General
If you started with the Getting Started with Bindcontrol guide, you've seen the General tab already, but let's go over it in more depth.
The top bar is where you set up the most basic information about the character this Profile is for. You can choose the character's Alignment, Origin, Archetype, and what Server you're playing on.
Alignment and Origin are basically cosmetic, so you can see more clearly at a glance which character you're working with.
Archetype sets up what Primary, Secondary, and Epic powersets are available. This will become important later when we're working with Custom Binds.
Server selects whether you're on Homecoming or Rebirth. This affects Archetype selection, powersets, Incarnate Powers, and several other under-the-hood functions.
The Powers box is where you select what powersets are available to the character this Profile is being used for.
- The "Primary" and "Secondary" pickers set up which powers are available in the deeper parts of the BindControl UI, as well as various defaults for Mastermind pets and so forth.
- Similarly, the "Epic" and "Power Pool" pickers help BindControl decide what powers to make available for binding. The "Power Pool" pickers don't all need to be filled in, of course, if your character doesn't have four Power Pools -- just set it up to match your actual power picks.
- The small buttons to the right of the pickers allow you to select specifically which powers your character has taken from each powerset. This is completely optional -- if you leave the lists unchecked, BindControl will act as though you have every power in the powerset.
The Typing Notifier is a small quality-of-life hack for when you're chatting with friends and teammates. If enabled, the "Start Chat" bind will place an idle message, "typing" by default, over your character's head when you start a new chat. This can often alleviate confusion when someone goes idle for a short while, by letting everyone around know that they're currently typing something, not afk or disconnected.
These binds are initially set to the game's default settings for them, but you can change them here if it suits you. They include:
- Start Chat: this will activate the chat input, ready for you to type into the currently-selected chat channel. The Typing Notifier will display over your head, if it's enabled.
- Start Chat (with "/"): this will activate the chat input and pre-fill it with a single "/". This function is usually bound to the "/" key, so that you can start typing in slash commands directly, instead of having to activate chat and then type the initial "/" of the slash command. This saves just one keystroke each time but is a nice quality of life function for people who use slash commands a lot.
- Begin Emote: Similarly, this activates the chat input and pre-fills it with "/em", speeding up the entry of freeform emote strings. RP players like this bind a lot.
- AutoReply to incoming /tell: this will start a /tell back to the last person that sent you a /tell. This makes private chats simpler and quicker. Remember to make sure your reply is going where you think it is -- it's easy to forget or not notice who actually sent you the last /tell you received. Recall also that some keybinds will send you a /tell from yourself!
- Send /tell to current target: Just what it says, this will start a private /tell to whomever you have targeted.
- Pop up QuickChat menu: The QuickChat menu is the popup menu that appears when you click on the little "speech bubble" icon at the right of the chat input field, that contains a hierarchical menu of emotes, as well as menu items for adjusting your character's notoriety.
Below, there's a selection of interesting and useful keybinds you might want to tinker with, covering game client functionality, setting your character's status, and various social actions. These are just some of the most often-used binds, but many many more options are available when we get to "Custom Binds" and PowerBinder.