Source
r/Guildwars2•
yammering

I finished a GW2 Android App I started during the BWEs

Back during the beta weekends I came across this post about the awesome status displays Guild Wars 2 is capable of displaying on gaming keyboards. I don't have a LCD screen on my keyboard, but my phone is always on my desk, so I figured why not try to get that same output on my phone instead.

After a few months of using this myself I finally polished up the app enough for others to use. I'm giving it away free so feel free to give it a shot. I'm calling it GW2hud.

For anyone curious how this works, gaming keyboard drivers provide a DLL that Guild Wars 2 uses to send images to the keyboard display. I just provide an alternative DLL that sends the images to a phone instead using the local network. It works really well. At the moment I have it restricted to loading only for Guild Wars 2, mostly because I've only heavily used it there and don't want any chance of problems for others with other games.

Feedback is welcome, I hope someone else enjoys using this!

Posted Jan 20, 2013, 5:15 PM UTC

432216
Reann•

This looks really awesome!

I have a dual monitor setup but I run GW2 on one screen. Would it be possible to have a program that runs this on my 2nd screen?

45
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

yeah that wouldn't be very difficult, the output can be sent just about anywhere. I don't know if I will be adding this right away but if anyone else was interested too I might

40
icarus05Anvil Rock•

I would be, I've always wanted more to do with my second screen while playing games.

Thanks for the Android thing though, trying it out now.

10
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

I've put this on my little Todo list, I may just end up extending the little installer to show the screen also if the game is running - seems like that would do the trick easily.

5
krinchan•

I've never had a use case for this before, so I'm not sure if it'll work. But Blue Stacks let's you run Android Apps on your computer. I'm betting you could run Blue Stacks and GW2hud on your second screen.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

The game only provides these images (which are beautiful IMO, I don't have that kind of graphic design skill). I'd love it if arenanet added more access at some point though, I'd definitely put it to use.

The DLL does host a little HTTP server, the images are streamed to the phone this way.

5
dcousineauKaineng•

I'd love some technical details on how to interact with the DLL if you have them, I'll probably poke around later myself. This is really pretty cool :)

3
[deleted]•

So does that mean there is no way to make the graphics bigger? I just loaded it up on my Galaxy tab and it's too small to read

3
dual-moon•

Yeah expanding this to be useful with other devices, or other games, or maybe even the ability to customize how the data looks would make you a superstar!

3
SirNikkolas•

I'm very interested. Being able to show more than one at a time would be a plus as well if you can put it on a 2nd monitor.

3
TheFlyingDharma•

Very interested in an app like this to run on a dual monitor setup. Particularly combat log.

3
threelancer•

I would be interested in a skin for rainmeter!

3
EndUsersarePITA•

Yes pls! I would like it on my 2nd monitor

2
Retardeted•

I would LOVE to have a desktop version of this for my 2nd monitor. I'd be willing to pay for it as well, to help cover your time investment :)

2
I_eat_mangoesUnseendeath (TC)•

I use two monitors too, this would be excellent if implemented. (Is it possible for the app to work through usb as well?) Unfortunately in my dorm the lan appears to be seperated from the wifi network.

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3therealEtereo [SF | Jade Quarry]•

Maybe using an android emulator running on the other screen?

3
Kyr205Unknown Ops•

I'm running a triple monitor setup, where one acts as my catch-off for outside gaming applications, one for television, and one for the games. This would look great next to my Eve Applications.

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weaksauce85SoR•

Bluestacks? Should work.

2
3therealEtereo [SF | Jade Quarry]•

Just tried with Bluestacks, unfortunately it could never find my computer running Guild Wars 2 :(

2
WalaumentSanctum of Rall [FEAR]•

Yea, if you could go ahead and make one for the iPhone, that'd be greeeeeat.

Seriously, this is an amazing idea.

14
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

I have one, just need to get it through Apple review. Not entirely sure they'll approve it but I'll see.

21
SounwaveTexcoco•

Good old apple. "No" but why its rea.. "No" okay.jpeg

5
GotDamned•

Why shouldn't apple not allow that? It's worth a trie. And if they do, just submit it to cydia.

btw: since you're giving it away for free, would it be possible to get the source code? i'm currently learning to code for myself and it would be cool if i could take a look :)

edit: Anet should improve the german texts... really... Thought the combat log would be more useful, maybe in english, but the game always gives me the german version, even if i change it to english <.<

edit 2: could you also add a uninstaller? i think most users have no idea how to delete the program + plugin manually.

edit 3: last thing i forgot, how about a landscape mode? A bit stretched image and arrows on the left and right of it would be great.

2
Xiara@poke // Wikki Krewe•

Why shouldn't apple not allow that?

Because it’s Apple? Since when do they need any good reasons?

4
GotDamned•

I can't understand why people think this way...

Yes, apple has stronger requirements like no useless apps (like fart-apps), nudity etc (at least for the ios appstore) Also they do not allow apps that enable features which are not desired (like tethering, because mobile providers loose money when users don't pay extra money for that anymore)

But they never disallowed an app simply because they wanted to.

Don't believe everything that's said about apple. If everything would be true, mac users would only eat shit, would be hipsters, would be dumb (but still make enough money for macs, lol)

2
Fzero21•

Post a petition on here and I'll sign it, not sure if that would work but it might be worth a shot.

0
[deleted]•

I don't believe the process is something you can really petition, AFAIK.

15
arkain123•

Might as well send a petition to Kim Jong Il. Apple wipes their asses with suggestions. You buy what you're told and you stfu.

6
Drewsipher•

so wait... instead of having to buy a logitech keyboard with the display I can use this and buy a mechanical switch keyboard??? I might kiss you.

edit:how easy would it be to do this for other games? I love guild wars but I also still play WoW, also tf2 and counter-strike:source/go are major addictions... wondering if its even possible. also... any way to scale it up for bigger displays like say... a nexus 7?

12
squatdog•

This is what I came to ask - I don't play a huge amount of GW2 anymore, but I'd love to see other games that work with the logitech keyboards also working with this program. It'd make my secondary android phone useful again.

3
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

In theory other games should be able to work fine, but WoW crashed on me when I tried it - so it is configured to only load for GW2 at the moment.

I haven't taken the time yet to figure out what WoW didn't like, or investigate other games.

EDIT: speling

7
Drewsipher•

well if you want someone to help out I can push experimental apks and am not afraid to fuck with shoving any file anywhere as far as dlls and I own a lot of games. I am constantly attempting to break my phone and stuff anyways...

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
LavisCannon•

it's people like you that make this community fantasticawesome!

10
LouDiamond•

looks really cool, can someone do their magic w/ the plugin to check for malware/keyloggers etc?

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yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

I realize if you don't trust me you don't trust me, but for what it's worth:

Virscan for the DLL

Virscan for the Setup file

I also code signed the installer with my own certificate, so I'd be in deep trouble if I was found to be distributing malware...it'd trace right back to me.

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LouDiamond•

it's not a matter of trust, i'm sure it's fine, but anytime someone posts something here, it's a good idea to have someone else check the files anyway.

keep in mind, every day on this /r, there are like 100 posts about people getting their accounts compromised for various reasons and malware is often a source of it.

i think the app looks absolutely brilliant, if i didnt, i wouldnt have asked if someone else would take a look at it to make sure, i would have just moved on

hope you understand :)

10
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

Fully understand!

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ghirkinJarrah Rageclaw•

Great! I've always wondered if this were possible, and it turns out it is!

Works under Wine too! (With some fiddling)

7
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

Out of curiosity what was involved in getting it to work in Wine?

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ghirkinJarrah Rageclaw•

Setup.exe does load, but after downloading updater.application, comes up with the mesage "There is no Windows program configured to open this type of file."

I also tried running Updater.exe directly with WINEDEBUG=warn+all but it also did not work, displaying some mono-related errors in the terminal. (I think this may be my installation of Mono causing this)

To get it working I got gw2hud.dll and placed it in ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32

I then registered it using:

wine cmd
regsvr32 c:/windows/system32/gw2hud.dll

Worked fine after that, except from the minor bug of square characters at the end of lines on the HUD.

I could be completely wrong (and I probably am), but I seem to remember something about *nix systems using only LF to mark a newline, and Windows using CR LF to mark a newline. I'm wondering if it's carriage return showing up as an unsupported character.

Edit: Turns out I am wrong about the bug on *nix systems, see these comments.

Uninstalling on wine should be as simple as:

wine cmd
regsvr32 /u c:/windows/system32/gw2hud.dll

And then deleting the .dll

12
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

Yep sounds about right. The boxes probably aren't fixable since that comes out of GW2. I imagine this will be essentially what is required to work on the mac beta's Cider.

3
Xiara@poke // Wikki Krewe•

As the boxes appear on Windows as well, it would be interesting to have someone double check it on a real keyboard display, if the error happens there as well. If not, then apparently you do have some kind-of access to the texts so it might be possible to get the data out of it and present it in a different way.

3
XerofaitXero Fait•

Just as a heads up, the square character bug is also happening for me, but I'm using Windows 8, so it's not necessarily a *nix bug. Cool app though.

2
radius1214•

I'm using Windows 7 and the squares are showing up for me as well.

1
LouDiamond•

as an achievement whore, i'd love to see screens for various achievements, such as daily/monthly, slayer, and weapon masters

6
Kitten_BoogersZephira FootSwifter (Yak's Bend)•

If the app is just intercepting the images GW2 is sending to the keyboard, then it's something that Anet would have to add before this app could display it.

6
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

this guy is correct

3
Dyslexic-DwarfGM of Omnium Gatherum - Gunnar's Hold•

Very great app. Thanks for sharing.

I have a question/slight issue though..

I installed it and used it, just to check it out rally. Now I have uninstalled it and tried to get the display back on my Logitech.. I can't :-/ How do I go about reverting that change?

6
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

I didn't expect anyone who had one of the keyboards to try it, haha. If you install your Logitech drivers again it will work again.

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Dyslexic-DwarfGM of Omnium Gatherum - Gunnar's Hold•

haha I thought that might be the case xD

I will do that! Thanks very much

3
blaaguuu•

You might want to add something about that to your FAQ...

3
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

Or fix my uninstaller. Put that on my todo list.

6
overlander37•

any way to make this work on the mac beta?

5
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

I do have a mac I could test on, I just mostly play GW2 on my PC. If there was interest I could give it a go.

6
psychuil.2076•

Looks like it's written in C#, so not really.

Plus i don't know if mac has the same thing going with DLLs.

3
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

The little updater/assistant is C# but the DLL is pure C. I'd need to make a separate mac installer but that's easy compared to making the rest of this.

6
overlander37•

That would he great if it could work on Mac. I'd pay for it if u want

3
giljjjGilj - Gandara•

GW2 uses Cider to emulate Windows (the files are inside the GW app: Guild Wars 2.app->Contents->Resources->transgaming->c_drive). Can you please upload the files w/o an installer so we can use it on the mac?

3
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

It sounds like you know what you are doing. Here's the important file (the DLL loaded by the game):

http://download.gw2hud.com/files/gw2hud.dll

On windows this has to be put in the registry so the game can find it, using:

 regsvr32.exe /s gw2hud.dll

If you get this to work I'd really appreciate you telling me how so I can automate it for other mac users.

6
djdanlibapparently engineers are the bomb•

C# is only a language and is therefore platform-independent, but it's main draw is the .NET Framework. Fortunately, a project called "mono" is out there which provides that on Linux & Mac.

2
SethroqueSeth.4927•

Really nice app, I like how it works, but here are some things I feel that could use an improvement:

  • A "fullscreen" button, so the information takes the whole screen (currently combat log is not easy to see)
  • Is there a way to make it remember last screen when we change maps?
  • A screen showing buffs/conditions active on character would be nice!

Anyway, this app is amazing and does have alot of potential, congratulations!

5
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

The screens are provided by ArenaNet so there's not much I can customize there myself. They've made some changes with different patches though so I'll be submitting a suggestion to them. If you do the same probably best to tell them you are using a Logitech keyboard though ;)

5
Mantazy•

The app just instantly crashes on my htc one x when I open the app (not rooted).

5
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

I see a crash report on Google Play for this, I will check it out.

3
toukzGandara•

Does exact same for me, also filed report.

3
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

I just submitted a little update (1.0.1) that should help you guys out. May take a couple hours to appear for download on Google Play.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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jadefireflyTC | jadefirefly •

You mean the combat log that's displayed in a chat panel by default? The one everyone can see? That combat log?

4
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

Yes as far as I can tell this is just the same as what's in the chat log.

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jadefireflyTC | jadefirefly •

Mhm. It's a chat tab by default. You'd have to manually go in and get rid of it in order to not have it available all the time.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

To answer your question though I can't compute DPS or work on the numbers directly because the game gives it to me as a bitmap image.

EDIT: also not sure I'd want to return to "link DPS meter plz"!

10
lookodisapproval•

also not sure I'd want to return to "link DPS meter plz"!

I'm not sure what we have now is any better. People claim their builds do "AMAZING DPS" with either flimsy or no proof at all to back it up.

3
NauskyTimaeos|Naught•

Very easy installation and it worked instantly! Very nice!

4
jimmytoad•

open it up so we can hack at it! I think you could easily make this the best app on the market for GW2 if we could all work on it. so far so good but it looks terrible on my nexus 7 due to size of stock graphics. (fully understood the reason that they are this way)

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yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

yeah i'll probably start a github project for it

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jimmytoad•

that would be great!!

2
TralderaRing of Fire•

is this on the android marketplace?

3
Intigo[TA] youtube.com/intigogw2/•

From checking the webpage:

The app itself is on Google Play, but it requires a PC-specific plugin in order to 'sync' your PC and Android phone together.

Personally, I don't feel this is useful enough for me to warrant downloading the PC plugin, but others may find it neat.

8
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

yeah, its not possible to get these screens from the game without the DLL. I understand that it's essentially a pretty gimmick that might not be worth the hassle, that's one big reason I'm giving it away free despite how much work went into it

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Intigo[TA] youtube.com/intigogw2/•

Since it's free you could make the plugin open source so people could compile it themselves if they're the careful type. :)

And yeah, I definitely applaud the work and what you did with this - it might prove useful for when they release more of the Mobile API and you could re-use a lot of it later. If nothing else, good experience and something you can use in job interviews at some point.

4
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

I may end up doing this, I'd love to see it work with other games too and may not take all that time myself.

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Nexrex•

Brilliant ^_^

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ghirkinJarrah Rageclaw•

Indubitably!

2
Mif_（╯°□°）╯︵•

Great work!

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DicellolDicellol.4153•

An iOS iPad version of this would be awesome.

3
Reann•

Yeah I would love to be able to use my ipad for this.

1
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

The tiny status screen might look ridiculous on an iPad, but there's no technical reason that wouldn't work. I have an iOS version but I'm skeptical that Apple would approve it because I can't picture an App Reviewer installing Guild Wars 2 just to test an app :(

3
noctisXII•

Please submit it. As an iOS user I would love you forever

4
ginx2666•

I can't picture an App Reviewer installing Guild Wars 2 just to test an app :(

For what he's being paid - he effing should.

3
[deleted]•

Go for it. You have nothing to lose.

3
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

True enough. Fingers crossed.

3
Brinkofdawn•

You can make an account on https://testflightapp.com/ and deply it that way

2
Orkze•

Apple should approve it, there are apps for so many (even some less popular) MMOs such as WoW or Rift Would love to see the app on my iPhone :)

2
Ten00•

There are already a few GW2 apps on the store, can't imagine it would be a huge problem. Just takes a loooong time.

2
Plenoge•

For being a side project this is really well put together, including the website to host. Good job! I wish I had this kind of motivation to learn new things on my own time as a dev, but that's what separates me from the leaders of the pack I suppose!

3
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

Well I had it working when the game came out, but it took until now to get around to enough polish. So don't be too hard on yourself :)

2
downloard•

I can't get the plugin to install. When I run the setup, it just flashes what looks like an internet explorer window, then doesn't do anything.

3
yammeringOPEhmry Bay•

Hmm, maybe you need the .NET 4 runtime installed? What windows version are you on?

2
downloard•

7 Ultimate. 64 bit.

2