Numeric Keypad Hotkeys?

I am a WoW player who never played W3, looking forward to seeing the old lore.

I am left-handed and play on a laptop, using a wireless trackball to the left of my computer.

When I play SC2 I can change the hotkeys to a grid pattern on the numeric keypad, where my right hand comfortably rests on the laptop.

Will W3 Reforged be getting “left-handed grid” option?

It need not be perfect. If W3 needs more hotkeys than SC2 because of heroes and inventory I would understand. I just want to play the campaign without having my right arm diagonally across my body. As long as the fundamental commands have a “left-handed grid” option on the numeric keypad I can “be a clicker” for the other stuff.

If there is no plan for this feature, please reply to let folks know. Then I might shop for an external half-keyboard to set to the right of my laptop, or find some other creative solution.

Currently were left in the dusts by blizzard.
There is no hotkeymenu, this means u have to edit all the commandlines by hand.

And especially for numpad and lefthanded controls this is hard to do because those keys are translated in hexadevimalvalues in the corresponding game files.

Editing all the customkeys.txt for lefthanded controls on numpad will take you shtloads of work since you need to translate all the keys into hexadecimalvalues and edit every single command line by hand.

Luckily you found me.
I am currently working on exactly that.

I can upload you my work in progress .txt file when i get home on my PC.

Currently only nightelf race and half of orcs command lines are finished and its still a bit buggy and untested.

But if you want i upload what i got so far anyways. Lemme know.

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Thank you, Glutschwert, for the kind offer.

I have bookmarked this forum thread. When your generous work is complete, please share the file here.

I have plenty to do with both work and play. I will patiently wait for a finished product, instead of having to deal with something incomplete but partly useful sooner.

:slight_smile:

Try using this:

https://jcfields.gitlab.io/warcraft3-hotkey-editor/

I found one minor bug with the purge spell not being correctly saved but otherwise it was extremely useful getting me going with the hotkeys I wanted without a bunch of trial and error.

Yeah it’s a bit odd that you can enter ‘A’ for the hotkey but you have to enter hex for the highlighted red tip

All you have to do is read the following guide, it will answer all your questions regarding hotkeys

https://www.reddit.com/r/WC3/comments/69p3nv/improved_custom_hotkeys_setup_by_wtvr/

I wouldn’t recommend moving everything to the numpad though, because theres way more hotkeys in WC3 than in SC2 and you wont be able to fit them all on the numpad… plus if you leave them in a grid it actually matches the onscreen HuD

I just don’t understand how its possible to fit 10ctrl group keys, several F# keys, 12 main hotkeys, and several other keys, all on the numpad… its overkill lol

why recommend that, when my guide (above) is much better? warkeys is the most common hotkey editor and its been around for many years

Well, for one thing, you didn’t post a link to your guide until after I made my recommendation…

I haven’t tried your solution, so I don’t know if it’s better or not. I do know that Autohotkey is Windows-only, meaning it’s something I wouldn’t be able to use.

I have tried my solution, and it worked well for me. So I recommended it.

I’m updating Warkeys 1.32.0 to include all Num keys. You’ll be able then to align the grid to your chosen Num hotkeys after you have set them in Hotkey Grid and Learn Hotkey Grid. This would map all shops and campaign units too although probably some hotkey will not match if changes have applied (haven’t played campaign on Reforged).

I’ll post the link to the updated version here later.

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AHK is only used for inventory keys, the rest of the keys don’t require AHK as they can be done with just customkeys.txt by itself… I didn’t think your link included inventory at all IIRC

if you want your inventory keys swapped you can try a mac tool called karabiner, but its not as functional as AHK

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how can players fit all 12 (3x4) grid icons on a 10digit numpad? are you allowing them to swap /*-+ enter? isn’t -+ and enter kinda important? idk I don’t get it… what about all 10 ctrl group keys? esc ~ F1-F3, alt, space, tab? and of course the 6 inventory items keys as well

I just don’t understand the benefit here :frowning:

The OP explained the benefit. He wants to be able to have his “home keys” on the far right side of the keyboard so he can comfortably use them with his right hand while he mouses with the left.

The specifics will probably depend a little on the keyboard layout but even having just 10/12 of the most common actions in a place where it’s comfortable for him to reach would probably be an improvement.

you did not explain how all of the hotkeys fit on the numpad… the numpad has a total of 16 buttons… even if we include an additional 6 buttons for insert home delete page up etc… that’s only 22 keys

wc3 has over 50 hotkeys… if you are playing using the numpad you are ignoring at least half of the hotkeys

how do you control group your units if using the numpad? how do u reach ctrl + #?

what about esc ~ F1-F3… you cant fit all that around the numpad its just not possible

Yeah but a lot of those can be duplicated like in the grid setup.

I could certainly be wrong but my understanding was that his problem is with the main “command card” hotkeys and not the control groups. My guess would be that it’s not that much of a (literal) stretch to just use the right-hand half of the control groups and right-control.

Im not even talking about duplicates man, im talking about a 3x4 grid = 12 main hotkeys… plsu all the other hotkeys (ctrl, #s, esc) its over 50 keys

12 main hotkeys

10-14 grouping hotkeys

6 inventory keys

another 15+ other keys

that’s at least 45 which doesn’t fit on the numpad because the numpad is only 16 buttons

am I missing something? even if you setup the numpad to work with only half the keys you are handicapping yourself… I just don’t get whats so difficult about using QWER like most people… even if you are left handed, just place your right-hand thumb on Ctrl and the rest of your fingers line up with all the keys very easily lol

It’s all in the OP:

He’s not asking to have 45 hotkeys on the numpad. He just wants to move as many as he can over to the right side of the keyboard so he can play on his laptop more comfortably.

This is amazing; thanks for your hard work.

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Thanks, everyone.

And, yes, I am not expecting ALL hotkeys to fit on the numeric keypad. Merely enough. I can “be a clicker” for the rest, or move my hands more.

If it helps people (to at least poke fun at me), in SC2 I use the 3x3 grid for the left-most portion of the grid setup. That has the most important “command card” keys, although admittedly not all of them.

I use /, *, and - at the top of the numeric keypad to assign units to control groups 1, 2, and 3. To select a control group 1 I use enter on the keypad. To select control groups 2 and 3 I click on their little tabs that appears above the main UI panel. (It appears W3 does not have this, but I can use extra mouse buttons or something.)

I use + on the numeric keypad for “attack”.

The up arrow key is right next to numeric keypad 1 on my laptop, so I use that to jump to the next base.

And that’s enough for the campaign, and bronze/silver league ladder play. It might indeed be inferior, and teaching me bad habits that will forever limit my skill ceiling. But at my age I need ergodynamics and physical health more than MMR.

:slight_smile:

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I understand muscle memory and bad habits are hard to break, and if you are playing campaign then it doesn’t matter.

I just don’t get why you have to stretch your right hand across the keyboard? cant you move your keyboard?

I mean you obviously have played that way and memorized it, but it just doesn’t seem intuitive. Do you not use SHIFT for queuing commands or removing units from groups?

And where do you put your inventory? On top of Ins/Del/Pgup/Pgdn? aren’t those used to turn the camera?

Personally, I use shift, tab, ~, Esc, F1-F3, and sometimes space or alt too

If you use Enter for Ctrl grouping, you place your pinky on Enter right? Where do you place your thumb? On 0/ins? That requires me to squish my hand and I don’t have very large hands lol

It just makes so much more sense IMO with your thumb on Ctrl and your other 4 fingers on QWER right next to all your other keys

Personally, I use 2-3 extra-side mouse buttons for Hero TP and if I set any more its way too much for my single thumb to handle while also controlling the mouse, I cant imagine how anybody could use the mouse for additional ctrl groups

If he moves his keyboard he moves his display as well. He would have to be craning his neck to the right the whole time.

still seems like a bit of an exaggeration but… ok

I guess that is good reason to use half the keys available, and squish your hand into a smaller area on the keyboard

this isnt true at all, currently my setup has the Grid (12 buttons) on num 0-9, num+, num - (12 buttons), cancel is on delete, Stop on pagedown, atack on num decimal, Hold on page up, unitgroups on mousebuttons, and camera movement is on arrowkeys, inventory hotkeys are still on num 1->num 8 (which does not interfer with grid hotkeys cuz when u select hero u have another grid), hero abilities are on num 3, num 6, num 9, with one hero abilty unbound which is the passive for most of the heroes, u could fit the last hero abilty somewhere else if you wanted to since you still have plenty of keys left (num /, num *, end, pos1 are all unbound and can be bound to whatever u still need.)

with that setup u even have the additional fuction to scroll the map with the arrow keys, which u miss entirely with QWERT setups.

@OP do you want this setup uploaded? or you working on your own?