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Hi. With the game now available on GOG, I imagine that a lot of people may be trying it and finding the controls rather outdated and difficult to use. I had the same experience a few years ago when I played it for the first time in years, so I made a small Windows utility to improve the mouse controls and make them more like Warcraft II and nearly every other RTS.

Simply run it before starting the game and it'll map some of the game's keyboard commands to your mouse buttons. In a nutshell, it allows you to left click and drag to select units (i.e. without holding Ctrl), right click to attack or harvest (or just move), middle click to repair, use the WASD keys or the mouse wheel to scroll the map and a few more things. If those are features that you wish that the game had, try it out.

The full Readme and download link are available at the following link. Feedback is most welcome. In fact, I might use it to update it, since it's been a while.

https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/954-warcraft-mouse-helper

Edit: I've noticed that dragging and dropping the GOG shortcut onto the Create Shortcut window doesn't create a new shortcut. That's because GOG put the shortcut on the Public desktop, which I didn't account for. To work around it, right click the helper and choose Run as Administrator. I'll fix that in the next version.

Edit #2: It's been brought to my attention that WASD scrolling may stop working after saving a game. That's because it has to be disabled to allow you to use those characters in the save game name, but it may not get properly re-enabled afterward. If that happens to you, press Shift+F11 to re-enable it.
Post edited April 07, 2019 by jnisbet
I wanted to thank you for this before on battlenet, sadly, you posted on the US forums and I have an EU account so couldn't answer, and also wanted to mention that its working great, except when the game is on fullscreen then it doesn't work at all. Is there a workaround for this or its only working on windowed? I'm fine with that its just a bit weird. Great work nonetheless, I hate the old controls.
I wanted to thank you for this utility. I played through Warcraft 1 and 2 at the beginning of the year. This mouse tool was the only way I could bring myself to play Warcraft 1. I haven't tried using it with the GOG version of the game but I would recommend it for anyone who is looking for a more intuitive control scheme for Warcraft 1.
Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. You both made my day.

InertialApple, the utility works in fullscreen if DOSBox is set to certain output modes. Open your .conf file and look for "output=". It should be set to either "overlay" (which the GOG version sets it to), "opengl" or "openglnb". I recommend "openglnb", since it feels a little snappier and "overlay" sometimes causes right clicking to stop working if you switch between fullscreen and windowed modes (also, for that reason, it's best if fullscreen=true is set so that you're not having to switch to fullscreen).

Edit: Oh, I just remembered that v1.1 and earlier of my helper required "output" to be set to one of the opengl modes to work in fullscreen (i.e. "overlay" didn't work). If you're using v1.0 or v1.1, set "output" to "opengl" or "openglnb" or, better yet, download v1.2.

As for the Battle.net forum, I was puzzled that I didn't get any feedback there. At least I know now that people did see my post and found the utility useful even though they didn't (or couldn't, in your case) respond.
Post edited March 31, 2019 by jnisbet
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stubba6998: This mouse tool was the only way I could bring myself to play Warcraft 1.
Same here! The default control scheme is utterly abysmal by modern standards. With this helper it feels much more like playing a modern RTS!

Thanks a million for making this!
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Chubz: Same here! The default control scheme is utterly abysmal by modern standards. With this helper it feels much more like playing a modern RTS!

Thanks a million for making this!
You're most welcome and thanks.

BTW, it may be helpful to some of you to mention that I made a very similar utility for Dune II, which suffers from equally outdated controls. Unlike Warcraft, there are modern recreations of that game that have modern controls, so it's not as vital, but it may help those who simply prefer to play the original version through DOSBox.

https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/955-dune-ii-mouse-helper/
Post edited March 31, 2019 by jnisbet
Yes, now its working well, finally I can play it. :D Thanks for the help.
Holy crap dude how is this utility not being shouted about from on top of mountains or being addressed by world leaders on the news?

I have routinely played this game yearly for almost 25 years and even did a Lets Play of it on my youtube channel half a decade ago and am baffled I am only discovering it now. Blizzard and GOG should hire you to implement this on their product and I tilt my hat to you sir! You have helped breathed new life into a golden classic.

Thank you and well done!

Drewstor
Thank you very much! Really!
This makes it so much easier to play and since I'm on EU battle.net as well, now I can finally thank you for it, too.

I noticed that after saving the game the WASD-scrolling gets disabled but that's nothing that can't be solved quickly (by pressing shift+F11 if someone encounters this as well).
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Roxas1410: I noticed that after saving the game the WASD-scrolling gets disabled but that's nothing that can't be solved quickly (by pressing shift+F11 if someone encounters this as well).
Hmm. WASD scrolling is deliberately disabled when saving a game so that you can use those characters in naming your save, but it's supposed to be re-enabled when you're done saving. I'll look into a solution for that. Thanks for the report.
Post edited April 03, 2019 by jnisbet
Thank you very much for this!
Thanks, but I have a problem.

Everything works fine except that I can not move the warriors with the right or middle mouse button.

The strange thing is that for peasants it seems to work. I can move them and make them harvest.

But for warriors not. When I select a group or even select a single warrior. Middle or right button do nothing.
Hi Jnisbet! Thank you for making this awesome feature. Do you think there is a chance to use it in Mac version of the game?
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darkman242: Thanks, but I have a problem.

Everything works fine except that I can not move the warriors with the right or middle mouse button.

The strange thing is that for peasants it seems to work. I can move them and make them harvest.

But for warriors not. When I select a group or even select a single warrior. Middle or right button do nothing.
That's interesting. I wonder if the commands are different for different languages. What are the keyboard commands to attack and move on your version? To discover them, select a warrior, mouse over the buttons for those commands on the command bar and see which letter is colored yellow in the word that appears along the bottom of the screen.

Edit: Hmm... thinking of this a little more, if middle clicking works for peasants, there's no reason why it shouldn't work for warriors, too, unless the move command is different for peasants and warriors, which I doubt.
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szymonlukasik: Hi Jnisbet! Thank you for making this awesome feature. Do you think there is a chance to use it in Mac version of the game?
Unfortunately, that's not possible, since I'm using AutoHotkey, which is only for Windows. There are scripting engines like that for MacOS, though, so it should be possible for someone to make something similar for Macs. Anyone who wants to try can use my scripts (which can be found in the "src" folder in the zip) as a reference.
Post edited April 11, 2019 by jnisbet