Macro-friendly login

[Shenanigunner]

It's not a big deal, and I think there's even a fairly easy way to fix it... as much as I anticipate each landing on a City street, the login process is really a tedious run of click... wait... hunt... click... wait... repeat...

 

I use a keyboard macro to actually log in, but if there's any way to automate the steps between "Log In" and standing around scratching your spandex, I haven't found it.

 

A really simple solution that might take a minimal amount of time to implement, and goes with the games keyboard focus and would make hard macro login-to-alt possible...

 

Can keys be assigned to the login buttons? Even invisibly? Just as ENTER is bound to "Log In" once you've entered user name and PW?

 

Say...

• ENTER to log in (as it is now)
  • Ctrl-X for Exit, Ctrl-S for Settings (just to be complete)
• R, B and A for Reject / Back / Accept
• 1- 5 (n) for serer selection, or a mnemonic first letter (E R I T... oops, V? Or X for 'Celsior?)
• 1-0 for character slot select/auto-Next.
  • Could be expanded for the other pages, to assuage the altitis-afflicted, but that might be too much; most of us can keep our current toys on the first page.

 

Unless the entry screens are really haxxed code, it seems like this is achievable.

 

So Name PW Enter A X 1 would pop me right into my main on Excelsior. That'd be so nice...

[WanderingAries]

That sounds like it would involve a bit of internal tooling to allow for player preferences that have to interact with the login, server, and character database servers.

[Shenanigunner]

23 minutes ago, WanderingAries said:

That sounds like it would involve a bit of internal tooling to allow for player preferences that have to interact with the login, server, and character database servers.

 

I don't think so. The dev involvement begins and ends with assigning a key to each screen button, which would seem to be fairly straightforward.

 

How players use the feature is completely up to them - not at all, as a convenience, or (as I'd like to) in some client-end macros to automate login to specific alts.

 

Absolutely no need for devs to try to make it all things for all players, but as it is, there is absolutely no way to get to street level without finding and clicking several GUI icons, which can't be automated with anything short of something on the sledgehammer level of Ghost.

[biostem]

I wonder how difficult it would be have the Tequila launcher be able to save your login info and "inject" it into the in-game one, then confirm it, to take you directly to your character select screen...

[huang3721]

On 8/22/2021 at 7:16 AM, Shenanigunner said:

Can keys be assigned to the login buttons?

 

How about writing a script to automate that? Customize it according to your available toons. Once you login successfully, the script pause/terminates. 

I highly recommend python's keyboard library, AutoIt or Ms. Power Automate Desktop.

 

 

29 minutes ago, biostem said:

Tequila launcher be able to save your login info and "inject" it into the in-game one, . . 

 

Imo, a password saving feature is ok, as long as you don't share your PC with someone else. Otherwise, it's a security issue. 

[TheZag]

Seems like a lot of work to save 10 seconds of mouse movement to use 4 seconds of keyboard strokes instead.

[Shenanigunner]

As for having the launcher do the work (somehow), it would still have to have the hooks in the game itself to do so; I can't think of any way to have a launcher execute mouse clicks. And if what you mean is something like startup variables... the game would have to be modified to use those as well. I think my proposal is the simplest approach.

 

As for scripting and ghost tools, sure, they could probably be made to work. I've used them for many things. But in this case, especially for some great majority of players who might want the ability, it's either swatting a fly with a sledgehammer or a perfect example of violating Occam's Razor. My goal is to speed and simplify getting into the game, not create another complex layer of UI issues.

 

And while it might be 10 seconds of hunt-and-click or 4 seconds of key tapping, it's 0.1 seconds of tapping one macro key.

 

Also: quite a few folks have noted they have motion, coordination and other issues that they have to work around to play the game. Giving the option of that key-tapping might help any number of them.

 

It's just a thought. I've logged in 10,000 times and won't stop doing it... but back to my OP, it seems like adding key equivalents to the mouse icons would be a simple thing. And would affect no one who doesn't want to use it, one way or the other.

[biostem]

I know there are various pieces of password management software out there that can auto-insert your credentials into websites and such - would any of them work for a stand alone program like CoH?

[Shenanigunner]

12 minutes ago, biostem said:

I know there are various pieces of password management software out there that can auto-insert your credentials into websites and such - would any of them work for a stand alone program like CoH?

 

Probably not. Logins are almost always keyboard-friendly; if the screen doesn't come up with the cursor in the USERNAME field, it's a matter of 1 or 2 Tabs to get it there, then a Tab to move to PASSWORD, then ENTER. Trivial to automate with either hardware or software macros. Very few logins I've ever seen require mouse clicks (except for CAPTCHA, which obviously is designed to thwart automation).

 

So I doubt any password managers would help past the actual login screen, unless they have a feature of macro-ing mouse clicks, and I can't think of a tool offhand that does that short of the rather muscular scripting tools mentioned above.

 

Edited August 23, 2021 by Shenanigunner

[huang3721]

20 hours ago, TheZag said:

Seems like a lot of work to save 10 seconds of mouse movement to use 4 seconds of keyboard strokes instead.

 

The real prize of automation lies beyond that 6 seconds reduction.

 

Here is an additional clue: Homecoming allows multi-boxing.