To take a break from all the hub-bub about Wrath and 3.0, I’ve decided it’s time to post a guide about setting up G15 keybindings in WoW. This is something I’ve had several friends ask me about and have been meaning to pen a post about for quite some time and just never seemed to get to it. So, today’s the day! Now, I’m by no means an expert on the subject–I took a very casual approach to setting things up for myself–but I seem to have gotten things working quite well for myself, so hopefully others will benefit from my experience.

If you don’t have a Logitech G15 Keyboard, I would highly recommend getting one. It’s extremely handy to have, and I’ve found it difficult to transition back to normal keyboards (when I’m using my laptop, for example) after having used one. They can be a little daunting at first, and a little tricky to set up, but they’re definitely worth the time (and the money).

Step One: Install the Software

Normally I’m a “plug and play” kinda gal. I rarely bother installing software that comes with any of the products I purchase, but in the case of the G15 Keyboard, I made an exception. So, as soon as you’ve opened the box, be sure to snag the CD that came with it and pop it in your machine.

There are two pieces of software you’ll want to install before plugging in your shiny new keyboard:

1. Logitech GamePanel Manager
2. Logitech G-Series Keyboard Profiler

The first program will enable you to specify various games and programs that will utilize different features of the keyboard. The second program is where you’ll actually start setting up your keybindings.

Once you’ve installed the software, it’s time to plug in your shiny new keyboard and get started!

Step Two: GamePanel Manager

The Manager will detect games on your system that your new keyboard can interact with automatically. There will also be a few other “miscellaneous” pieces of software that it will detect in addition to games that the keyboard can also interact with. WinAmp and Ventrilo are two examples.

To verify which programs the Manager has detected for you, open the Manager and click on the “Programs” tab located on the left side of the window:

When you open the Programs tab, you should see a list of various features the program has enabled for you by default. Among these, you’ll see multiple keyboard applications:

• Logitech LCD Countdown Timer
• Logitech LCD Clock
• Logitech LCD POP3 Monitor
• Logitech Media Display
• Logitech Performance Monitor

To name a few. These are a few of the default abilities of the keyboard itself that are independent of other programs on your system. They use the keyboard’s LCD display to show you different things: a stop watch, your system’s resource useage, email notifications, a clock, and a media interface that monitors your playlists. You can either leave these features enabled, or you can disable any you don’t think you’ll make use of if you’d like to conserve system resources.

Now, the important thing here is to make sure that WoW has been enabled. If the Manager has detected WoW for you, it should show up (enabled by default) in your program list:

Now, WoW is displayed twice for me because I also have the Beta client installed and the Manager sees it as a separate program (which, technically, it is). You’ll notice that the Manager has also detected FRAPS for me.

Anyway, to make sure that your keyboard will interact with WoW, make sure that the “Enable” box is checked next to the program. If you would like the keyboard to display in-game stats and activities on it’s LCD display, make sure that “Logitech G15 LCD” is also checked.

If for some reason WoW does not appear on your program list, restart the Manager. You may need to launch WoW once after installing the Manager to ensure it recognizes the program. It should, however, recognize WoW automatically.

Step Three: Keyboard Profiler

Once you’ve made sure that the Manager recognizes WoW (in addition to any other programs you want your keyboard to interact with), it’s time to do some preliminary keybinding.

Launch the Profiler.

Now, if you play multiple games, you’ll likely find it easier to set different profiles for each game you play.

To start, click on “Profile” then “New…”

Name your new profile (the obvious choice would be “World of Warcraft” or “WoW”), and it’s time to get started!

There are a few different ways to do this, and there really is no “right way” to go about it. I’ll describe how I set things up, and you can decide from there if this method will work for you.

Step Four: Keybindings in the Profiler

The most recent incarnation of the G15 keyboard has one row of six “G” keys (G1-G6) and three “M” keys (M1-M3) which can toggle through three different sets of your G keys. Previous versions of the keyboard have had three rows of six G keys (G1-G18) and three M keys providing much greater flexibility and more options when assigning keybindings. I’m not sure why Logitech decided to make the switch (presumably, they figured all 54 possible keybindings in the original model weren’t used often), but it does bring about it’s own challenges, which I’ll get to in a bit.

M1, G1-G6

Now, think of the M keys as pages, much like the default action bars in WoW. By activating a different M key, you swap to a different “page” or set of G key keybindings.

To define your first set, make sure your “M1″ key is active on your keyboard. The Profiler will display which M key you currently have active in the upper-right corner of the window:

With M1 active, you can now define your first set of G keybindings. For these, I have used key combinations that I know I’ll never use in-game. If you have any multi-key keybindings already defined in-game, avoid these. (For example, if you have Shift+1 keybound to something in game, don’t use Shift+# keybindings here.) The exception to this rule would be if you plan to replace those keybindings with your G keys.

Now, once you’ve determined a system you want to use, it’s time to define your keybindings.

Click on the space next to your G1 key, and select “Assign Keystroke”:

A dialogue box will then pop up, and in it you will enter your desired keybinding. In may case, I have G1 set to Shift+1.

Repeat this process for each of your G keys in M1. You can see I’ve set G1 through G6 to Shift+1 through Shift+6:

M2, G1 – G6

Once your M1 G keys are keybound, you can move onto your M2 set. You’ll set the keybindings for these keys exactly as you did your M1 set. Activate your M2 set by hitting the corresponding button on your keyboard. Within the profiler you’ll see a new, empty “sheet” appear and M2 highlighted in the upper-right corner.

Just as before, click on the space next to each G key and select “Assign Keystroke” to assign your desired keybindings. Keep in mind: your M2 keybindings need to be different from your M1 keybindings, otherwise you’ll just be hitting two different buttons that do exactly the same thing. I set my M2 G1-G6 keys to Alt+1 through Alt+6:

M3, G1-G6

Lastly, you’ll want to keybind your M3 set of G keys. Hit your M3 key on your keyboard, make sure M3 is highlighted in the upper-right corner of the Profiler, and Assign Keystrokes to your G keys just as you did before. Again, remember to make sure that this set doesn’t use the same key combinations as your previous two sets.

You’re almost done!

Step Five: Keybindings in WoW

Now that you’ve defined your keybindings in the Profiler, it’s time to log into WoW and set up your keybindings there!

Depending on whether or not you use WoW’s default action bars or an AddOn to manage your keybindings will determine how you define your G key keybindings. What you define is what we’re going to cover here.

So, once you’ve logged into the game, open up your action bar keybinding interface. Find the first button you want to assign a G key to. Hover over the button (or select it, depending on what interface enhancements you’re using, if any), and hit your G1 key.

You’ll see the text on the button change to “S1″ for “Shift+1″ (or whatever combination of keys you set M1G1to, like A1 for “Alt+1″ etc). You’ll repeat this process for each of the G keys you defined in the Profiler, swapping through your M pages just as you did before.

To help me keep track of which buttons I’ve assigned to G keys and which buttons I haven’t, I set up a separate set of action bars on my screen. Now, I do have all of my keybindings memorized, but on the rare occassions I move buttons around or move things around on my screen, it’s nice to be able to tell at a quick glance which abilities are set to G keys, and which M set they’re attached to:

The first row corresponds to my set of M1 keys, which you’ll recall I set to Shift+1 through Shift+6, and you can see the “S1″, “S2″, etc text on the buttons. The second row corresponds to my M2 set, set to Alt+1 through Alt+6. I also always make sure that my G keys are always set to a combination of X+1 through X+6. The reason for this is so that the text displayed on the actual buttons in game end in 1-6, just like the G keys, so it’s harder for me to get “lost” since WoW won’t display “G” for the G keys. (Unless of course you set your keybindings to G+1! But that will only work for one set.)

Understanding Keybindings

WoW doesn’t actually recognize the G keys themselves, which is why we needed to define keystrokes in the Profiler first. WoW has no idea what G keys are all about. But the Profiler does! With the Profiler running in the background, any time you hit your M1G1 key, it tells WoW “The user just hit Shift+1″ (or whatever you set your G keys to). So, when you hit your M1G1 key in game to define the keybinding, WoW actually thinks you hit Shift+1, and defines the keybinding as such.

This basically means that the Profiler works as a translator between you and WoW. You hit your M1G1 key, the Profiler reads that, and then translates it into keystrokes that WoW can understand, like Shift+1.

Keybinding Pagination

The one drawback I’ve found to the G15 keyboard is that you have to swap “pages” to move from one set of G keys to the next. The previous version of the G15 keyboard had the same problem, but it wasn’t as pronounced because each “page” had three times as many keys assigned to it.

Basically, this means you only have access to six of your 18 keybindings at a time. To access a different set, you first have to hit the corresponding M key to access the appropriate “page”.

This can be a pain in the butt when you’re dealing with situations that require lightning-fast reflexes (such as PvP). I’ve found a slight work-around for this problem, but I maintain that it shouldn’t be a problem in the first place! I would much rather have back the three rows of six buttons per M from the original G15 keyboard and not use two Ms than use all three Ms on this version and have to swap between them.

Anyway.

What I’ve done is I’ve set my M sets to actions or abilities that I use commonly together. What I mean by that is, typically, I’ll have a set of six abilities that I use only for PvP, and set that to one M page. I’ll have another set of six abilities that I use while raiding, and set that to another M set. I’ll have another set of six abilities (usually consumables) that I’ll set to the third M set.

Basically, I arrange my buttons so that, depending on what I’m doing, I can activate one M set and not have to swap to another to continue doing what I’m doing. I’ve tried to think of abilities that I don’t want on my main action bar (keys 1 through = ) but that I use frequently together in certain settings, and I group those together.

For example, for my Priest’s keybindings, I put all her buffs (personal and group) on one M set, I put all her DPS abilities on another M set, and so on.

Despite this rather pronounced drawback, I still love the G15 keyboard. While I don’t use the LCD display as much as I could, it’s still a nice feature that I do use under certain circumstances. For example, I usually have two LCD monitors hooked up to my video card, but on the rare occassion that I dont, it’s nice to be able to see who’s speaking on Vent via my keyboard’s LCD display. Also, it’s nice to be able to swap through songs on my WinAmp playlist without having to Alt-Tab out.

The G15 also has a neat PvP feature where it will keep track of your Battleground queues, as well as your BG statistics like Killing Blows, Deaths and Honorable Kills (among other things). I would say this particular feature is the one I use the most.

Anyway, if you haven’t got a G15 yet–get one! If you’ve already got one, I hope you’ve found this helpful for getting your keybindings set up.