IL-2 ChatBox, version 1 by JG27_PapaFly

Beta-testers:
	JG27_Gosho
	JG27_MC

User guide:
	Place the contents of the zip file into a folder of your choice, but NOT on th desktop.
	
	The ChatBox only works if you run IL-2 in windowed mode. I recommend running the game in full-size windowed mode.

	Start the ChatBox .exe file either before or after you start IL-2. The application will wait for IL-2 to become the active window, and will auto-scale it's own window and font size depending on the size of the IL-2 window.

	While active, the ChatBox intercepts your key presses and stores them in a text variable, although IL-2 remains the active window. Because the app diverts key input from the active window (IL-2) to it's own text variable, this will most likely trigger a warning or a blacklisting by your antivirus or firewall application.
	If this happens, you can select the app e.g. in your firewall settings and change it's status to that of a trustworthy app.

	While in-game, press Numpad Multiply to open the ChatBox. While the ChatBox is open, your key presses will go to the ChatBox, but IL-2 will remain the active window.
	You can pause the text entry by pressing Numpad Minus. The contents of the ChatBox are then stored and the box is hidden. You can continue to type after pressing Numpad Multiply again.
	To delete the present text, press Esc while the chatbox is visible. When pressing Numpad Multiply next time, you'll start with an empty ChatBox.

	To send the text, press Enter (sends to all and hides the chatbox), or Ctrl+Enter (sends to friendlies and hides the chatbox)
	
	Press Ctrl+Numpad Minus to toggle the help screen

	Press Ctrl+Numpad Multiply to restart the ChatBox
	
	Press Alt+Esc to kill the ChatBox application

	Automated messages:
		Double-tap the Numpad Multiply to send an automated warning message to your allies
		Double-tap the Numpad Minus key to open a call for help. You only have to enter your position and press Ctrl+Enter to send.

	Following hotkeys are available while the ChatBox is visible:
		Numpad Minus - pauses and hides the ChatBox 
		Escape - deletes the text currently present in the ChatBox and hides the ChatBox 

	The app does not intercept all keypresses. All keys which do not produce a character will continue to work in-game while the ChatBox is active. This includes e.g. the F1-F12, printscreen, arrow keys, as well as combinations of character-producing keys and Alt, Ctrl, or Win modifier keys

	User-definable settings
		The app stores following settings in the ChatBox.ini file when starting the first time. Feel free to change these settings. You have to re-start the app after changing settings. If you want all settings to be set back to default, just delete the ChatBox.ini file and restart the ChatBox app.
			Initiation window timer: this paramerter defines how many milliseconds the ChatBox initiation window (splash screen) will be visible. Default setting: 5000
			If you experience issues when the ChatBox transfers the text to the in-game chat, you can adjust following parameters. The optimal settings depend on how fast your PC ist.
				Interval when opening the in-game chat: defines how many milliseconds the ChatBox app will wait for the in-game chat window to open. If the text you typed is truncated at the beginning, you should increase this interval. Default setting: 500
				Interval between characters: The ChatBox app transfers your text character by character to the in-game chat window. This parameter defines how many milliseconds the ChatBox app will wait between characters. Default setting: 10
				Interval when closing the in-game chat: Defines how many milliseconds the ChatBox will wait between transferring your text to the in-game chat and closing the in-game chat window. Increase this parameter if the in-game chat window does not close properly after your text has been transferred. Default setting: 200
			Some players use Enter to open their in-game chat. My game copy uses Numpad Divide for that function, which I cannot remap. Should you use Enter on your game copy, you can change the Hotkey setting in the ChatBox.ini file.

	If the ChatBox window is visible and you Alt-Tab out of the game, all input from your character-producing keys will still be captured by the ChatBox. In addition, the ChatBox hotkeys will not work until IL-2 becomes the active window again. 
	Since the ChatBox never has an active window of it's own, It's hotkeys are only active when IL-2 is the active window.

	One word of caution
		While you type into the ChatBox, a character might escape the ChatBox and will fall through to IL-2. Such events are likely to happen if you spam a character-producing key (produce a series of characters by keeping the key pressed)
		Depending on which, if any, in-game commands you have mapped to the escaped character, unpleasant things might happen, e.g. your gear might retract while you sit on the runway.
		In order to completely avoid that, try to map in-game commands which have the potential to ruin your sortie to keys or key combinations which do not produce characters (e.g. Ctrl, Alt, and Win modifiers work perfectly in combination with character-producing keys).

The application has been tested on a very limited set of PCs. Therefore, some further optimization might be needed in order to make it run smoothly on a wide range of machines. Kindly forward your questions, constructive feedback, and ideas for further improvement to me.

Enjoy!
JG27_PapaFly