ARGH!!!! another foraging question

[isserlie]

OK so I finally figured out how to set up a macro to forage and then to have what ever I find placed into my inventory.

I even learned how to link the macro with my forward movement buttons.

The question I have is ....Is there a way to make it so that I dont have to keep pushing those forward movement buttons ( or right and left turning arrows) to activate the forage macro?...I had hoped I could put myself wedged in a corner and hit the 'numlock' key and while I sat there and chatted, be automatically foraging to my heart's content.

Yes - Im lazy but there is so much I need to forage to bake and stuff that I was hoping for something to make my life more simple.

Thank you all
Iser

[Elyssanda]

link it to the letter "E" then while you tpe every time you hit e it will forage. then when you're out and about.. swap it to a movement key.

[Renjah]

Map it to auto attack as well or if you are a ranger or spell caster map it to your range attack or most used spell slot.

[Silverfish]

Typing and Foraging

Elyessandra wrote:

"link it to the letter "E" then while you tpe every time you hit e it will forage. then when you're out and about.. swap it to a movement key."

Setting it to a letter like "e" won't help when you're chatting. Hotkeys don't activate when you're typing in a chat window (else you'd jump every time you hit the space bar!). What I did is map it to a key I don't use (I used backslash) and then I tap it every time the button pops. It's not non-interactive like you want, but any macro that could do that would work when you were away from your keyboard, and Sony has historically frowned on that sort of thing.

Silverfish

[isserlie]

oh the joys of verant

Thank you all for the ideas. I have decided to link it to the right and left directional arrows. Its not perfect but it works.

Ordinarily I have few complaints about the game, but for those of us who are working on shawls and epics and helping friends fly non stop around the realms, AND hoping to GM in tradeskills, its hard to do something truly inane like foraging - or killing anacondas and griffs.....

Thanks again
Iser

[Itek]

*sigh*

I hate to say it, cause you will think I'm making fun of you... But when I heard someone say this to me I smacked my forehead so hard I bent my glasses... So it's not personal.

"When I do tradeskills I use a penny/nickel to -hold-down- the control key so I'm always ctrl+click-ing" ...

So, having mapped your "forage" macro to a key...

And having mapped that key to also be "move forward" ...

Aim yourself into a corner... and wedge the "forward" key down with a coin...

Presto ...

Oh, cannot for the life of me remember if you can forage while underwater and swimming (think you can, but I wouldn't swear to it) .... if you can.... put on a fishbone earring (or other EB permanent effect) climb into the pool in POK, aim into the corner, wedge down the "forward" key ... walk away .... Max skill swimming AND a couple stacks of peppers and bookworms... ta da.

[Inyidd]

Yes, you can forage underwater. I was just noting how odd it was to find berries under LoIO the other day.

[Silverfish]

Computer Hardware

Itek wrote:

"And having mapped that key to also be "move forward" ... Aim yourself into a corner... and wedge the "forward" key down with a coin... Presto ..."

This still won't work, because of how the keyboard works as a device. The control key is what the tech world calls a "state" key. The system sends a "turn on" code when the key is pressed, and a "turn off" code when it's released (all keys work this way, but only a few, like Ctrl, shift and Alt have an "on" and "off" state in the system). When you hold the key down, the signal for "Ctrl pressed" stays on, so when you click your mouse, you get control-click response from the EQ client. The problem is that other keys work differently (within the program; electrically, they do the same as the state keys). The up arrow isn't a "state" key, it's a "change" key. The program only reacts to the off-to-on or on-to-off change in state. If you press the key and hold it down, you run forward because the program moves you forward until it detects an on-to-off change, at which point it stops. The macro key reacts to the off-to-on change, and ignores the on-to-off change. Since pressing the movement key and wedging it down only gives you one off-to-on transition, the macro will fire once, and since the off-to-on never happens again, it'll never activate again, unless you let the key up and press it again. The only way around this is to use a keyboard-buffer stuffer that makes the system think you pressed a key when you didn't, and those programs are forbidden by the TOS agreement because they allow unattended macroing.

Sorry to say, but there is no easy way to forage without constant key presses. The same is true of begging, fishing and any other macro-keyed ability.

Silverfish

[Chenier]

For the love of pete, just mash the dang key. I never mapped sense heading or forage to any key, nor swam against a wall, just mashed them when they came up and I always was maxed skill for every level.

If you want something to advance while you are not around, plant some vegetables and water them or something...EQ is a game, which means you play it, not you set up some macros to play it for you.

[Malthorn]

For the love of pete, just mash the dang key. I never mapped sense heading or forage to any key, nor swam against a wall, just mashed them when they came up and I always was maxed skill for every level.

I talked to Pete and he says he doesn't love me any less for mapping sense heading, forage, begging, instill doubt, and feign death to other keys.

[Chenier]

Then don't whine about having to look left and right to forage! =D

[Itek]

Silverfish-

Hmm... yeah...

Pecking bird device? Well that's probably against the EULA...

Hmm... how did I forget that.... what unholy hour of the morning did I post that...

*Itek wanders away... lost in recursion programming projects and Descrete Math recursion logic proofs*

[isserlie]

<chuckles>

Well I didnt actually whine about pushing the forage key nor did I whine about linking it to a forward or right/left movement.

Among other things, it begins to ache in my wrist when I forage, so I was hoping for a way to do this and ease the ache.

Yes - its a game and games often have things that make playing it earier or less stressful. I was curious - that's all. This gaming community is full of creative and generous people and I was hopeful to tap into this resource.

I also tried to aim myself into a corner but it seems that the actual act of foraging still needs a button to be pushed.

I thank you all for the kind hints
Iser