IS:Multiboxing Guide

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It is recommended that you refer instead to the newer ISBoxer Suite documentation, rather than this page.

Contents

Overview

Inner Space is simply the most powerful and flexible software that exists for multi-boxing.

Inner Space provides numerous features that can be used and combined in order to form a complete multi-boxing system
  • Communication with other Inner Space sessions on the same PC, or on multiple PCs
  • Full keyboard and mouse virtualization and emulation (which, when combined with the above, provides fast, full keyboard and mouse replication on the same PC or multiple PCs)
  • Keybinds supporting the keyboard, mouse, G15 keys, and other alternative input devices such as saitek command pads, X-Keys, etc (which, when combined with the above, provides for sending specific keystrokes to one or more sessions on the same PC or multiple PCs when pressing a given key combination)
  • Aliases (which, when combined with the above, provides for round-robin key distribution)
  • Full window characteristics customization (allowing for ultra-fast Picture-in-Picture, for example)
Additional tools "wrap" these features into easy to use applications
  • WindowSnapper handles window positioning and Picture-in-Picture
  • KeyMapper handles creation of key mappings that can do everything from round-robin to Area Effect spells that require ground targeting
  • Repeater handles full keyboard and mouse replication
  • ClickBoxer is an example Graphical User Interface (GUI) that can help perform keystrokes and clicks in other windows
  • ... And still yet, these tools (except ClickBoxer) are wrapped into a suite called ISBoxer Suite

This guide will help you learn about and make use of each of these tools.

It is recommended that you refer instead to the newer ISBoxer Suite documentation, rather than this page.

What is multi-boxing?

Multi-boxing is a term for playing multiple characters in an MMO at the same time, be it on the same PC, or multiple PCs. The term originally meant "using multiple PCs" (aka boxes) for this purpose, but for lack of a better term and for the sake of brevity, it is also used to describe the practice on a single PC.

Is multi-boxing with Inner Space safe?

Short answer: Yes, as far as anyone knows. There are many people including myself multi-boxing with Inner Space in different games including World of Warcraft, and there are people that have been doing it for quite some time. People have also been reporting conversations with GMs in World of Warcraft specifically mentioning Inner Space, and the GMs seemed fine with it.

Long answer: It depends on who you ask and who you want to believe. There are no known bans for using Inner Space for multi-boxing, in any game. There are ways to get yourself banned "using Inner Space", but this generally requires purposefully seeking out, downloading, and installing additional software from other sources. Inner Space alone does not violate the Terms of Service for any popular game that we are aware of, but the software from other sources described in the previous sentence does (and is neither part of Inner Space, nor a Lavish Software product).

Using this guide

This guide is going to start with the easiest topics, and progress to the more advanced topics. Certain topics that may sound to you like they should be simple, may in fact be advanced -- for example "how do I save these settings" is not quite as simple as it sounds. However, as the different pieces of the multi-boxing puzzle become more popular, people with the ability to develop new features will continue to drive this as close to plug and play as possible. This guide will show you how to "save your settings", but you should learn how to get to where you want things saved first.

You do not need to follow the entire guide. If you do not need or want a given feature, you do not need to install or configure it, and you can skip the section that describes it. It is entirely up to you.

Everything used in this guide (except Inner Space itself) is free and open source. This means that if you have some technical know-how, you can tweak it to your heart's content. If not, it also means that if you find a problem, you need only to find someone with technical know-how to get it looked at, even if the original author gets hit by a bus!

This guide is a work in progress and will be completed as soon as possible (we do apologize for the missing portions). Feel free to contribute useful information to the guide.

If you get stuck at any point while following this guide, see the "Stuck?" section near the bottom of this page to get some help. There are many other people who can answer your questions and help you through this.

Getting Inner Space (required)

Inner Space provides the foundation upon which all of the rest of these tools are built, so this is where you begin.

Step 1: Sign up for a Lavish Software account

First, you need to sign up for a Lavish Software account, if you do not have one.

Step 2: Purchase a subscription or apply for a FREE 7-day trial

After creating an account, you will need to either purchase a subscription, or apply for a FREE 7-day trial. If you apply for a trial, be sure to at least make an effort to answer the questions asked, or Lavish Software will show as little interest in approving your trial as you showed in filling out the form. :)

Step 3: Download Inner Space

After you have created an account, and have purchased a subscription or received a FREE 7-day trial, you can then proceed to download Inner Space.

Step 4: Install Inner Space

Installing Inner Space is essentially idiot-proof. Just double-click the file you downloaded, and click Next a few times (much like installing any other program) -- the only option available for you to change during installation is the installation path. If you are on Windows Vista, you may wish to install to a location other than under Program Files in order to avoid problems later.

Step 5: Launch Inner Space

The first time you launch Inner Space, it will patch itself to the current version -- Vista users may need to right click the Inner Space icon and select "Run as Administrator" for this to happen (otherwise, you may get a "-20" error).

When patching is complete, Inner Space will appear as an icon in the system tray -- by the system clock. Right click on this icon to bring up the Inner Space menu, which can be used to launch games, configure Inner Space, or close the Inner Space main program (called the Uplink, as it links together games launched via Inner Space).

Step 6: Launch your game through Inner Space

Depending on the game you're playing, it may be automatically detected by Inner Space, and a default profile will be created for you to launch that game. A profile contains launch parameters for Inner Space to use for a session launched with that profile -- for example, you can select the display adapter (i.e. monitor) the game will use, or change the startup sequence to automatically execute commands for you at launch (more on this later -- for now, just be content knowing that it is possible). To launch the game, simply select the profile from the Inner Space menu.

When the game is launched, the first question you will have is "How do I get rid of this FPS and memory stuff in the upper left corner?" Do not fret -- there are many ways to do it, and it's actually good for you to have this question. It's a clear indication that Inner Space is doing what it's supposed to do. That said, CTRL+ALT+F and CTRL+ALT+M are default keybinds to toggle these indicators. If you'd like to keep any of them, but move them, simply hold ALT, and drag the left-most character (e.g. the F in FPS). You will need to do these every time -- if you would like to have these indicators OFF by default, you will need to edit the Session Startup Sequence (more on this later).

Picture-in-Picture

WindowSnapper is the Picture-in-Picture script of choice.

If you are not yet familiar with WindowSnapper, take a moment to view a few videos demonstrating the speed and power of using Inner Space for Picture-in-Picture:

Step 1: Download WindowSnapper

From the WindowSnapper page, download the latest version.

There may periodically be new versions with bug fixes or new features, so you may find it helpful to check the page once in a while if you feel you are missing something (it also would not hurt to ask, or join us in chat with the link in the Stuck section below).

Step 2: Install WindowSnapper

To install WindowSnapper, extract the file from the download (windowsnapper.iss) into the Scripts folder of your Inner Space installation. By default this may be C:\Program Files\InnerSpace\Scripts.

Installing WindowSnapper does not automatically use it. Like most software you install on your PC, it must be launched in order to do anything for you.

Step 3: Launch WindowSnapper

To launch WindowSnapper, open the Inner Space console from inside your game (NOT the one in the Uplink that can be accessed via the Console option from the Inner Space menu). The default key to open the console is ` (sometimes referred to as ~). If your keyboard does not have this key (it is on US English and some other keyboards, but various European keyboards for example have no such key), try F12. Once the console is open, type or paste the following command (paste in the console with CTRL+V or SHIFT+INSERT -- both are standard keyboard shortcuts for pasting):

run windowsnapper

This must be done in each game window that you want WindowSnapper to apply to.

The first time you launch WindowSnapper, your goal should be to simply observe it working. Later on you may learn to configure WindowSnapper straight from the runscript command (run for short) by passing parameters, but there are other ways to do it. Continue on to step 4 so we can explain trying WindowSnapper.

Step 4: Try WindowSnapper

The way WindowSnapper works is very simple -- that's the beauty of it. While WindowSnapper is running, switch away from the game window with alt+tab or by clicking on another running application (such as a web browser). You will see that the game window instantly snaps to a smaller size and position at the top of your screen. Switch back to the game window with alt+tab or by clicking, and you will see the game window instantly snap back to where you had it. It's almost like magic!

Now that you have the game window full size again, try pressing CTRL+ALT+P, and then switching away from the game window again. You will notice that it does not snap to its smaller size and position. However, if you switch back to it, and switch away again, it will resume the snapping functionality. CTRL+ALT+P causes WindowSnapper to ignore the next time the window becomes inactive.

Step 5: Configure WindowSnapper

Step 5a: Dragging the PiP window

The easiest way to configure the size and position of the PiP window is by clicking and dragging. This way is less precise than giving specific numbers, but it is certainly easier for the novice user. Switch to the game window, and press CTRL+ALT+O. The window will appear to snap to its smaller size and position as it did before, but this time it has a full border. Move the window to where you would like it to be every time you switch away, and resize it as you would resize any window -- drag its borders. Once you are finished changing the size and position of the window, press CTRL+ALT+O to end this draggable mode, and the window will return to its full size. That's it!

Step 5b: Docking the PiP window

Docking goes well with the both the dragging functionality, and the precise numbering functionality. What docking will allow you to do is set a second (or third, fourth, etc) game window's PiP size to the same size as the first one, and place the PiP window next to the first one in a given direction -- top, bottom, left, or right.

To dock a PiP window next to the current game window's PiP window, we will use the snapdock command in the console. Get the session name of the PiP window to move (for example, is2) and pick a direction to enter as in the following:

snapdock is2 bottom

This usage of the snapdock command will dock is2 to the bottom of the current window, as long as WindowSnapper is running in that session. Docking, again, can be performed to the top, bottom, left, or right of the original window, and can be done to and from any sessions running WindowSnapper.

Step 5c: Giving a specific size and position for the PiP window

The size and position of a PiP window can be set precisely by using the snapsize and snappos commands, or by passing the -size and -pos switches to the script at launch time. This method is slightly more advanced than dragging or docking, as it requires some knowledge and intuition as far as screen positioning, so novice users may wish to seek help with this, or even a script that can calculate good positioning for them (such scripts do exist, feel free to ask in the chat channel linked under the Stuck section of this page). Usage of the switches at launch time is described when launched, so I will restrict this portion of the guide to the snapsize and snappos commands.

Using these commands is incredibly simple. snapsize takes one parameter in the form 320x240 -- or widthxheight in pixels. snappos takes one parameter in the form 123,456 -- or x,y (left,top) in pixels from the upper-left corner of the screen.

Example of setting a 320x240 (non-widescreen) PiP size at screen position 123,456
snapsize 320x240
snappos 123,456

Keyboard and mouse replication on the same PC

Repeater is designed for full keyboard and mouse replication. It can be used with one or more PCs, with any number of target sessions. See Connecting additional PCs for how to enable this functionality on additional PCs (other than that, all you need to do is follow the steps in this section, and it will automatically work for multiple PCs) -- you may want to learn how to do this on the same PC first!

Step 1: Download Repeater

From the Repeater page, download the latest version.

There may periodically be new versions with bug fixes or new features, so you may find it helpful to check the page once in a while if you feel you are missing something (it also would not hurt to ask, or join us in chat with the link in the Stuck section below).

Step 2: Install Repeater

To install Repeater, extract all of the files from the download into the Scripts folder of your Inner Space installation. By default this may be C:\Program Files\InnerSpace\Scripts.

Installing Repeater does not automatically use it. Like most software you install on your PC, it must be launched in order to do anything for you.

Step 3: Launch Repeater

To launch Repeater, open the Inner Space console from inside your game (NOT the one in the Uplink that can be accessed via the Console option from the Inner Space menu). The default key to open the console is ` (sometimes referred to as ~). If your keyboard does not have this key (it is on US English and some other keyboards, but various European keyboards for example have no such key), try F12. Once the console is open, type or paste the following command (paste in the console with CTRL+V or SHIFT+INSERT -- both are standard keyboard shortcuts for pasting):

run repeater "scroll lock"

In the above example, the Scroll Lock key is used for toggling Repeater functionality. However, any key on your keyboard (including G-keys or M-keys on a G15/G11 -- see Configuring the Logitech G15 or G11 for use with Inner Space keybinds) or other input devices such as your mouse, X-keys or Saitek command pads can be used. The following command will list all buttons available for Inner Space keybinds:

bind -keylist

This must be done in each game window that you want Repeater to be able to repeat from (it does not need to run in slaves unless you wish to use them as a master later)

The first time you launch Repeater, your goal should be to simply observe it working. Continue on to step 4 to learn about basic Repeater usage. In step 5, you will learn how to create a whitelist or blacklist, but hold off on that until you try it. More advanced users will find that keybinds are far more appropriate for general use than using Repeater 100% of the time with a whitelist or blacklist -- see Using keybinds to perform an action in other sessions and Round-robin keybinds for more on that.

Step 4: Try Repeater out

Now that you have Repeater running in (at least) one session, you can try out the repeater functionality in that session. Enable repeating by tapping the key you set up in step 3 (the example used Scroll Lock). After doing so, whatever keys you press, wherever you move or click the mouse, will be duplicated in all other sessions.

For mouse replication, it will help if your game windows are in the same resolution. This is because Repeater is performing identical mouse positioning on each window. If window A is 1280x1024 and window B is 1024x768, clicking the lower-right corner of window A may not even click in window B, because the cursor will be off the window.

Step 5: Configure a whitelist or blacklist

Once you've tried out Repeater, and decide that whitelist or blacklist functionality is for you (it's not for everyone -- there are more powerful options!), then it's time to set up your key lists. Repeater will let you create any number of lists of keys, any of which can be used as a whitelist or a blacklist. For example, if your movement keys are WASD, and you create a list of keys containing only WASD, you could use it as either a whitelist (so only your movement keys would be repeated) or a blacklist (so everything but your movement keys would be repeated).

To get started, right click this link and select Save As. Save it as Repeater Lists.xml in your Inner Space Scripts folder (where repeater.iss is). This filename is special to Repeater in that it will automatically load when Repeater launches. After a key list is loaded, it will be available for use as a whitelist or blacklist. Any number of key lists can be defined in an XML file of this format.

Open the XML file you saved in Notepad (or another text editor if you have one) -- you will probably need to right click on it and select "Open with" and pick Notepad. The contents of the file look like this:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<InnerSpaceSettings>
	<Set Name="movement">
		<Setting Name="w" />
		<Setting Name="a" />
		<Setting Name="s" />
		<Setting Name="d" />
	</Set>
</InnerSpaceSettings>

The Set tag contains the name of a key list. If you want to add another list to the file, add another Set tag after the </Set> line, in the same manner as is shown. Each Setting tag within the Set defines an individual key for the list. Repeater does not allow modifier keys to be used in conjunction with a key in the same Setting, but you can add ctrl, shift, alt, and so on as individual keys. Add any sets or keys you want, and then save the XML file.

Now that you created your lists, you can configure Repeater to use any one of those lists (at a time) as either a whitelist or a blacklist. First, you will need Repeater to recognize your changes to the XML file. The easiest way to do this is to restart repeater. To do this, first use the endscript command as follows:

endscript repeater

Then, launch repeater in the same way you started it the first time, such as:

run repeater "Scroll Lock"

Later on, you can learn how to use the repeater import command described on the Repeater page, but there are caveats to doing that when your list was already loaded once, so for now just stick with restarting Repeater.

To enable a whitelist or blacklist, you will need to use either the repeater whitelist or repeater blacklist command, passing the name of the list (from the XML file) that you want to use, for example:

repeater whitelist movement

- or -

repeater blacklist movement

Only one list can be used at a time, and only as either a whitelist or blacklist. Try it out!


Mapping keys

Step 1: Download KeyMapper

From the KeyMapper page, download the latest version.

There may periodically be new versions with bug fixes or new features, so you may find it helpful to check the page once in a while if you feel you are missing something (it also would not hurt to ask, or join us in chat with the link in the Stuck section below).

Step 2: Install KeyMapper

To install KeyMapper, extract the file from the download (keymapper.iss) into the Scripts folder of your Inner Space installation. By default this may be C:\Program Files\InnerSpace\Scripts.

Installing KeyMapper does not automatically use it. Like most software you install on your PC, it must be launched in order to do anything for you.

Step 3: Create Key Maps

The heart and soul of KeyMapper lies within Key Maps. Currently, the way to make Key Maps is to manually edit XML files in a text editor. However, a simple configuration utility that will help configure KeyMapper and all of the other software in this guide, is nearing completion. Until then, get ready for editing some XML -- it's not as tough as it might sound at first, and we have plenty of examples to help guide you. If you can't get it to work, you can of course join us in chat (see the Stuck section below) and ask for help. People are generally happy to help!

KeyMapper lets you create several types of key mappings, and organize them into sets (which are called Key Maps) that can be loaded or unloaded. It can also automatically apply FTL (focusless, targetless, leaderless) modifiers to the key mappings if you use that kind of setup!

Here's a few use cases that KeyMapper handles with ease, ranging from extremely simple, to more complex:

  • Press one key (or combination, but for the rest of the use cases, I'm going to leave out this little footnote -- they can all be mapped to a combination) to have all windows press some other key (or the same key, again going to leave this out for the rest)
  • Press one key to have one window press some other key, rotating the target window each press (aka round-robin)
  • Press one key to have different windows press different keys, rotating the target windows each press (more complex round-robin)
  • Press one key to have all windows press a key, and also send the next mouse click too (e.g. for Area Effect spells with a ground target, and since the mouse movement will be sent until the click happens, all windows will show the ground target circle!)
  • Create a star formation with 5 characters by having each of them move in a different direction while you hold a key

The process of creating Key Maps is covered in detail with thorough examples on the KeyMapper page, in the Configuring KeyMapper section, so please visit that section for help creating your configuration.

Step 4: Launch KeyMapper

To launch KeyMapper, open the Inner Space console from inside your game (NOT the one in the Uplink that can be accessed via the Console option from the Inner Space menu). The default key to open the console is ` (sometimes referred to as ~). If your keyboard does not have this key (it is on US English and some other keyboards, but various European keyboards for example have no such key), try F12. Once the console is open, type or paste the following command (paste in the console with CTRL+V or SHIFT+INSERT -- both are standard keyboard shortcuts for pasting):

run keymapper

This must be done in each game window that you want KeyMapper to be able to work from. After keymapper is running, you will need to load any additional key maps. The "main" key map, if one exists, is automatically loaded for you.

Step 5: Load Key Maps

To load a Key Map -- that is, a set of individual mappings -- use the keymapper command with the -loadmap switch as follows:

keymapper -loadmap "My Key Map"

In this example, the key map is named My Key Map. You can later un-load the key map in the same fashion with the -unloadmap switch, as follows:

keymapper -unloadmap "My Key Map"

User Interface overlay for clicking on custom buttons to perform an action in other sessions

ClickBoxer is designed to be customized for a usable in-game interface, in any game, to distribute keystrokes to one or more sessions.

Step 1: Download ClickBoxer

Step 2: Install ClickBoxer

Step 3: Launch ClickBoxer

Step 4: Try ClickBoxer out

Step 5: Configure ClickBoxer

Configuring Inner Space for multiple monitors

This section is incomplete. However, in many cases you do not need to configure Inner Space for multiple monitors. For example, if you are running Windows Vista and have a single dual output video card, no additional configuration is necessary. It will just work!

Connecting additional PCs for keyboard and mouse replication

Step 1: Enable incoming connections on a slave PC

Follow this step on any PC you want to enable incoming connections from another Inner Space to. If a PC is only to perform outgoing connections, you do not need to enable incoming connections. For example, if there are 2 PCs, one needs to have incoming connections enabled, and the other needs to connect to it (outgoing, see step 2).

To enable incoming connections, open the Inner Space Configuration window by selecting Configuration from the Inner Space menu. In the General tab, check the checkbox that says "Enable incoming connections". You should leave the port at 10101, but you can change it if you decide you want to later on (if you change the port, you will need to pass the new port to the command used in Step 2). After checking this box, click Apply in the bottom right corner of the Configuration window, then restart Inner Space. Incoming connections will not be enabled until Inner Space is restarted.

Because this feature uses TCP networking, you may need to provide an exception for TCP traffic on port 10101 to your firewall software. If you're using Windows Firewall, the easiest way to do this is to click the Unblock option when a firewall notification window pops up when you first launch Inner Space with incoming connections enabled. If you do not get this notification or are using other firewall software, you may need to figure that out on your own if Step 2 fails.

Step 2: Connect to another PC

Follow this step on any PC you want to connect to a PC that has incoming connections enabled in Inner Space.

To connect to another PC, you will need either its computer name (which should be shown by default in the box labelled "Unique name for this uplink" above the checkbox from step 1) or its local IP address (typically something like 192.168.1.101). In the Console in the Uplink (right click on Inner Space icon, select Console) for the PC you want to connect from, use the RemoteUplink commands as in the following examples:

remoteuplink -connect joelaptop

- or -

remoteuplink -connect 192.168.1.101

You will, of course, need to replace "joelaptop" or "192.168.1.101" with the computer name or IP address to connect to. Computer names may not work on some networks (though it should be rare, and if not, whoever set up the network may know why), but IP address should typically work just fine.

If successful, any sessions launched on the newly-connected PCs should be able to communicate with each other via the relay command, and therefore Repeater and ClickBoxer (for example) should immediately work on multiple PCs.

Automatically loading and configuring any of the above (saving your settings)

Configuring the Logitech G15 or G11 for use with Inner Space keybinds

Step 1: Download and install Logitech G15/G11 software

Step 2: Launch the Logitech G15/G11 Keyboard Profiler

Step 3: Clear the G-key settings

Step 4: Close the Keyboard Profiler

If the Keyboard Profiler is not closed (it must not be running at all), then certain keys on the G15/G11 have special meaning that will change the behavior of the G-keys while you play -- for example, MR will create a "quick macro" and assign the macro to a G-key. This is not desirable for our usage, because Inner Space natively supports the G-keys and M-keys! Closing the Keyboard Profiler will also prevent the software from automatically loading different configurations, such as the World of Warcraft configuration when playing World of Warcraft.

Configuring the Belkin Nostromo N52 for use with Inner Space keybinds

This one is only partially complete. If you want help with this, please see Lax in IRC (see link in Stuck section)

Step 1: Download and install Nostromo software

Step 2: Launch the Nostromo software

Step 3: Set all Nostromo buttons to DI Buttons

Step 4: Set Nostromo loadout

Configuring additional input devices such as X-Keys for use with Inner Space keybinds

Stuck?

Click here to join us in live chat! This will bring you to the #isboxer channel on the chat server irc.lavishsoft.com, your best resource for getting help multi-boxing with Inner Space.

Be patient, as there are many people in the chat room that can answer your questions, but not everyone is available 24 hours a day. Depending on the time of day and how many people are around, you may need to hang out for a little while to get an answer, and you can always feel free to hang out for as long as you like. The longer you stay, the more likely you will get helped, and maybe learn a lot more about what is available while you're at it! People are always working on new things and sharing with others, so you may even get to be one of the first to try out a new, cool feature.

See Also