Its' G15 Binder

Version 2.3.1.

Introduction

So just what is this G15 Binder thing?  Well, it's an AddOn and keyboard profile designed to make using a Logitech G15 keyboard with WoW a little easier and nicer.  Note that when I say "G15," I mean the original release of the keyboard—the one with 18 G keys and the blue back-lighting; the orange back-lit one is just sissy.

So what, specifically, does the AddOn do?  Well, it has two main tasks:

1. Make binding G keys to in-game actions easier.
   
   This is a bit of an issue, since G keys do not act like "real" keys; they can only pretend to be other keys.  If you're the sort of person who owns a G15, you're also likely to be the sort of person who doesn't have 54 unused keys...
   
   
2. Integrate the active mode.
   
   The G15 has three modes (M1, M2 and M3) which can change the behaviour of the G keys.  By default, there is no indication in-game as to which mode is currently active.

Please note that no-where does it say "Create a nice, correctly shaped G1-G18 action bar."  This AddOn does not create or manage action bars or buttons.  There are many, many AddOns out there that already do this, with more features than I care to re-invent.  This AddOn binds your G keys to your existing action buttons, be they the default Blizzard ones, or heavily customised ones created by an AddOn like Trinity or Infinibar.

Note: one very particular requirement of this AddOn is that you cannot use the F6 or F7 keys for any purpose within the game.  Doing so will either not work, or break the AddOn.  If you want to use F6 and F7, please see the section at the end about changing the binder keys.

Installation and Configuration

There are two parts to installing this AddOn: you need to set up the special keyboard profile for WoW, and you need to install the AddOn itself.

Step 1: Installing the Profile

Firstly, you need to make sure you have the Logitech G-series Keyboard Profiler installed; specifically, you will need version 2.0 or higher.  It can be downloaded from Logitech's website.

Next, open the profiler program.  From the menu, select Profile, Import....  You need to import the "Its' G15 Binder.lgp" file which is included with the AddOn in the "ItsG15Binder\G15 Profile" folder.  Once it has been imported, it should show up in the Current Profile drop-down list as "Its' G15 Binder".  Pull down the list and select it if it is not already the current profile.

You can leave it as it is, but it will require you to manually select the profile each time you run WoW.  If you want to have the profile loaded automatically, continue reading.

From the menu, select Edit, Profile Properties....  One option is to click the Browse option and select the WoW executable from disk.  The other option is to click Select using the GamePanel display, and start WoW.  Then, with WoW running and focused, follow the prompt on the keyboard's LCD screen (press the button corresponding to the check mark.)  If you have issues with the profile switching off while WoW is active, consider checking the Lock profile while game is running option.

Step 2: Configuring the AddOn

Binding the G keys

I am going to assume that you know how to install WoW AddOns.  If you do not, there are various guides online to help you.  You can always get the latest version of the AddOn from WoWInterface.

When you start WoW and log in to a character next time, the AddOn should be automatically enabled.  There is no pop-up or chat message.  To make sure the AddOn is installed and working, type the following:

/g15↵

Note: ↵ means to hit enter.

This should display a list of commands for controlling the G15 binder.  You can use these if you really want to, but a much easier way to configure the binder is to type the following:

/g15 config↵

This will bring up a nice graphical configuration window.  This configuration window is automatically constructed from the /g15 slash command, so anything you can do in this dialog, you can also do with an appropriate slash command.

The dialog is broken down into a list of sections.  These are:

• Binding: this section lets you bind physical G keys to in-game action buttons.  It also has a Keys subsection, which is intended for advanced users only, and probably shouldn't be touched.
• Display: this section is for controlling a few basic display options.  Currently, it only contains a single sub-section:
• Key overlays: you know how when you bind a key to a button, it shows the key inside the button in little grey text?  The G15 Binder also supports these overlays, and will display which G key is bound to a particular action button.
• Mode display: this section is used to configure how the current keyboard mode affects the game.  It has a few sub-sections:
• Actionbar paging: this will change the action bar page number whenever you change keyboard modes.
• Border display: this section lets you configure borders which the binder will attempt to place around the action buttons which are active in the current keyboard mode.
• Profile: being an Ace2 AddOn, this section allows you to set which profile of settings you're using.  You can use a global profile, a realm-wide profile, a class-wide profile or a profile specific to your character.  Or you can just make a new one up.  This also has an option to clear the current settings.
  

Click on the Bindings section.  This gives you two options:

1. Binding mode: this allows you to enable different binding modes.  These are what allow you to bind physical G keys to the in-game action buttons.
   
2. Clear: clicking this will clear all G key bindings, so be careful!

Let's start with something simple.  Pull down the Binding mode list and select the single option.  You should see a message in your chat window with instructions.  For now, just point at an action button with something in it (such as a spell, a macro, etc.) and press one of your G keys.  You should get a message indicating that the G key was bound to that action button.  Pull down the Binding mode list again and change it to off.  Now, press that same G key again; this time, it should activate the action button you bound it to!

Obviously, this could get annoyingly repetitive with 18 G keys across 3 modes.  This time, select the range binding mode.  Now, choose one of your action bars (that is, a sequential group of action buttons.)  For this example, we'll assume you're using the default Blizzard UI, and are going to bind the main action bar.  Point at the left-most action button and press the G1 key.  Now, point at the right-most action button on the same bar and press G12.  You should now get a message saying that the binder has bound G1-G12 to ActionButton1-ActionButton12.  Again, select the off option to disable binding.  You can now use G1 through G12 to activate your action buttons.

Please note that when using range binding, you cannot cross modes.  That is, you cannot use M1 G1 as the first key, and M2 G18 as the second; both keys must be in the same mode.  Also note that if you, for example, attempt to bind G1-G18 to ActionButton1-ActionButton12, the binder will stop you and inform you that you have the wrong number of G keys to action buttons.

One final node: the Keys subsection is intended for advanced users only.  If you don't know what it does, don't touch it.

Configuring display

At this point, once you've got your G keys bound, you don't need to do anything more.  That said, if you want to learn about some of the display options, read on.

Firstly, make sure you have expanded the Display section, then select the Key overlays section.  The most important option is the Enabled? checkbox.  Check it to turn on key overlays.  Once you do this, you should see a little piece of blue text appear in the action buttons you've bound to G keys.  Let's look at what you can do to control these.

First is the Format option.  This controls how the binding is displayed.  Pull down the list to see the available options; the green text is the name of the format, and the blue text to the right of it is an example of what it looks like (with • characters standing in for actual numbers.)  Choose one you like the look of.  Personally, I use the "G•" format.

Next is the Anchor option, which controls in which corner of the action button the text should appear.  You can select any corner, any side, or the center of the button.  It defaults to the top right-hand corner, but I personally use the top edge.

Below this is an option to change the colour of the text.  This should be fairly self-explanatory.  It defaults to a rather nice pale shade of blue, which I tend to leave it at.

Finally, there is the scale option which controls how large the text appears.  The default should be fine for the "G•" and "•,•" formats, but you may need to reduce the scale if you use the "M•G•" or "M• G•" formats.

One final note: since it is possible to bind multiple G keys to a single action button, the key overlay will only display the first G key that it finds is bound to that action button.

Configuring mode display

This part is entirely optional.  If you're happy with just having your G keys bound, you can stop reading now.  This section will talk about how you can have the three mode buttons M1, M2 and M3 affect the game.

The first method is using Actionbar paging.  If you cannot see this section in the configuration window, make sure the Mode display section has been expanded.  Actionbar paging allows you to set each mode to activate a different action bar page.  Each page has its own set of actions stored in it, without having to have physically separate buttons.

To enable this, click on the Actionbar paging section, and check the Enabled? option.  By default, the binder will map modes 1, 2 and 3 to action bar pages 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

A word of caution: the paging behaviour does not automatically cause the G keys to be bound correctly.  If you intend to use action bar paging, you should ensure that you bind the G keys in each mode to the same action buttons (or at least, the G keys that are bound to action buttons which are paged.)  To use the default UI as an example, let us assume that you wish to use G1-G12 for the buttons on the main action bar, and have the modes change the action bar page.  In this case, you would need to (using either range or single binding,) bind G1-G12 in Mode 1, Mode 2 and Mode 3 to the 12 action buttons separately.

The second method is using a Border display.  This is most useful with custom action bar AddOns, as the default UI obscures these borders in most cases.  If you cannot see this section in the configuration window, make sure the Mode display section has been expanded.

To enable this, click on the Border display section, and check the Enabled? option.  This will attempt to display a border around the buttons bound to modes 1, 2 and 3.  Please note that this will not work correctly in all circumstances.  For best results, ensure that all of the G keys you are using for a particular mode are bound to a single action bar.

There are various options in this section for controlling how much space is between the buttons and the border (Padding,) as well as the border and background styles and colours.  Experiment with the options to find something that suits your UI and tastes.  If you're interested, I use a padding of 8, with a red-coloured "Blizzard Tooltip" border and a white-coloured "Blizzard Low Health" background.

Note: the background colour defaults to fully transparent.  If you can't see your chosen background, click the Background color option, and drag the alpha slider up to 100%.

All done!

With that, you should be set.  As G15 Binder is an Ace2 AddOn, it defaults to a global profile that will work across all your characters.  If you want to control settings for one character in particular, make sure to change the profile in the Profile configuration section.

If you have any suggestions or questions, let me know.  Thanks for giving this AddOn a spin.

Advanced: changing binder keys

This AddOn relies on the F6 and F7 keys not being used for anything in-game.  This conflicts with certain default bindings (notably for auras.)  As such, you may need to customise this part of the AddOn (that, or just not use F6 and F7, which is what I do.)

The keyboard profile requires two normal hardware keys to communicate with the in-game AddOn.  These keys must not be modified in any way (i.e. by using Ctrl, Alt, Shift, etc.)  Firstly, you will need to locate two keys, preferably keys which you will not hit by accident.

Next, you will need to modify the keyboard profile.  Open the keyboard profiler application, and select the "Its' G15 Binder" profile.  From the menu, select Edit, Script Editor....  You need to modify lines 12 and 13 to indicate which keys you want to use.  A list of the names of various keys is given the scripting API reference which can be accessed from the menu option Help, Scripting API.  When you are done, select Script, Save and close the window.

Now, start WoW and open the G15 Binder configuration window.  Select the Binding, Keys section.  In the boxes for Key 1 and Key 2, enter the name of the keys you specified in the profile script.  These keys names must be UPPERCASE.  I have not been able to locate a reference for what WoW calls the various keys internally, but the full name of the key (such as F3, INSERT, PRINTSCREEN, etc. are generally a safe bet) should work in most cases.

If you find that your G keys do not work in game, you will need to double-check the keys you have specified in the profiler script and in the AddOn configuration.