3 (In-Game) AND SLOT 3 (ISBOXER) - Joins
Character 4 (In-Game) AND SLOT 4 (ISBOXER) - Joins
No Mercenaries out, ONLY 4 characters in group.
Follow works as intended, with the variable auto-follow. Such that the characters will always follow the active character.

If another character setup is used such as: (Notice That Character 1 (In-Game), our main active character, is now the second character loaded or SLOT 2 of ISBOXER)
Character 1 (In-Game) AND SLOT 2 (ISBOXER) - Invites other characters
Character 2 (In-Game) AND SLOT 1 (ISBOXER) - Joins
Character 3 (In-Game) AND SLOT 3 (ISBOXER) - Joins
Character 4 (In-Game) AND SLOT 4 (ISBOXER) - Joins
No Mercenaries out, ONLY 4 characters in group.
Follow works as intended for ONLY Character 1 & 2, Character 3 & 4 will follow Character 2 or SLOT 1 (ISBOXER).

When mercenaries are thrown into the equation, the ISBOXER sees them in the group and thinks they are players (no way to distinguish between NPCs and PCs when they're both allowed in the group window) and thus still uses the funciton keys (F2, F3, F4, F5, F6) to target the "floating follow target" since mercenaries can't be followed this breaks the follow "chain".

Now, I don't use a variable follow method and I don't know which character you use to lead your characters around with... but I play a Paladin, Shaman, Bard and Mage myself and use the following method for auto-follow. It's not as elegant as a floating target follow, and may be a bit more complicated than it needs to be, but it works and I have yet to have any conflicts or problems with it.

I use the Extended Target Window and set my Paladin as Role > Tank in the very top slot, then save this target set on all characters. (**NOTE** If you are using a Tank Merc, use the Tank Role for him as this works best with the AI, use a different role (I would say Group Assist) for followed.) Then I create a custom social with:

/x 1 (on line 1)
/follow (on line 2)

(Without the (on line **) portion) in it and place it on all of my characters, including an empty button on my tank for aesthetic purposes. (Meaning All the social has in it is the name, everything else is blank)
I then set that key to CTRL F11 (any key combination should work) in the EverQuest key menu. (For me this is Hotbar 6, Button 11).
Now, I go to ISBOXER: "Key Maps" > "Non-combat" > Expand "Follow Me" and delete Step 1 (Target {SLOT}). Then highlight "Follow Me" and the hotkey to CTRL F11 (same as the button in game, but you should note that any button will work as it overrides the key bind in game as long as Key Maps is turned ON (Default SHIFT ALT M to Toggle Key Maps).
Next I go to "Variable Keystrokes" > Highlight "Follow Target" and set this as the same button as in the game (this MUST be the same button or set of command buttons that you use for the key bind in the game). For my purposes it is again CTRL F11.

I hope this helps you with your issue, if you have any questions let me know.
Desmosis

[bob]

I had taken a copy of the profile before I did my last test moving it back to F10, Here is the current profile with F10 and it does not work.

I could only go on the profile linked, which was wrong.

You mentioned
The reasons ISBoxer/InnerSpace will not respond to hotkeys (CTRL+F10) is if you have key maps disabled, you are not launching your character set (but rather launching individual games), the key maps are not assigned to your character set, it is a new key map not under the Activate Maps control, and I could probably go on.

Can you tell me how to test for a number of these conditions and I will start working through them

TBH, most are fairly obvious.
1. Keymaps are enabled/disable posts a message on the screen when you do so, so it is a case of reading it.

There is also the toggle button overlay, and the left button is for Key Maps (the right button is Repeater/Broadcast). This will have green arrows when enabled, grey when disabled.

2. Not launching your character set means you are not doing one of the three things listed in the Quick Setup Guide. I'm pretty sure you are doing one of these because we had this function working previously (admittedly using the 9 key as the in game keybind, but it WAS working).

3. You haven't created any new Key Maps (containers of mapped keys), so that one doesn't matter. If you do, then this will apply.

4. Keymaps are not assigned to your character set if they do not show up in the lower left pane (under the Key Maps heading), if you select your character set in the top left pane. This in itself doesn't mean that those keymaps wont be used though, because they could be loaded at a later point in time via a mapped key. This can get complicated, and does not apply to your configuration as you haven't done any of this.

** I wrote this post, and then went back and checked your newly linked profile. It is worth noting the Non-Combat Key Map (which has the Follow Me mapped key) is not assigned to your character set. If you disable (unload) and re-enable (load) key maps then it will load the Non-Combat key map, and the mapped keys in Non-Combat will now work - you would need to do this every time you exported from ISBoxer. This might explain why your Follow mapped key is not working!. If you want to fix this back to standard config you can select your character set in the top left pane, in the lower left pane, select Key Maps, and then on the right, select and highlight Non-Combat, and then Export to Inner Space

Some of what I wrote was just generalisations and not anything specific to you. As we had Follow working on IRC, then we know it is not purely an ISBoxer is not working problem, but rather a combination of ISBoxer configuration/Game configuration/Other software/or something else (you haven't been sacrificing enough chickens perhaps?).

When mercenaries are thrown into the equation, the ISBOXER sees them in the group and thinks they are players

ISBoxer does not read anything from the game at all. It does not know that you have mercenaries or pets. If the use of mercenaries changes your group ordering/targeting, then it will stuff up the Slot-Order Targeting which is used for Follow and Assist (in this config anyway). This is because the in game Party order is different and when previously F3 may have selected the current main, if F3 now selects a mercenary, it wont work! (or at least it wont work as expected).
Pets also stuff up targeting (although less dramatically) because if you have a pet owner targeted, and you target the pet owner again, it will usually switch to the pet (I actually have no idea if EQ does this). This one is kind of annoying as you usually have to then setup something to clear your current target if your main will normally have a pet. You may or may not be able to follow pets.

As Desmosis also pointed out, if you load characters into the wrong slot or invite/accept your group in a different order each time, then the targeting of each character probably wont work correctly. Your group need to be in the correct slots as configured in ISBoxer, and you need to invite/accept the group consistently in the same order every time so the Target Slot mappings work every time. (I'm pretty sure you already know this too).

Also worth noting. Some games wont let you rebind certain keys, or use certain key combinations (modifiers) in ISBoxer. The only known restrictions on EQ are in that post I linked to you. This might have changed with Ragefire, it may not have. If you do come across any then let it be known, but I don't think this is the problem in this case.

As you indicate you aren't even seeing the Targeting happening, then it might be worth checking out whether you have CTRL+F10 assigned as a hotkey to some other application that is running on your computer.
If in doubt, you can also add a Popup Text Action to the step(s) of the mapped key that is not working. I use them all the time to make sure things are firing when I press a hotkey (usually to make sure that they responding to the hotkey, even if the results aren't quite right). They just put a message up in the middle of the active slot (if you select Window:Current as the target). It is very handy. You can also use the debugging in the ISBoxer in game GUI so you can see what ISBoxer is capturing and what it is sending to the games. http://www.isboxer.com/wiki/ISBoxer_Debugging_Console


Finally, in EQ, you can use some funky slash commands to Target and Assist. Using the ISBoxer virtualisation capabilities it is possible to have your ISBoxer configuration issue the appropriate /TAR CHARNAME command for your current main, and also send a /FOLLOW (or trigger a social). This is kind of advanced, and it shouldn't be necessary to configure it this way to get it to work, but it is an option, and mainly becomes relevant if you do run with mercenaries (I'm not sure it changes the pet issue). Firescue17 shows how this works in these videos viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4944&start=0. I can't find a step by step post on how to configure it all up and it does require a bit of headscratching to get you head around it, but it is worth keeping it in mind for later.

All who have responded, great investigation points and I will try and address some of this over the week-end.

Just to confirm though, I always load in the same sequence and I can eliminate that as I check the F1-F4 order on each character in game and it is good to go.

I have no mercs as I am on the progression server so I can eliminate this one. I can also eliminate that Ctr+F10 is mapped to anything else in the game and pretty sure that is not a reserved sequence.

I am going to recreate this without pet classes or at least on the first position dude and see if that affects it.

I also will check:
2. Not launching your character set means you are not doing one of the three things listed in the Quick Setup Guide. I'm pretty sure you are doing one of these because we had this function working previously (admittedly using the 9 key as the in game keybind, but it WAS working).



standby appreciate all who have contributed.

Dian