HotKeyNet - The healing way

[Revision]

Upon request by stream viewers, here's a small HKN guide. More specifically, how to use HKN to heal your party, raid or even battleground members.

There will sadly be no screenshots of the process, as I have nowhere to upload pictures - perhaps in the future I'll add some.

I'll be going over how to set HKN up, and how to configure it for your specific needs.

I, personally, started using HKN because I was tired of having so many keybinds and macros just to keep my 5-man party alive - and the fact that I couldn't jump into a raid or battleground without having to change my setup constantly.

I'm assuming you're using either Healbot, Grid and Clique or Vuhdo to heal your party. Remember that you have to have them in the exact same spot on each game window you're going to broadcast to in order for the mouse broadcast to successfully work. It's against Blizzard terms of service to make HKN broadcast to specific coordinates, you are only allowed to copy the mouse x, y and clicks.

Getting HotKeyNet
First of, we need to download HotKeyNet. We can do so from the official website, located at HotKeyNet.com.

Unpacking
Next, unpack the compressed zip-file anywhere - it doesn't matter where you put it as long as you can access it.

Note: If you're using HKN to multibox in general, it's up to you to combine your script(s) with mine. I use Pwnboxer mainly, so I wouldn't know how to combine them, sorry.

Creating a text document
Within the unpacked HotKeyNet folder, make a text document. Name it to what you want, mine is just called broadcast.txt. Once that is done, open up the newly created document and proceed to the next step.

Depending on what you want it to do, and what key(s) to use, your script might be a little different. Let me explain the basics to start of with.

Note: In order to see what key is what on the keyboard, start hotkeynet.exe and while the window is active press a button and HHKN will tell you which key you last pressed. This is displayed at the top-right corner of HKN. Make sure the Show button is checked, or it won't show the button.

First lines of code
We want HKN to rename each World of Warcraft window to something easier, so it's easy for HKN to access each window. We can do so by adding the following at the first lines of our text document.

<HotKey RCtrl R>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow1>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow2>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow3>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow4>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow5>

While holding down right control and hitting R, HKN will rename each window to wow1 up to wow5. You can add and/or remove lines here depending on how many toons you're playing. You can also change the hotkey used to rename the windows if you wish. This hotkey is used when you start your games up, each time you start them up, but once it's up and running you don't have to use the hotkey again until you restart your games.

Something to note with the HHN RenameWin is that even though you always have one game being the first, another being the second etc, they are named the same at first - so HKN might re-arrange the order for you. Say your first account is a tank, your second is a healer and so forth, HKN might aswell rename the healers window wow5. The name of the windows is something that you must pay attention to, as this is a part of the next step.

Now that we have that set up, lets move on to actually getting some mouse broadcasting done!

Adding the main modifier
We jump down a line and add the following to the text document.

<UseKeyAsModifier Oem102>

What this will do is, once the defined key is held down - HKN will proceed to process the code following this command. If you release the button, HKN will not continue. Oem102 is the key I use, you can change it to what you would prefer - remember to use the HKN Last Key Press to find the proper name of the button. Note: I suggest not using keys such as tab, alt, ctrl etc - I have noticed that using those keys may cause the broadcasting not to go off, about fifty percent of the times or perhaps even more. That's why I use the Oem102 key, works to a hundred percent.

Define the first mouse button
Next, we will be adding the following.

<Hotkey Oem102 LButton>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <ClickMouse LButton>

Here, you must change Oem102 to the key you're using to broadcast the mouse. Always change that so it has the same key as the above command (UseKeyAsModifier). LButton simply tells HKN which mouse button to broadcast. It may be LButton, RButton, MButton and so forth. You can use the HKN Last Key Press to find out the names of each mouse button. And of course, the wow2 defines which game window to send the mouse broadcast to. Remember to change this if your windows name changes. Mine tends to jump from wow2 to wow5 between starts, which means I have to change the text document if it does.

For each mouse button that you would want HKN to broadcast, add the above code after eachother for each of the buttons.

Next, I'll go over using another modifier such as shift along with a mouse click.

Using extra modifiers
Using another modifier, such as shift, can be tricky unless you have your basic modifier nearby. Example: Say you're using the key G as the main modifier, that activates the broadcasting in the first place, and you want to do shift + left mouse button. What you need to do to do so, is hold G, shift and click with the mouse. It may take some time to get used to! Either way, here's a basic example on how to use another modifier.

<HotKey Oem102 Shift LButton>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse LButton>

Remember to change Oem102 to your set key, same as you changed earlier. I'm only going to add one piece of the code, but in order to change it and add more of it, all you gotta do is modify LButton and Shift. Say you want to use ctrl along with the right mouse button, then you change Shift into LCtrl or RCtrl and LButton into RButton. Just add the above code again and modify it to your desired buttons in order to add more.

If you want it to send the mouse clicks to two different windows at the same time, you can combine them into one like this.

<HotKey Oem102 Shift LButton>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse LButton>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse LButton>

The same way works without using a second modifier, like this.

<HotKey Oem102 LButton>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <ClickMouse LButton>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <ClickMouse LButton>

Case-sensitive?
I can't say for sure if HKN is case-sensitive when it comes to defining keys, but I prefer to think that it is - so nothing bad happends while I'm doing an instance or whatever. Note the keys you're using, in the Last Key Press of HKN, and make sure to write uppercase if it's outputting it.

More than one broadcast
Also, if you want to broadcast to two different windows using different modifiers, all you gotta do is copy your already made script and paste it (under the first one, obviously) and modify it to suit another game. Say you're using G as the first modifier, you can use i.e H as another. So if you're holding down G, it will send the mouse clicks to game #2. On the other hand, if you're holding down H it will send the mouse clicks to game #3 etc.

You can set it up the way you want to, as long as you make sure to change the modifiers correctly and set them properly - and also take note on which game is named what. I don't know how to explain it, but I'm sure most people should know how to see the name of a simple window. A sample script that I use myself can be found at the very bottom.

Ending
Hopefully I didn't confuse you all with this walkthrough, as my english isn't all that great and the walkthrough isn't especially well made.

I'll probably research some on adding a different kind of method into this. Like the IS Boxer method, where the mouse only activates within a certain x and y. If I figure it out and get it working, I'll update this guide with information on how to use it. I sure would find it alot easier to not need to hold down my Oem102 button all the time, hehe.

Completion
Once you've completed your script, or modified it, remember to save and hit the Load Script, or Reload Script if you've already loaded it but modified it, within HotKeyNet. You typically only have to use Load Script the first time you launch HKN and select your text document.

Sample script
This script is what I use daily. I suggest you read through it, and try to understand what it does so that you can modify it to suit your needs before jumping into it. It's only here to show you what a complete script may look like.

<HotKey RCtrl R>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow1>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow2>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow3>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow4>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow5>

<UseKeyAsModifier Oem102>
<Hotkey Oem102 LButton>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <ClickMouse LButton>
<Hotkey Oem102 RButton>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <ClickMouse RButton>
<Hotkey Oem102 MButton>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <ClickMouse MButton>
<Hotkey Oem102 Button4>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <ClickMouse Button4>
<Hotkey Oem102 Button5>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <ClickMouse Button5>
<HotKey Oem102 Shift LButton>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse LButton>
<HotKey Oem102 Shift RButton>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse RButton>
<Hotkey Oem102 Shift MButton>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse MButton>
<HotKey Oem102 Shift Button4>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse Button4>
<HotKey Oem102 Shift Button5>
    <SendWinM wow2>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse Button5>

<UseKeyAsModifier Oem5>
<Hotkey Oem5 LButton>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <ClickMouse LButton>
<Hotkey Oem5 RButton>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <ClickMouse RButton>
<Hotkey Oem5 MButton>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <ClickMouse MButton>
<Hotkey Oem5 Button4>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <ClickMouse Button4>
<Hotkey Oem5 Button5>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <ClickMouse Button5>
<HotKey Oem5 Shift LButton>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse LButton>
<HotKey Oem5 Shift RButton>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse RButton>
<Hotkey Oem5 Shift MButton>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse MButton>
<HotKey Oem5 Shift Button4>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse Button4>
<HotKey Oem5 Shift Button5>
    <SendWinM wow3>
        <Key %Trigger%>
        <ClickMouse Button5>

Suggested Addons
I personally use Grid and Clique, mainly because Healbot lacks the ability to view health bars vertically. Which addon you use to view your party/raid/battlegrounds health and to heal them by mouse clicks isn't the suggestion though. In order to easily line your addon up on each window, I suggest using an addon called Align. Using this addon, you can add grid lines to your game allowing you to easily line them up exactly the same.

Typically, a problem I see with the mouse broadcasting is if the healing addon isn't lined up properly on each window you want to use it. This walkthrough is not to help you with those addons, I assume you know how to set it up properly.

[Ualaa]

One thing I love doing for aligning things correctly/precisely... is to use mouse and key broadcasting, to configure each window at the same time.
If you can do them together, they'll be the same.

If you've already configured one, something like Align with the grid lines is great.

I too use Grid + Grid Custom Layouts + Clique for my healing.
Healbot or Vuhdo are single addon options that accomplish what these three do.
It is a personal preference on which of the three visual styles is best for you.

My custom layout is:
ToonA,ToonB,ToonC,ToonD,ToonE,ToonF;NAME
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8;5/8;NAME;NR

Line one has no spaces, each toon is separated by a comma; it ends with a semi-colon and then NAME (all letters capitalized). There are no spaces anywhere on either line.
The top line refers to the first (left-most) column.
I have every single toon I ever box with on this line; my personal layout has 37 names on line one.
The NAME argument sorts this column alphabetically, so it will be the same on every screen.

The second line determines, our Grid will be comprised of toons from groups 1-8, and that we want them displayed in a 8 columns wide (left to right) and 5 rows deep (top to bottom) grid.
This is sorted alphabetcally again.
The NR stands for No Repeating; specifically this means if a name already appears in the Grid it won't be placed anywhere else in the Grid... which is important because our toons will be in groups 1-8 (in an AV), but we are already forcing our names to appear in column one.

End result:
Our toons are in column one, sorted alphabetically.
The rest of the raid is in columns two through eight, also sorted alphabetically.
Any given name is in exactly the same position in the grid for all toons, so when a click is broadcast over a given frame, the healer(s) is/are over the intended frame.

[Revision]

Good point, though my custom layout simply looks as this.

sort=name;

This sorts them by name, obviously, which is all I could ever require in order for the click healing to work.

[Tim]

On a side note, I spoke with the HKN guy a long time ago (3 yrs?), seemed like a really cool dude

[Ualaa]

Yeah, Freddie has always been good.

[Revision]

Since I'm back from a longer break off of WoW, I decided to make HKN activate only while my mouse is within certain coordinates. Also minimized the coding, since what I used before was far too much code.

Anyways, the downside to all of this is the fact that it won't work if you join a raid group or a battleground, without modifying the code - or if you have several different scripts. One for 5-man, one for 10-man and so on.

Here's my current script, and I'll explain below how it all works.

<Command AutoExec>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow1>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow2>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow3>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow4>
    <RenameWin "World of Warcraft" wow5>

<Hotkey LButton, MButton, RButton, Button4, Button5>
    <PassThrough>
    <If MouseIsOverWindowRect wow1 413 470 184 68>
        <SendWinM wow2>
          <ClickMouse %Trigger%>

<Hotkey LShift LButton, MButton, RButton, Button4, Button5>
    <PassThrough>
    <If MouseIsOverWindowRect wow1 413 470 184 68>
        <SendWinM wow2>
          <KeyDown LShift>
          <ClickMouse %TriggerMainKey%>
          <KeyUp LShift>

The first part of the code, which is the AutoExec, renames each WoW window upon loading the script. That way, you won't have to hit a button to rename them manually.

<If MouseIsOverWindowRect wow1 cX cY cW cH>

Here is the place to set what coordinates to activate the mouse broadcasting within. To explain it all, let me list what each function does.

wow1: This is the name of the main characters window, the one you'll be using to control each toon.
cX: This is the X coordinate within wow1, and not screen X.
cY: This is the Y coordinate within wow1, and not screen Y.
cW: This is the specified width, starting from X coordinate and the defined width is where it will enable mouse broadcasting.
cH: This is the specified height, starting from Y coordinate and the defined height is where it will enable mouse broadcasting.

I have X and Y set to where the top-left corner of my Grid addon is, and Width and Height set to the same Width and Height that the Grid addon is. That way, mouse broadcasting will always be enabled within Grid.

<Hotkey LButton, MButton, RButton, Button4, Button5>

This defines what mouse buttons to be able to pass through to the healers window. Personally I use all of these to heal, buff and such so I have them all in there.

The second part of the code is basically the same but it utilizes the shift key aswell. You can modify it to use CTRL, ALT or what suits your setup best.

<SendWinM wow2>

This defines the window to send the mouse broadcasting to. Typically this should be the same as the name of your healers window.

I suck at explaining things like these, but hopefully it all makes some sense. If there's any need for assistance though, feel free to post and I'll do what I can to help out.

Until Pwnboxer has a feature like this, I'll be using HKN to heal my troop of awesomeness.