SOD 2.5 Window Toggle Workaround

Meeil

Dalayan Elder
I've hit a workaround that works great for me. albeit, not as fluid as EQW was but this is viable until the high-ups can confirm another working solution for us.


Most mice have a programmable application nowadays so you can assign buttons to key-presses or assign buttons to do different things like other mouse-clicks, or go back, etc.

In windows (atleast windows 7)
you can use ALT-ESC to toggle between all the windows you have open but not minimized (much like eqw did for sod/eq)

you should be able to assign this key-press combination to a mouse-key if you wish (or just use alt-esc(kind of a wide press))

with this, keep your two windows up for boxing and you should be good, if you have a third window application us (a browser or etc) it will toggle between that too if it isn't minimized, if it is minimized it wont bring it up, but at the point you are cycling through the windows, you will need to press alt-esc an additional time.

i hope this helps people box a little easier during the transition.
 
I've hit a workaround that works great for me. albeit, not as fluid as EQW was but this is viable until the high-ups can confirm another working solution for us.


Most mice have a programmable application nowadays so you can assign buttons to key-presses or assign buttons to do different things like other mouse-clicks, or go back, etc.

In windows (atleast windows 7)
you can use ALT-ESC to toggle between all the windows you have open but not minimized (much like eqw did for sod/eq)

you should be able to assign this key-press combination to a mouse-key if you wish (or just use alt-esc(kind of a wide press))

with this, keep your two windows up for boxing and you should be good, if you have a third window application us (a browser or etc) it will toggle between that too if it isn't minimized, if it is minimized it wont bring it up, but at the point you are cycling through the windows, you will need to press alt-esc an additional time.

i hope this helps people box a little easier during the transition.

For boxing, this is what I did.

wiki's table of keyboard shortcuts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts#Window_management

Open/Focus (preview) pinned program on the taskbar
⊞ Win+(#) where "#" is the position of the program on the Windows Taskbar (Windows 7 and Windows 8.1)


I use a programmable number pad for my 2nd box.

To play within the rules for shards, my macros for this device are really, really simple. Each macro on the number pad looks like this;

winkey + (2),
A keyboard press of that number
winkey + (1)

I start two instances of shards. Then I drag both instances on the taskbar to the far left . My main toon's instance is the left most, and my box is the second.

When I press (1) on the number pad, it switches focus to my box's instance of shards, issues a "1" command, then switches windows focus back to my main toon's instance of shards.

Then use the in-game hotkey macro language for everything my box does. If I have to do anything complicated, then I switch focus to that window and use my main keyboard.

This gives me two keyboards on the same computer, one for my main character, and one for my alt.

For your mouse, you can just bind ⊞ Win+(1) to one button and ⊞ Win+(2) to another to switch between the two instances.


Wish I still had time to play. Maybe after the holidays.
 
I found ways to switch between my boxed toons, but I have two issues I have not been able to resolve.
  • When either of the toons zones, the other toon is effectively locked out of doing any keyboard or mouse clicks, until the other toon completes their zone. You can "see" what's going on, you just can't do anything. This is especially bad when one toon dies in combat, as the other then becomes inert.
  • When switching windows, since the mouse cursor is no longer bound inside the client, it must be moved for one client to the next manually.
I think the screen lock happened on 2.0 also, but EQW was the solution to it.
 
I haven't messed with setting any hotkeys with WinEQ2, but I did download the free version & it seems to have fixed my issue with the second client freezing up when a char on the other client zones or dies! I'm too used to ALT TAB, so it doesn't bother me.
 
It was pointed out to me that WinEQ2 isn't approved, so I stopped using it. The second client doesn't freeze up anymore even without it anoymore.
 
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