Custom Binds
The Custom Binds tab is where much of the deeper power of BindControl lives. Here, it's possible to make intricate binds, possibly multi-step, that perform approximately any function that's possible within the confines of the game's slash commands. Let's take a look at the top of the tab:
As you can see, there are four types of binds we can create here:
- "Simple Binds" which bind a single keypress to a series of one or more slash commands to be executed sequentially
- "Complex Binds" which can be thought of as a series of Simple Binds executed in rotation on multiple presses of a keybind
- "Buffer Binds" which can set up a keybind to buff each of your teammates and pets with one or more buffs using repeated presses of a single key per target
- The "Custom Bind Wizard" which can walk you through making keybinds that could be done by hand with a Simple or Complex Bind, but are complicated and/or fiddly.
Finally, it's also possible to import a custom bind that you or someone else exported from BindControl previously.
Check the blue "Help" buttons to the right of each "New Bind" button for more information.
Let's get right into it, and make a new Simple Bind. Click the "New Simple Bind" button, and you'll be prompted for a name for your bind. Each bind needs a unique name, but it can be as descriptive as you like, so something like "Full Supergroup Mode" is not unreasonable. Let's use that name in our example. Type in the name and press Enter.
BindControl has now added a new Simple Bind to your list of Custom Binds. It's not configured yet, so the "Bind Contents" and "Bind Key" fields are highlighted in red. We need understand both of those and get them filled out, in order to make the bind work. The fields are:
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the "Bind Contents" field. Clicking anywhere on the field will launch PowerBinder, which is a tool for creating a list of slash commands to execute when the Bind Key is pressed. PowerBinder will help you configure the "payload" for the keybind in a straightforward and intuitive way. PowerBinder has a lot of features, and we're not going to look at all of them right now, but later you should check the PowerBinder wiki page (under construction) for all the details on what it's capable of and how to use it.
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the "Bind Key" button. If you came here by way of the Getting Started with BindControl guide, you've already used one of these to tinker with the "Start Chat" bind on the General tab. This is exactly the same.
So. Let's get to it. First up, the "Bind Contents" field, and PowerBinder.
First, what is PowerBinder? PowerBinder is a way to string together collections of any slash commands in the game. A large and growing number of slash commands are supported directly via configuration dialogs, but you can manually add literally any slash command.
(NOTE: One thing to know right up front -- a given keybind can only activate one actual in-game power. This is a hard limit set by the game. There are some few workarounds and hacks to get around this in some cases, but for the most part, although PowerBinder will allow you to create keybinds with multiple power invocations, they probably won't work as you expect. We'll get into this in more detail on the PowerBinder wiki page.)
So let's take a look at it. Go ahead and poke the PowerBinder text field to open PowerBinder:
The PowerBinder dialog consists of a list of commands to be performed when the Bind Key is pressed. You can add any number of commands, within certain limits imposed by the game. Our bind is going to be for the purpose of entering Supergroup Mode with flair and panache, so let's start adding some commands.
Click on the "Add Command" picker, go to the "Social" submenu, and select "Supergroup Mode" from the list. It'll pop up a little dialog to configure this step:
We want this bind to put us into supergroup mode, so let's pick the "On" radio button, and click "OK."
You'll see that PowerBinder has added a step to the list:
The read-only text field at the bottom shows what the contents of the keybind will be once PowerBinder is closed. Currently it just contains the one command "sgmodeset 1" but let's add a couple more commands to make it interesting. Click the "Add Command" picker again, and this time, again from the "Social" submenu, select "Costume Change." For this command, you can select which of your character's costumes you'd like to switch to, and specify an optional costume-change emote:
Let's change to our fourth costume, and use the "Fireworks" emote. Set up the pickers appropriately, and click "OK" to add the command.
Now we see the two commands we've added in the list. The buttons on the right side of the dialog let you delete commands, move them up or down in the sequence, and edit the ones that are configurable. Let's add one more command before we finish with PowerBinder. Once more, click the "Add Step" picker, and from the "Graphics / UI" submenu, choose "Window Color." You should see a color-picking dialog:
This command enables us to change the overall color of the game's windows and UI. The border around the box on the left shows what color the picker is currently set to. Let's say your supergroup colors feature green. Set the dialog's sliders to R: 0, G: 255, B: 0, A: 255, and take a look at the border of the box:
Go ahead and click "OK" to add this command.
Now we can see our three commands in the list. At the bottom, the Bind String is displayed: "sgmodeset 1$$cce 3 CCFireworks$$windowcolor 0 255 0 255" -- this is the actual set of commands that will be run when we press our Bind Key. We can also see the length of the Bind String. This becomes an important consideration for very complicated binds, but we don't have to worry about it for this one. Let's go ahead and set that up and try it out. Click "OK" on PowerBinder to get back to the Custom Binds tab.
You can see that the PowerBinder field now contains the commands we set up with PowerBinder. You can click on the PowerBinder field at any point to edit your commands.
The only thing left to do is set up a Bind Key. Let's make this Simple Bind use Ctrl-S -- go ahead and click the Bind Key Button, and hit CTRLS. Click "OK" and you should be ready to try out your bind!
If you haven't done so in a bit, go ahead and save your Profile so you don't lose any work.
Then, click the "Write Binds" button to write your binds out. If you haven't read the Getting Started with BindControl guide yet, go ahead and check that out for more details about using the Key Binding dialog and the Write Binds button, and how to load your binds into City of Heroes.
So, load your binds (using the Binds Reset key, or by pasting the supplied "/bindloadfile..." text into the chat input in-game).
And now, let's try it out! In-game, hit CTRLS. Your character should switch into Supergroup Mode, changing to your fourth costume with the "Fireworks" emote, and the game windows should turn green to let you know you're showing your colors.
We have an exciting and fun way to get into Supergroup Mode now, but eventually we'll want to get back into normal mode. Let's make another Simple Bind to change us back. First, though, take a look at the buttons to the right of our new Simple Bind:
With these buttons, you can delete, rename, duplicate, or export a bind. Instead of starting a new bind from scratch, let's click the third button to duplicate this bind. You'll be prompted to name the new bind -- let's call it "Exit Supergroup Mode."
And just like that, we have two Simple Binds. BindControl will leave the Bind Key blank when it duplicates a bind, so we'll need to assign that later, but first, let's open PowerBinder by clicking on the field in the new bind, and change around our three commands.
This should look familiar -- it's, of course, a duplicate of the existing bind's PowerBinder configuration.
You can select a command and click the "Edit" button to change it, or just double-click the command in the list. Make the following changes:
- SuperGroup mode to "Off"
- Costume Change to costume 1, no emote
- Window Color back to the game default (R: 36, G: 145, B: 255, A: 255)
Once you're done, click "OK" and you should see the changes in the new bind. Let's poke the "Bind Key" button, and assign it Ctrl-O.
Go ahead and save your Profile, "Write Binds," reload them into the game, and test it. You should now be able to enter and exit Supergroup Mode, with the changes in costume and window color, with those two keybinds.
(NOTE: the game prevents you from changing costumes more often than every 15 seconds, so spamming these keybinds faster than that will toggle Supergroup Mode and change the window color but your costume won't change.)
And that's Simple Binds. Of course, we've just barely touched on PowerBinder's possibilities -- there's a lot more to it, which we'll explore in a separate page. But that's the general flow of making Simple Binds:
- Create a Simple Bind
- Configure the Bind Contents using PowerBinder
- Assign a Bind Key
- Write Binds and load them into the game
- Profit
It might have occurred to you that for dropping in and out of Supergroup Mode, even with the extra functionality the Simple Binds give, it seems wasteful to use two separate keys. What we'd really like is to be able to toggle these two states with the same keybind. Enter Complex Binds.
Go ahead and poke the "New Complex Bind" button and name it "Supergroup Mode Toggle" and you'll see a new blank Complex Bind show up:
This should look familiar, but different. New things to notice:
- The contents field is labeled "Step 1"
- The contents field has buttons to the right of the PowerBinder field: up, down, and duplicate.
- There is a new "Add Step..." button at the bottom of the bind.
Complex binds have one or more steps (usually more, as a one-step Complex Bind might as well be a Simple Bind). Each step is a complete and separate PowerBinder configuration. The entire Complex Bind, however, has just one Bind Key.
When the Bind Key is pressed for the first time, Step 1 will execute. When it's pressed the next time, the next step will execute. This will continue, one step per press of the keybind until it gets to the end. At that point, it wraps around back to the first step. This can be leveraged to make quite interesting and complicated behavior.
We're not wanting to do anything too crazy, though. Let's replicate the functionality of our two Simple Binds in this Complex Bind. Go ahead and poke the PowerBinder field, and set up the resulting PowerBinder dialog like you did the first Simple Bind. When you're done and close PowerBinder, you should see this:
Now, the magic. Click the "Add Step..." button, and a "Step 2" line should appear:
Click on the second step's PowerBinder button, and configure it like your second Simple Bind.
Now, all that's left is to give it a keybinding and try it out. Poke the Bind Key button, and let's select Ctrl-T for this one.
Go ahead and save your Profile (save early, save often), Write Binds, and load it into the game.
It should now be that repeated presses of CTRLT will toggle your Supergroup Mode, switch between your two costumes, and change the window/ui color to match your current mode. Remember the game will only let you change costumes once every 15 seconds.
That's really all there is to Complex Binds -- they are basically a series of Simple Binds that execute in rotation, tied to a single Bind Key.
Some ideas on what you might use a Complex Bind for:
- Buffing or healing rotation -- put several buffs on separate steps, and serially buff your target with repeated presses of the bind key
- Similarly, an opening rotation for DPS that fires off self-buffs and cooldowns and finally launches an attack
- Make a rotation of snarky "/say" texts that happen with your Taunt power
Use your imagination - there's a lot of fun and interesting functional and RP things you can do with these.
Buffer Binds are a system for selecting, buffing, and healing your teammates and/or pets with repeated presses of a single key per target. Like a Complex Bind, it's a series of steps that get executed in rotation with multiple presses of the bound key. The advantage of Buffer Binds over Complex Binds is organizational -- you can create one buff rotation, and assign it to multiple keys, one for each teammate and/or pet.
To do this with Complex Binds, you'd need to make up to fourteen different separate Complex Binds, one for each teammate and pet you wanted to buff. If you wanted to change the rotation around, you'd need to change it in up to fourteen different separate Complex Binds. A Buffer Bind lets you keep the rotation configuration in one place, and lets you bind multiple keys to it for multiple targets.
When using a Buffer Bind, the first press of a key assigned to a teammate or pet will select that target. The second press will execute the first buff power you have configured. Additional presses will execute each power you've added to the bind, and finally will "wrap around" back to selecting the target. In this way, with rapid taps on keys, you can quickly apply a set of buffs to your entire team.
Let's go ahead and look at the interface for creating a Buffer Bind set. Click on the "New Buffer Bind" button, and enter a name for your new bind, like "Pre-Combat Buffing" -- a new Buffer Bind set will be added to your Custom Binds list:
There's a lot going on there, but let's take it a bit at a time.
First, note the fields at the top prefaced by the title "On select, tell:" -- with these fields, you can choose to send a message to the target, your team, or the local channel when you first press the bind to select the target. If you don't want to do this at all, just leave the contents field blank.
Below that, you can see another line, starting with "On buff, tell:" -- these fields work like the ones above -- when you cast this buff, you can send a tell to your target, your team, or the local channel announcing what is happening. If you feel this is too spammy, again, you can just leave the contents field blank to skip the /tell. Then, to the right, probably highlighted in red, is a Power Picker. Clicking on this button will pop up a hierarchical menu of the powers available to your character, based on the power picks and configuration in the General tab:
Also take note of the "Add Buff" button below the "On buff, tell:" text. You can add as many buffs to the rotation as you like. Each one will require an addition press of a target's bound key. Let's add one more buff, just to show how that looks. Poke the "Add Buff" button, and fill out the new line with any /tell configuration you might want, and pick a buff power for it. It should look something like this (note that since we're using my stalker, the power picks are stupid and not buffs, but the idea should be pretty clear):
Also note that the second buff, as well as any further ones, have a red "X" to the right to delete that buff from the rotation completely.
So we have a buff rotation. What do we do with it? Now it's time to assign buff keys to teammates and/or pets:
You can turn on or off whether team and/or pet binds are enabled at all, or just don't assign any of them that you don't want to use. Let's go ahead and assign ALT + the function keys to your teammates. Poke the first teammate button, and in the KeySelect dialog that comes up, type ALTF1, then click "OK" to confirm the dialog. Go ahead and fill out the rest of the team buttons with F2 - F8.
Go ahead and save your Profile, and let's try this out! Write Binds, and load them into the game as usual. Now, assuming you're not currently in a team, it should be that pressing ALTF1 will select yourself, as team member 1, and then subsequent presses will apply your buffs, one at a time. If you want to get into a team, you can test out that the other keys work for other team members.
And that's Buffer Binds. They can be useful for simplifying and clarifying power rotations for support and healing Archetypes.
The final style of Custom Bind is the Bind Wizard. The idea here is to simplify creation of binds that could be done by-hand with Simple or Complex Binds, but that might be fiddly or complicated to set up initially.
Go ahead and poke the "Launch Custom Bind Wizard" button at the top of the page. You should see the Bind Wizard selection dialog, which currently has two Wizards to choose from:
Let's go through each one.
Click the "Escape Configurator" button, and you'll be prompted to give this bind a name. You can only have one Escape Configurator set up per-Profile, so it's not unlikely you'd just name it "Escape" or something similar. Go ahead and do that, and you'll be presented with a simple dialog:
With this dialog, you can select any number of actions that will be taken when you press the ESCAPE key. The "Help" button will show more details on what each function does. Each function that you select will be executed every time you press ESCAPE. It's unlikely that you want all or even many of these at once, but you should experiment to see what suits you. One combination that makes ESCAPE work more like other games is "Unselect" and "Close All Windows" -- go ahead and select those two and click the "OK" button. You should see your new bind in the list now:
You can click the pane anywhere to re-open the dialog and reconfigure the bind. The Key Select button is only informational; you can't change it from "ESC" or clear it. Save your Profile, Write Binds, and reload. Now when you hit the ESCAPE key, all non-essential windows should close, and any target you had selected will be untargeted.
That's all there is to the Escape Configurator. Let's move on to the next Bind Wizard.
Go ahead and click the "Launch Custom Bind Wizard" button at the top again. This time, select the "Incarnate Powers Set" button, and again you'll be prompted to give a name to the new bind you're creating. Let's call it "DPS Raid Set" just as an example. You should then see the new bind appear in the window, and the Incarnate Wizard dialog will open:
With this dialog, you can select powers for any or all Incarnate Slots. Clicking on any slot will pop up the selection dialog for that slot. In this dialog you can preview the effects of various powers.
Click "OK" to fill the slot with whatever power you are previewing. You can select "Disable Slot" from the left side of the dialog if you'd like the keybind to remove whatever power is in that slot. Any slot that you don't configure will not be affected by the keybind. You can right-click a slot to clear any selection. After picking powers for some slots, the main dialog will look something like this:
In this case, the chosen powers will be slotted in the Alpha, Destiny, Lore, and Hybrid Slots. The Interface Slot will be unaffected by the keybind and will remain in whatever state it started in. The Judgement Slot will have its power removed, leaving nothing slotted there. Let's go ahead and click "OK" to confirm the selections.
Now, we have the configured Custom Bind in the list. I've gone ahead and selected CTRLI as the bindkey we're going to use:
So now, save, Write Binds, and load the binds into the game.
Pressing CTRLI should do two things: it will slot some subset of the powers you've selected, and will /tell you how many more times you need to press the key to finish the job. For instance, if you select powers for all six slots, it could take three keypresses to get all of the powers slotted (this is due to limitations on the length of keybinds, coupled with the very long names of some Incarnate Powers). Go ahead and press CTRLI until the /tell feedback tells you "Set Loaded." Check your Incarnate Powers, and you should see the configuration you've chosen.
That's the Incarnate Set Wizard. If you find yourself slotting different sets of Incarnate Powers for street sweeping versus Hamidon raiding, this could simplify your life a bit.
We noted above that you can export a Custom Bind with the bottom button to the right of it. You can later use the "Import Custom Bind" button at the top-right of the window to load one of these files. This can be used to copy complicated binds from one Profile to another, or even to share binds between BindControl users. There's not really any UI to this apart from the "Save As" and "Load File" dialogs, so I've not added any screenshots.
So that's Custom Binds. This page of BindControl is always a work in progress, so it's possible some of these instructions or screenshots are a bit stale, but hopefully you've found this tour useful and have some ideas about interesting binds you might want to cobble together using PowerBinder.
Tinker, experiment, iterate!