Alias command

The concept of an alias is to be able to make something complex happen just by executing a short command. DDO has this ability built-in, using the 'alias' slash-command.

We'll start with the basic syntax for the /alias command.


 * /alias ;alias "alias string"



The Parts
Let's break that syntax down into the various parts.

/alias  - The normal slash command like anything else, designates you are creating an alias.

;alias  - This designates the shortcut for the string you wish to input. Important: Case (upper/lower case) does not matter when naming shortcuts, therefore ;trap is the same as ;TRAP, which is the same as ;TrAp

"alias string"  - The text inside the quotes is what is sent to the game. This is your string.

The How
Aliases work by replacing your shortcut (;alias) with the string you assign to the shortcut ("alias string"). So to create a simple alias that says 'Hello World' you would type the follow in the chat box.


 * /alias ;hw "Hello World"

</tt>

After you type that and press return you have set your first alias!

In order to use your alias all you need to do is type your shortcut into the chat box. So for our above example you would type:


 * ;hw

</tt>

And what you would see (if you have the general chat tab selected) is your character saying:


 * (SAY): You say, "Hello World"

Advanced Alias Usage
So, you've mastered "Hello World," Congratulations. Now onto the fun and juicy stuff.

Directing the String
I can't think of a better way to describe my thought here, so thats what you get.

By "Directing the string" I mean having it point to a specific channel. In the previous example using "Hello World" it will output the text into which ever channel you have selected as default in your chat window. To get around this we simply add the appropriate slash command in front of our string.

Example: I want to say 'Hello World' but I want it to go into guild chat instead of say. I would use the following to set my alias.


 * /alias ;hw "/g Hello World"

</tt>

And I would see the follow when I type the shortcut into my chat window:


 * (Guild): [To Guild] Hello World

List of acceptable slash commands to direct the string.


 * /say - sends string to 'say' or general tab, viewable by all players in area.
 * /g - sends string to 'guild' viewable by all guild members (when not broken).
 * /p - sends to party viewable by all party members.
 * /em - sends an emote viewable in general tab by all players in area.

</tt>

Making Use of This
Rogues often need to quickly communicate traps, and some prefer to stay in character. So lets make a quick and dirty alias for them. Our goal is to have it viewable by all party members, so we will direct it to /p for party. We will use a very simple shortcut to allow him to quickly access it.


 * /alias ;t "/p Hold, something is not right here... it could be a trap."

</tt>

Once he uses the above alias command once, he will be able to simple type ;t at any time to quickly tell the group to stop, because there is a trap.


 * [Party] Tristam Says, "Hold, something is not right here... it could be a trap."

Additionaly we can create custom emotes for our personal use. Take for example someone whom enjoys chuckling more than outright laughing. To make an emote, I would use the follow /alias to set it up.


 * /alias ;chuckle "/em chuckles."

</tt>

Typing ;chuckles others would then see:


 * [Emote]: Kedoch chuckles.

And to round it out, someone else may wish to have an easy way to show her nervousness.


 * /alias ;nerv "/em looks around nervously."

</tt>

Typing ;nerv would then display:


 * [Emote]: Fred looks around nervously.

Built-In Emotes
If you use /laugh alot in game you may wish to have extremely easy access to it at all times. This is no problem using an alias!


 * /alias ;l "/laugh"

</tt>

Once you input this into the chatbox you can simply type ;l</tt> to perform the default in-game /laugh emote.

Super Advanced
So you've got the hang of /alias, now to expand on its uses.

Gagglenash on DDO forums pointed out that the  (paragraph) tag from HTML works in our chat communication as well. Using this we can type text or create alias's using hard returns to seperate lines. /alias ;ahw "This is an advanced Hello World,<P>Hello World!"

Displays as:


 * (Say) Kedoch says, "This is an advanced Hello World,

Hello World!"

If it used two  tags instead of one it would add an additional return and display


 * (Say) Kedoch says, "This is an advanced Hello World,
 * Hello World!"
 * Hello World!"

As we all know DDO has a rather limited capacity to input text, so what happens if you want a really really long string, say a speech or a bard song/poem/ect? All you have to do is link alias's! /alias ;P1 "This is line one of the speech or song," /alias ;P2 "And this is line two who would have guessed." /alias ;P3 "Hello, I'm line three and I'm an DDO addict!" /alias ;P4 "And I'm line four and have no relation to line three"

Now to string it all together! : /alias ;speech ;p1<P>;p2<P>;p3<P>;p4

typing ;speech would display:


 * (Say) Kedoch Says, This is line one of the speech or song,
 * And this is line two who would have guessed.
 * Hello, I'm line three and I'm an DDO addict!
 * And I'm line four and have no relation to line three

Note: You CAN NOT make recursive (repeating) alias's by linking them together in an infinite loop.

Current Limitations
So we have all the fancy things we can do, heres a few things currently not working as intended, not even in existance, or disabled.


 * 1) We cannot use variables, or if we can no one has found the correct terms yet. Therefore %t does not work.
 * 2) We can not create recursive alias's that link to each other in an infinite loop.
 * 3) The ability to "/alias shortcut ;alias shotcutkey" is broken. If it is fixed hotkeys are numbered starting on bar 1 slot 1 as 0-99 (bar 10 slot 10).
 * 4) There is currently no way to write an alias to do anything other than text entry, you cannot execute feats or skills (for those who played coh).

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