If anyone is interested I made myself a little tool to automate the downloading and liking process a bit.
This is only for downloading and liking stuff of other users, it is not intended for creating stuff!You need:
1. xCloud (it is NOT intended for the PC version of the game, although something similar could very likely be created)
2. AutoHotKey (a free, popular and safe Windows tool)
3. Keyboard & Mouse for Xbox xCloud plugin for Chrome (available for other browsers too but I only tested it in Chrome!)
4. My AutoHotKey (AHK) script and the config for Chrome plugin, both available in a zip file here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16rU-kApXQKlMISY6JqQTjg72n5V...What you need to do:
1. Obviously get and install AutoHotKey (GIYF)
2. Install the Chrome plugin (GIYF)
3. Load my config FH5Creative.json into the plugin (add new preset and import file) and make it the active one (click the "Use" button on the bottom right of the config window)
4. Run my script by double clicking the .ahk file
Side note: I have a German keyboard here, so for manual usage of the xCloud keyboard plugin it is set to "Z" for the Y button, that is because the Y and Z characters are swapped on the German keyboard. You might want to change that to Y on an English keyboard if you want to have the Y button when pressing Y.
To make sure there are no issues arising from this I set "I" as secondary key for the Y button and the script only uses the "I" character, never the Y or Z character, so make sure you do NOT remove the "I" key binding for the Y button.
Keys for manual usage (Button -> Key):
A -> Space
B -> B and Backspace
X -> X
Y -> I and Y/Z
Menu -> Enter (make sure you do NOT press enter when you want to confirm something with the A button, I have done that 100 times by now by mistake...)
Select -> Tab
DPAD = Cursor Keys
Left Thumbstick (Steering) = WASD
LB = C
RB = V
LTrigger = N
RTrigger = M
The script uses A/Space, B/B, X/X, Y/I, DPAD/Cursor, RB/V, so make sure you do NOT change any of those should you want to change the mapping.
Now for the important part:
1. Start FH5 via xCloud and make sure it is the active tab in your browser
2. Start the .ahk script which will show you a window with 7 buttons and an input field
3. Make sure you follow JakeLeeUK's guide as the script is based on that!
4. Decide what you want to do, tunes, vinyls or liveries
5. Enter the number of tunes/vinyls/liveries to download/like in the input box
6. Make sure you are "in the right place" in the FH5 menu (I will give details below)
7. Click the corresponding button, which will automatically make your Chrome window where you have FH5 running the active window (the Window title should start with "Forza Horizon 5")
8. The tool will now automatically download/like the number of tunes/liveries/vinyls you have set it to
9. Progress will be shown at the bottom part of the window (it makes sense to have the .ahk window next to the Chrome window when clicking the button, not on top of it, as in the latter case the Chrome window will cover the .ahk window when clicking and you will not see the progress)
So what is the "right place" for each button:
* Tune Favorite: You should be in "Find tuning setups" and have searched for the gamertag of the user whose tunes you want to download/like and have the FIRST tune selected (previously you should have switched your current car to the car that the tunes are made for)
* Tune Download: You should NOT be INSIDE "Find tuning setups” but OUTSIDE with the "Find tuning setups” button selected (and you MUST have done the "Tune Favorite" step before that as the script will rely on favorites being there)
* Tune Like: You should be inside "My tuning setups" with the first setup selected (and obviously the "Tune Download" step should be done before that)
* Livery Download: You should be inside the "Liveries" in the creative hub of the user whose liveries you want to download with the TOP LEFT livery being selected
* Livery Like: You should be in "My designs" with the TOP LEFT livery being selected (and make sure that your current car is NOT among any of the liveries you are about to like)
* Vinyl Download: You should be inside the "Vinyl groups" in the creative hub of the user whose vinyls you want to download with the TOP LEFT vinyl being selected
* Vinyl Like: You should be in "My vinyl groups" with the TOP LEFT vinyl being selected
For all "Like" operations I strongly recommend using a bit lower number of likes than you actually want to like to make sure not to "overshoot" the target as the like operations will delete tunes/liveries/vinyls and if your number is too high you will start deleting your own designs!
I also STRONGLY recommend supervising the script while it is running, especially the "Like" operations. Due to the deletions they are the most critical ones and also the ones I had the most issues with when testing.
Especially the "Tune like" is super annoying as the A button seems to stop working after every 10 likes for god knows what reason (I suspect PG did this deliberately). To work around this the "Tune like" script will automatically quit out of the "My tuning setups" menu every 10 likes and re-enter it automatically.
Generally: do NOT expect this to work 100% reliably all the time. It most likely WILL screw up at some point.
However except for the "Like" operations not much harm can be done and thankfully the "Like" process is a quick one, so you can don't need to spend too much time on strict supervision.
Especially the "Download" operations will probably save you lots of nerves and time and should work pretty reliably and can probably be left running unsupervised.
If anything goes wrong while a script is running then just close the .ahk window.
Let me know what you think and if you're testing it obviously I'd appreciate it if you could use it on my tunes/liveries/vinyls ;-)