assign emotes to a key

instead of typing "/dance" in the chat window, is there a way to assign this to a single key?

i would like to be able to press a single key and have my character dance (or taunt or whatever). can this be done?

I'm thinking no or someone would've already done it.

It would be a boon for slow typers trying to beat the mime.

You get plenty of time to beat the mime though....

I'm talking about slooooooooooow typers that have no idea where any of the keys are. I know someone that tried about 30 times before he learned the keyboard well enough to beat the mime.

other than those on the guild wars zboard, I don't believe there is any other way to do the emotes without first typing them in the chat line.

Yes, you can. You can use third-party software to assign macros to a single keystroke. Or, you can use specialized keyboards that do this. Macros are somewhat of a gray area for the EULA. It's not worth risking your account or infecting your computer with viruses, trojans, spyware, keyloggers, etc. in my opinion, but it can be done.

Many fancy "gamer" keyboards come with macro software to do just that sort of thing. I don't think it's against the EULA to use macros to do emotes. (It may be against the EULA to do some other things though.)