Switching focus when switching windows

[enlil2000]

I am new to pwnboxer, but I like it alot. It is much better than the other program I was using before. I have two questions.

1. When switching windows, it doesnt switch my /focus target automatically, so is there any way to get it to broadcast the switch window key. For instance, I use f1 thru f5 for my window switching. I could macro a /focus and keybind it to these for switching the focus target when the windows switch if it broadcast these keys when it switched windows. As it is, I need 5 keys for window switching, and 5 different keys to switch focus, plus it is two keystrokes.

2. It would be super helpful if there was a way to make mouse broadcasting toggle on and off with a mouse button (if there is a way to do that now, please excuse my noobhood). With the way it is now, it is great to be able to hit a mouse button for rain of fire and hit another mouse button to have it start casting...even better for shadowfury, but this requires that I have mouse broadcasting on at all times, or switch it on and off with the keyboard. Having it on all the time is a drag because it makes following impossible if you control movement with the mouse.

[Iru]

Re 1) I suggest you investigate a FTL (focusless, targetless, leaderless) configuration. Pwnboxer supports the necessary key remapping elements and there is a great write-up on it here.

FTL will allow you to swap windows, start driving with the new toon and you want have to do anything special at all once the config is in place.

The JAMBA addon might also help as it can provide you a single button you can invoke in macros through /click to set either your target or assist toon for all toons you're boxing.

[Tim]

I wrote a huge reply about how it works uber awesome how I have it set up, but my PC crashed. Ugg.

[Ualaa]

If you want to stick with Focus (FTL is better, imo), create a wow macro for each of your toons on the team.

Go into your keybindings in warcraft and set each macro to the same keybind as the window swap key in PwnBoxer.

So when you switch to Region 1, the macro associated with that toon is run on all the other toons. When you switch to Region 2, the macro for that toon is run by all the others. I should clarify that, the macro is run by every toon -- including the toon who you are switching to.

Create a macro for each toon. Every member of the team has a macro for both themself and for all of the others. Pretty basic.

/Focus [Target=ToonName]

Then you can use the normal:
/Follow [Target=Focus]

Casters:
/Cast [Target=FocusTarget] Nuke

Melee/Hunters:
/Assist [Target=Focus]
/Cast Melee/Shot

Healers:
/Cast [Help,Target=FocusTarget][Help,Target=FocusTargetTarget] Heal

[Tim]

I personally have a huge preference for using standard focus setups, because it gives you much more control and instant knee-jerk reaction over exactly how you want to do things. The whole FTL setup (which I still say is improperly named, since it does require targets, leaders, etc), loses you control over what you could gain by using focus and even multi focusing, which allows for some really advanced (yet easy) micro managing of your characters, such as multi-pet tanking on separate mobs and such.

So for me, having 1 key for window swapping, and another key for swap focusing, is the way to go.

I do this:

F12, F11, F10, F9, F8 all swap to the appropriate guy (Eg, F12 is A, F11 is B, etc).

Shift+F12 refocuses to A, Shift+F11 refocuses to B, etc.

Then, with literally 1/10th of a second in human input, I can easily swap guys around between leaders, and more importantly, I can swap focus around without swapping main window swapping. Yes, there are a TON of situations where you would want to main control your A guy, yet have B be the focus leader, or C, etc., things you cannot do with the typical FTL setup.

[Ualaa]

Every party will have a leader.
And at least one toon will have a target.

But it's still named, FTL.
Which stands for Focus-free, Target-free, and Leader-free.

You can have each of your toons set anyone as their focus.
And with FTL, you'll still have the slaves hit the target of the active toon.

You can have each of the slaves target themselves or have no target at all.
And they'll still hit the target of the active toon.

It doesn't matter who is the leader of the party, you can be in a raid where none of your toons lead.
And they will hit the target of the active toon.

So assist is not Focus, Target or Leader dependent.
But every group will have a Leader.
And the active toon will have a target.

Which means, Focus can be used for anything at all, it is free.
You can also have your toons target anything, using that as another marking method.
And you can use party leader, to track or assist independently of your FTL.

[Tim]

"And they'll still hit the target of the active toon."

That is the sucky part IMO, which is why I like the focus setup. You have much more control in an easy way of which targets what and how, versus a blanket-like statement of targetting.

It is all a personal preference, but myself, I prefer simplistic and absolute control. But even most importantly, it really boils down to what you are most comfortable with. I'm sure lots of people will swear up and down for FTL, while people like me will say that the focus method is much more powerful.

But who cares, bottom line is to have fun )

[Ualaa]

You're free to use focus or target or any other assist, in conjunction with FTL.

On my Feral team, I have a key (round-robin) for setting Focus.
And then have the option to Cyclone Focus or to do the same spam dps moves as I have on the FTL, except have the target as Focus instead of the lead toon's target.
So I can have one Feral on an opposing healer, while the rest do whatever.

A lot of tools at our disposal.
Teams can be pretty flexible in what we have them do.

And you hit the nail on the head there.
The bottom line is, are we having fun.

[enlil2000]

Originally Posted by Ualaa

Go into your keybindings in warcraft and set each macro to the same keybind as the window swap key in PwnBoxer.

This is precisely what I tried to do in the first place, but pwnboxer doesnt broadcast the key if it is used as a window swap key...this means that i have f1-f5 for window swapping, but I can't use those keybindings for focus switching because it wont broadcast them. I now have it set up for CTRL f1-f5 now and it is very slow, largely because my right hand is always on the mouse for movement...this means i have to hit ctrl f1 with only my left hand which is very slow, or switch to they kb with my right hand to hit ctrl..either way this is slower than I would like. I suppose I could get a kb that allows me to program macros to do both, or I could get a mouse with programable buttons, but I was trying to avoid that.

I will look into the FTL setup since it appears that there is no direct solution to this with the focus setup.

[Ualaa]

This could possibly be a feature request for Pwnboxer in the future.

Give it the option to either update Focus on a switch, or to broadcast (and use) the switch key combo at once. Chances are the broadcast will be the safer option, as warcraft then does everything game related within the game.

The more the software does things in game, without your direct input the further away from Tim's preference of a totally safe program we go.

The option to broadcast the switch hotkey or not broadcast it, would add flexibility especially for those who are interested in a Target, Party Leader or Focus based set up.