Bind and Macro guide., Dummies guide to...

Ok so there are many many key bind guides out there, but I thought I'd write up one that was a bit more user friendly read. (Sorry for the non-technical terminology used throughtout!)

First thing's first, what is a keybind? Well! A bind is a line of code that you can type into CoH/V that will bind an emote, phrase or power to that one key. Just like when you press F7, your character says "Ready!" and puts their thumb up.

Let's start with something simple. (Remember that whenever I say 'type this' I mean into the chat window on CoH/V!)

Keybinding phrases

So if you want your character to say something everytime you press the 'p' key on your keyboard for instance type -

/bind p "say ENTER TEXT HERE"

Replace the TYPE TEXT HERE for something you want them to say! ...and now whenever you press the 'p' key they say it! REMEMBER - You can replace the 'p' key with any key you like on your keyboard. IMPORTANT! Don't bind the 'w', 'a', 's', 'd' or 'space' keys as you'll probably be using them to move about with!

Keybinding emotes

If you want your character to do an emote whenever they press a key enter -

/bind f6 "$$emote wave"

So whenever you press the f6 key now, your characer will wave! Remember, you can change the key to whatever you like. Also there are many many different emotes you can try! IMPORTANT! Emotes with two or more words normally don't work, you have to leave the space out of many of them. For example, the thumbs up emote would change to -

/binf f6 "$$emote thumbsup"





to be continued...

Nice one Mystie.

I just happen to still have a pre-written guide I wrote a while back for another SG, that I think may be useful to add too. I added in a few specific examples, and also a few of the intermediate level 'tricks'.

Just for thoroughness, let me start with the obvious of stating what a Bind is. Binding or Keybinding is assigning a command to a key-press or combination of keys, so that when you press that key or combination, the command is executed automatically.

Backup your existing keybinds first!
To save all your binds as they are, then in CoH or CoV, type in:
/bind_save

This will save all the current settings to a text file named keybinds.txt, in your City of Heroes folder (where all the game files are). Then open that file with Notepad, or any other plain text editor (Not Word or Wordpad as these save extra formatting things) and select File > Save As and name the new file keybinds-backup.txt

Now you can be safe in knowing you have a backup of all the working binds, in case you accidentally overwrite something important one day.

The default Keybinds.txt file
The file named keybinds.txt that the game itself saved for you can be edited quite easily. This is a good option for any binds that you will want to be defaults for all of your characters, both Heroes and Villains.

One of the first edits that most players recommend is to remove the 'R' key's function of a 'sticky run forwards' to avoid those accidents where you hit the key by mistake and find yourself 3 mobs deep in trouble before you can toggle it off again.

Find the line in the Keybinds.txt file that starts with R - It usually has the full line:
R "++Forward"

To remove this function, take out the ++forward between the quotation marks and instead insert nop
R "nop"

In binds and macros, nop means "no operation" and tells the game to do nothing special when this key is pressed.

If you have Fly as a power, you may want to still have the ability to 'autopilot' with a 'sticky' forward function. If so, I recommend assigning it to a combination key, so it can't be done by accident. If you make it so you have to hold down the Ctrl key as well as pressing R that's a lot safer, but still keeps all the function available when you want it. To do this, just add a new line to your keybinds.txt file
CTRL+R "++forward"

The next most common edit to the keybinds.txt is to have a line that tells your teammates which target you have seen (great for warning everyone about the Void Stalker, The Quantum, or similar). Adding the following line to your keybinds.txt file enables you to have this set for all your characters easily.
ALT+T "team >> $target Spotted! <<"

The part "$target" is a string of characters that the game will interpret to mean whatever you have targeted at the time of pressing the Alt and T keys together. So if you'd targeted a Void Stalker, pressing the Alt and T keys together would make your character announce in Team chat >> Void Stalker Spotted! <<

Loading your default keybinds
Once you have all the common binds you want in your keybinds.txt file, you can load these into any character by simply typing in:
/bind_load
In your chat input box while on that character. That makes the game load up the contents of the file named keybinds.txt that it finds in the game's folder.

Adding or making binds on-the-fly
Of course, you can add new keybinds for any character by typing in the Bind directly in the chat input box. This is a lot faster in many situations than opening and editing the keybinds.txt file. However, it doesn't make a copy you can see and edit anywhere, so if you make a mistake, you have to re-enter the whole thing again.

Let's start with a very simple one:
/bind ALT+H "say Hi everyone"
Okay, so we start with /bind which tells the game we are making a new bind. The next part after /bind is the key(s) we are assigning the command to - in this case Alt and H together. Then finally the command itself, surrounded with quotation marks "say Hi everyone".

The command 'say' is a very versatile one, as it will use whatever chat tab is active. If you are currently talking in Team chat, is will say 'Hi everyone' in the team chat. If you were in SG chat, it would say 'Hi everyone' in the SG channel. It is versatile that way.

More to follow, including assigning multiple commands to a single bind, and some more practical binds usage.

Okay, now so we'll take a look at combining multiple commands into a single Bind, and also at having different things happen each time you use the bind to have variety in what you say or do.

Multiple Commands in a single Bind
It is really easy to have more than one command in a single Keybind. You just separate the commands with a $$ sign.
/bind ALT+T "team I have a $target in my sights here! $$ emote point"

The above bind entered into the game would make your character say in team chat what they have targeted, and do the emote to point straight ahead, indicating where it is.

Other such binds might include:
/bind ALT+G "say Congratulations! $$ emote clap"
and
/bind ALT+Y "say Yahoo! $$ emote flip"

More usefull perhaps are similar binds like:
/bind ALT+B "say Gather round for buffs! $$ emote BigWave"
or
/bind ALT+P "say Teleporting $target - please stand by. $$ powexec_name Recall Friend"

Loading more binds in a bind to change what happens
One of the cooler things you can do with binds is load other binds files up. This lets you say different things each time, having a wider range of quips, insults, taunts, or whatever.

The first thing you'll need here is a folder to store these bind text files in that is easy to remember. Personally, I created a folder called coh on the C drive, and create my text files in there.

So to start, I'll create a folder named 'coh' on the C: drive of the computer, then in that folder I'll create a new text file named see0.txt
then this file will have the simple location of c:\coh\see0.txt

In that new text file I put the following line:
ALT+T "say I have a $target in my sights here! $$ bind_load_file c:\coh\see1.txt"

Save that file, then before closing it, simply choose File > Save As and save it again as see1.txt

Now I can edit the new file see1.txt to say something different, and to load the next file in the chain. In see1.txt I put:
ALT+T "say $target here! $$ bind_load_file c:\coh\see2.txt"

Save it, then again choose Save As to make a copy of it to edit as see2.txt then edit see2.txt to have a line like:
ALT+T "say I'm looking at you, $target $$ bind_load_file c:\coh\see3.txt"

Save it, then create the see3.txt file and in that one add a line like:
ALT+T "say this $target has my attention $$ bind_load_file c:\coh\see0.txt"
Notice that this last one uses the bind_load to load the first of the text files we made, see0txt, so creating a loop.

Now we need to start this loop running. So in the game you can enter:
/bind ALT+T "say I have a $target in my sights here! $$ bind_load_file c:\coh\see1.txt"
and that starts it all running

Now I have four different ways of saying what I have targeted, that changes through the loop each time I use it.

Great work both of you. Me being lazy tends to just use Macro's seeing as you dont have to worry about saving, and loading files. Got a couple of nice ones like US Angel's "Do you feel lucky punk!" drawing a shotgun(temp power), Cossie changing using powers like hyper phase or build up for their animations, Brits "Kiss my flag flying ass!" with the Get Some emote, and the infamous string of macro's allowing Big Game to sing the entire "Lion sleeps tonight".

Oi! You hijacked my thread!

Aye, that be the karma o' pirates comin' a round to get ye!

Hoist the kipper! Or whate'er it is ye hoists on the open seas!

<Seriously considering not posting another guide in case of hijacking pirates!>

<Thinks about adding some bits to Mystie's empath guide >