What a week! After many long nights of hard work, we are now showing off both a completed WoW-styled skin for use with Inner Space interfaces, and a functional Ventrilo interface for Inner Space.

Ventrilo

• Single Ventrilo instance mode or Multi-instance mode switches between an untabbed or tabbed main window interface
• Double click to join a channel
• Separate window showing users in your current channel
• Separate window showing users currently speaking, with an option to toggle speakers you cannot hear (that normally show up Yellow in Ventrilo)
• All windows can be hidden or resized, and default to 33% transparency based on mouse position. CTRL+ALT+V brings the main window back, or the General tab of the options window (click the green check in the title bar) has buttons to bring the speaker or channel windows back.

... and there is room for more in the future as we listen to feedback from users!

To get started with our Ventrilo interface for Inner Space, see http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/IS:Ventrilo. You will first need Inner Space and an active subscription, so you may need to first visit the Inner Space page -- and feel free to apply for a FREE 7 day trial!

Although we demonstrate our interfaces with World of Warcraft and/or World of Warcraft-styled skins, the same functionality works in any game Inner Space supports! Our demonstrations with World of Warcraft do not imply endorsement of any kind by Blizzard Entertainment, but we do love the game!

As always, we have been hard at work behind the scenes with both announced and unannounced projects. This week we have spent a good amount of time developing a new in-game interface for Ventrilo, as well as preparing samples and demonstrations for multi-boxing with Inner Space.

ClickBoxer

Here's some images of a quick user interface I whipped up, similar to the interface in the blurry Multi-Boxing with Inner Space video (we'll update it soon).

Vanilla ClickBoxer

WoW-flavored ClickBoxer

These images also show the difference between an un-skinned and a skinned user interface. The same user interface file was used in both cases, but the one on the right was loaded with a WoW-styled skin (similarly, there are skins available styled for EQ2 and other games). Each button, when clicked, will execute a command in Inner Space to relay one or more keystrokes (e.g. q, 1, 2) to all other windows, or one other window (as specified by is1, is2) -- so there is nothing specific to World of Warcraft besides the style of the skin, and this functionality is available in all games that Inner Space works for. The entire interface is contained in a single XML file, and is easy to customize with any text or XML editor in order to change buttons or keys -- the buttons and keys in the sample are meant to be just that, samples!

To get started with customizing your own ClickBoxer interface, see http://www.lavishsoft.com/wiki/index.php/ClickBoxer. We will make at least one or two skins available this weekend that you may use and customize as well!

Also, be aware that it is just as easy to set up hotkeys to relay your keystrokes, and it is possible to set this up to relay keystrokes to other PCs, and can also send mouse movement and clicks, not just keys. Once the ClickBoxer interface is released and we provide a few sample layouts, we will be working on a simple interface for hotkey management. Currently, hotkeys are set up using the "bind" command in an Inner Space console. Advanced users may be interested in reading how to set up binds for multi-boxing using the bind command at this thread on our forums.

Ventrilo

It's been too long since our Ventrilo extension has been updated, so we have been working to replace it. We will be doing incremental releases of this new system, as it takes time to develop the more intricate features. By next week we hope to have an interface that will show you who's speaking, whether it is private or to a channel, what channel they are speaking in, and so on. The Ventrilo display window listing all channels and users will also be available, as well as an option to display only your current channel. In future releases, we hope to provide the majority of the useful Ventrilo functionality in-game, including the ability to enter server information to join a server, joining password-protected channels, etc. Look for this and more in the coming weeks!

Skinning 101

As we develop these new interfaces and demonstrations, we will be updating the documentation and providing new samples for LavishGUI, starting with a tutorial on skinning. Existing user interfaces and skins have typically not been created properly, so many interfaces end up being tied to a particular skin, and that's not something we find pleasant or particularly useful. Therefore, we will be working on providing proper examples and templates that can be used to create your own skins with little effort.