Aliases and Quickslot Shortcuts

This page is about using aliases and quickslot shortcuts. For the reference guide to the /alias command, see Alias. 

Aliases

The alias command consists of two parts, the ID and the TEXT. The ID always starts with a ; character.

The general structure of the command is:

/alias ;ID TEXT

An example

Type into the chat input field:

/alias ;x Hello World 

Now type in

;x

The result is displayed in the chat window as though it was entered on a /say command:

 [Say]Bob says: 'Hello World'

As usual, anything you /say will be displayed in the chat window of all nearby players. Please be considerate to others while working through these examples by finding an isolated location.

Multiple aliases may be strung together:

/alias ;h Hello
/alias ;w World
/alias ;hw ;h ;w

;hw

[Say]Bob says: 'Hello World'

See post 'Simple Examples' further below for more on this

If one of the under-alias is changed, the result of using top-alias is also altered:

/alias ;w Walter

Now

;hw

[Say]Bob says: 'Hello Walter'

Emotes and aliases

A single command or emote may be incorporated into an alias at the beginning of the TEXT. Any command not in the beginning will be rendered as plain text. Text following an emote will, as usual, replace the standard emote message.

/alias ;f /flirt

;f

Other player Sue is targeted

Bob flirts with Sue

/alias ;joey says: How u' doin'?
/alias ;fj ;f ;joey

;fj

Performs flirt emote Bob 
says: How u' doin'?

Sue is not mentioned as she would be in the standard emote

/alias ;fd /flirt Lets dance /dance

;fd

Bob Lets dance /dance

Performs flirt emote but displays '/dance' as part of the message in chat

Chat and aliases

You can use aliases to send /tells to a specific person:

/alias ;ts /t Sue

;ts Hi!

[Tell]Bob tells Sue: 'Hi!'

It is possible to create /alias that automatically sends to a specified channel, while the chat input will remain in the current channel

/alias ;b /k Can't answer, busy at the moment!

While Fellowship is the active channel:

;b

[Kinship]Bob says: Can't answer, busy at the moment!

The active channel is still Fellowship.

Commands and aliases

You can use other /commands than emotes too:

;iSue

/alias ;i /invite

Waiting for player to accept or decline invitation

;fa Sue

/alias ;fa /friend add

Sue has been added to your list of friends

For e.g. /friend, /follow and /invite the name must be added manually or incorporated into the TEXT part of the alias. It might be possible to get around this by creating aliases with ;target in the TEXT, this does not work atm, if anyone can shed some light on this please post.

Managing aliases

List all aliases in standard text window:

/alias list

Delete all aliases

/alias clear

Remove a specified alias ;x

/alias remove ;x

Shortcuts

The shortcut command consists of two parts, the location, LOC, and the TEXT. The general structure of the command is:

/shortcut LOC TEXT

LOC is a number between 1 and 72 corresponding to a quickslot:

Quickslot Bar LOC

Main bar ___________________1 - 12

bar 1 (Ctrl by default)________13 - 24

bar 2 (Alt by default)_________25 - 36

bar 3 (Shift by default)_______37 - 48

bar 4 _____________________49 - 60

bar 5 _____________________61 - 72

The shortcut slots may be moved around between slots and bars just like skills and equipment. Just assign it to a free slot (e.g. 8) and then move it.

Just as with aliases a single /command may be placed at the beginning of the TEXT. The TEXT may be one or more aliases.

/shortcut 25 /mood_apprehensive
/shortcut 26 /flirt nods and ;joey
/shortcut 27 /tell MinstrelMax Heal plz!
/shortcut 28 ;b

Press keys:

Alt+1

Bob is apprehensive of Sue

Press keys:

Alt+2

Bob nods and says: How u' doin'?

Press keys:

Alt+3

[Tell]Bob tells MinstrelMax: 'Heal plz!'

Press keys:

Alt+4

[Kinship]Bob says: Can't answer, busy at the moment!

/shortcut are static, meaning they will remain as whatever they were when created. To shortcut aliases that change like the built in NSWE coordinate alias ;loc or the ;hw in the beginning of this thread you use an alias function:

/alias shortcut ;ID LOC
/alias shortcut ;loc 13

Press keys:

Ctrl+1

12.3N, 45.6W

In this command there is no / in front of shortcut.

Unfortunately there is currently no way to make a shortcut apply to a target since there is no inbuilt ;target alias.

Hopefully you can use this to make it a little easier to roleplay or to communicate quickly. Shorten that mouthful Lairelithoniel to ;l And you no longer have any excuse for writing heal plz, when ;h, could do it.

Simple Examples

Sue plays an elf and wants to use some sindarin phrases, e.g. Hello.

She defines an alias:

/alias ;hi Mae govannen

When she enters:

;hi

We see:

[Say]Sue says 'Mae govannen'

Sue has chosen a sindarin name, Lairelithoniel, for her elf alt. Unfortunately that is a very long and tricky name to remember and spell.

/alias ;l Lairelithoniel

When she enters:

I am ;l of Lothlorien

We see:

[Say]Sue says 'I am Lairelithoniel of Lothlorien'

See, we can use aliases within sentences!

Bob's hobbit, named Bobbit, is fierce! He likes to /roar at his enemies, so he defines an alias:

/alias ;r /roar

When he enters:

;r

We see:

Bobbit performs the roar emote animation
Bobbit ROARS at Sue

Sue defines and execute an alias:

;ss

We see:

Sue performs a swordsalute animation
Sue readies her sword and says En garde!

How did Sue get such a good custom message with her emote? All will be revealed below.

Bob is tired of using the Social panel to find Sue in order to invite her to his fellowship and /invite is to long. He defines an alias:

/alias ;i /invite

When he enters:

;i Sue

He sees:

Waiting for player to accept or decline invitation
Sue has joined your fellowship

Yay!

Bob sends alot of /tells to Sue's alt Lairelithoniel but doesn't use the IM chat, he shortens it by defining an alias:

/alias ;tl /t Lairelithoniel

When he enters:

;tl Hi!

They see:

[Tell]Bob tells Lairelithoniel 'Hi!'

Sue responds:

[Tell]Lairelithoniel tells Bob 'Mae govannen'

Combining emotes with your own text: Bob wants to throw a snappy salute when an Officer gives an order:

/alias ;s /salute

When he enters:

;s

We see:

Bob performs the salute animation
Bob salutes Officer

He can define an snappy salute alias:

/alias ;ss ;s snaps a salute and shouts "Yes Sir!"

When he enters:

;ss

We see:

Bob performs salute animation
Bob snaps a salute and shouts "Yes Sir!"

Notice how I included 'snaps a salute and shouts', this is because a change overwrites the standard emote message. Just remember to include 'say' or whatever action you are performing before the spoken words.

Multiple aliases

/alias ;mp My preciousss....
/alias ;tb Thief! Baggins!
/alias ;sf /shakefist

;mp ;tb He stole ;mp ;sf

[Say]Gollum says: My preciousss.... Thief! Baggins! He stole My preciousss.... /shakefist

Notice how '/shakefist' becomes text instead of Gollum performing an emote, that is because any /command including emotes has to be at the front. Lets try again:

;sf ;tb

Gollum performs shakefist emote
Gollum Thief! Baggins!

That sentence lacked any verb, that is because we traded the standard message for our own. You need to bind such things together yourself.

;sf shouts: ;tb

Gollum performs shakefist emote
Gollum shouts: Thief! Baggins!

We then combine the different aliases into one:

/alias ;rant ;sf shouts ;tb and wails Oh ;mp ;mp

;rant

Gollum performs shakefist emote
Gollum shouts: Thief! Baggins! and wails Oh My preciousss.... My preciousss....

Finally we decide to lock our little rant to a quickslot. How about shift+1

/shortcut 37 ;rant

Shortcut examples

Hate turning around to look what time it is? Define an alias:

/shortcut 8 /localtime

Press key:

8

See the result:

Localtime is 12:57 am

Hate to manually invite a certain person (or alt) or follow:

/shortcut 1 /invite <insert character name>

this is used to invite a certain person with the 1 key If you change it to this:

/shortcut 1 /follow

You can then follow your selected target by pressing 1

Advanced Example

Top/under aliases

I refer to aliases that are constructed of other aliases as top-aliases and the building blocks as under-aliases. Just above, ;rant was a top-alias and ;mp was a under-alias. As seen in the first post, changing a under-alias changes the result of the top-alias. This gives us some power.

We can create aliases where we know that one part will be different.

/alias ;hx /bow says: Hello ;x

Set the target name in an under-alias

/alias ;x Sue

Try our top-alias

;hx

And see

Bob performs the bow animation 
Bob says: Hello Sue

Change the target name under-alias

/alias ;x Max

Try again

;hx

and see

Bob performs the bow animation
Bob says: Hello Max

This is the way to easily get e.g. a name into your custom message. But typing the alias command each time is a lot of work, lets us the ability to alias a command, we'll alias /alias itself:

/alias ;n /alias ;x

THIS MIGHT NOT WORK

The alias ;x is our variable, it is set by typing:

;n "What x should be"

Now we will use the under-alias ;x in the middle of a longer sentence

/alias ;hx /bow says: Hello ;x How are you doing?

Try out our top-alias

;hx

With the result:

Bob performs the bow animation 
Bob says: Hello "What x should be" How are you doing?

Oops! Lets change it.

;n Sue

or for Sue's alt Lairelithoniel

;n ;l

Try the top-alias again:

;hx

And see:

Bob performs the bow animation
Bob says: Hello Lairelithoniel How are you doing?

Now, there is a problem when a top-alias is shortcutted using /shortcut The output from the quickslot stays the same even though the under-alias is changed. This is when the alias sub-function shortcut comes in handy. We know already that it follows the pattern

/alias shortcut ;ID LOC

It's simple, just remember that now the key, LOC, comes last and that there is no / infront of shortcut

/alias shortcut ;hx 13

Press the key:

ctrl+1

And see:

Bob performs the bow animation
Bob says: Hello Lairelithoniel How are you doing?

Change the name:

;n Sue

Press the key:

ctrl+1

And see:

Bob performs the bow animation
Bob says: Hello Sue How are you doing?