GCW Help

Game Controller Wedge Description

By Jim Luther
https://github.com/jamjolu/Game-Controller-Wedge



Please keep all the materials in the GCW folder together - if you don’t, you will experience a ton of error messages!

Table of Contents:

1. GCW /windows- an overview

2. More about the GCW windows

3. What if I have 2 controllers?

4. Anatomy of a macro

5. More macro examples

6. GCW Special Commands

7. Combining macros and commands

8. Limitations/Contact

9. Where can I get a 12 button gamepad?

10. How can I get GCW?

GCW Windows:

This is the main GCW window where you define your macros, or issue commands.



GCW supports up to 12 macros you define which are triggered by joystick or gamepad buttons 1 through 12.



This smaller Test Joy Buttons window lets you test your macros/commands without a game controller. This window, when open, sits on top of other windows.


Use the Game Controller Control Panel in Windows to see how your game controller buttons are mapped. (Click the Properties button.)

A screen capture of the main pop-up for the Windows Game Controller Control Panel and an image of the Properties pop-up associated with the Game Controller control panel in Windows

You can see those details and test your buttons in the Properties view.

Why use game controller buttons to launch macros?

Because game controller buttons are unlikely to cause things to happen in typical Windows applications - other than games.

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More about the GCW Windows

The DPad Mode checkbox permits users to additionally employ the D-Pad on a game controller to activate macros 9, 10, 11 and 12 as: Up, Right, Down and Left on the DPad respectively. This allows game controllers with fewer than 12 buttons to have more macro activation options. The “POV hat” as it is shown in the Windows Game Controllers control panel is mapped to the D-pad on some game controllers.  On other gamepads, you may need to activate a special mode to get it to work with GCW. The DPad status is shown in the “Test Joy Buttons” window where:

GCW responds only to Up, Right, Down and Left. button presses on the DPad. Buttons 9, 10, 11 and 12 remain active regardless of DPad Mode.
If you make a change to your DPad Mode setting and you want the change to persist between sessions, make sure to press Save Profile.

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And now there are 2 GCWs: one for Controller 1, and one for Controller 2

Controller 1’s settings and test buttons are in blue windows as shown here, Controller 2 windows in yellow

Launch GCW.exe or GCW.ahk for Controller 1

Launch GCW2.exe or GCW2.ahk for Controller 2

The exe versions, GCW.exe and GCW2.exe, have blue and yellow icons respectively.

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Anatomy of a Macro

GCW  uses AutoHotkey and requires that you adhere to the AutoHotkey conventions for the Send command (at AHK site)


An Example:  ^p{enter}

This example opens the print dialog using the Ctrl-p key combo in many programs, followed by the Enter key which is a special character. You can also use {return} for the Enter key

Pressing and holding the Control key for the key that follows is denoted by the ^ character. Keys like Alt, Shift, Ctrl and the Windows key are referred to as modifier keys.

Special characters like tab, space (at the end or beginning of a macro), or backspace all need to be enclosed in braces as in: {left} for left arrow. Or, {F11} for the F11 key. See more about including special characters in your macros here at the AHK site.


Here is the list of modifier keys: (More about modifier keys here at the AHK site)


          # = Windows key

          ! = Alt                

          ^ = Control         

+ = Shift  


You can combine modifiers as in: ^!{down} which reads as Ctrl-Alt-(down arrow). This combo may turn your display upside down on some Windows computers! ^!{up} can restore your display.

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More macro examples

A name and address fill in: Fred{tab}Flintstone{tab}345 Cave Stone Rd.{tab}Bedrock{tab}NY{tab}12345{enter}


You can press a special character key multiple times by adding a number to the special character: {tab 3} (3 tabs).


Use the insert key to create around a 3 second delay: Now{ins 150} Later (There is also a {SLEEP} command covered in the next section.)

GCW sends keys faster than you can type, so delays may help a program to catch up to your macro.


You can click at particular screen coordinates: {click 150, 600}

You can do other {click… commands} as well as seen at the AHK site.

To help you to determine your cursor position, GCW has a built-in hotkey sequence: Alt-m opens a tooltip note with the coordinates. The coordinates are also copied to the clipboard. Use Ctrl-Alt-m to hide the tooltip note.

Raise the volume a little bit: {volume_up}

Select the browser back button: {browser_back}

Again, there is much more about what you can send can be found here at the AHK site

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Special Commands

In addition to the standard AHK special characters, GCW offers its own special commands.

Aliased AutoHotkey Commands:

GCW Commands for listing existing profiles and windows:

GCW Commands for Profile and Windows Navigation:

{GP} - Load a named profile where the exact profile name appears directly after the {GP} command. For example, {GP}Game Controller Wedge will load the default profile. You could use this command to make a table of contents profile that links to other profiles.

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Combining Commands and Macro Strings!

You can combine special commands and macro strings in any of the 12 macro slots by separating the commands and/or macros with the pipe character: |
Commands and macro strings can be combined in any order, and you can include as many as you want (I really don’t know for sure what the limit is.) The actions will be carried out in left to right order, triggered by a single button press.

For example:

{S}|{R}Calc|{SLEEP}1000|{AW}Calc|55{+}66{enter}

You can interpret this combo macro example as:
First, it prevents other macros from interfering with this one. Then it opens the Calculator app, waits 1 second, makes sure the calculator window is active, and finally it requests the result of 55 + 66.

Note that the + sign has to be enclosed in braces because it is also a special modifier character.

Add a comment to your macro! - You could combine macros as in: ^w|{--Close browser tab} This macro closes the current browser tab and is followed by a pseudo command that acts as a comment. In this case, pseudo command is ignored because it is not a known special command, special character, or special modifier. The double minus sign is not used in special commands and acts as a visual cue.

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Limitations / Contact

GCW and AutoHotkey can emulate keyboard and mouse actions and send them to most active windows, or the Windows operating system. But there are applications that it will not be able to interact with at all, or not very well.

In particular, in Windows 11 the new Notepad behaves really weirdly. If you send text to it from GCW or other AutoHotKey scripts, it frequently misses some of the sent characters. This is a quirk in Notepad I believe is related to the AI functions it now offers. I believe the AI function periodically interrupts the stream of inputs from AutoHotKey to Notepad. You can always download any one of the many Notepad alternatives to test your GCW macros.

Also, I was unable to use the {click} command to reactivate Voice Access in Windows 11 in “Microphone off” mode. Nor would GCW respond at all while Voice Access was “Listening”. It seems that Voice Access will totally preempt GCW (and AutoHotKey). You can find out more at this AutoHotKey community post if you are having issues controlling or sending something to a window with GCW.

You can contact me at:

j a m j o l u @ g m a i l . c o m

(remove the spaces) and I will attempt to suggest a solution or workaround. I also welcome comments or suggestions.

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Where can I get a gamepad with 12 buttons or 12 - 3.5mm inputs?

Amazon prices change all the time, so consider the above prices as approximate.

I have to admit that I have not tried any of them.

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How can I get GCW?

Go to the Github page: https://github.com/jamjolu/Game-Controller-Wedge
Click the green “Code” button.
Click the “Download ZIP” option
Once downloaded, extract the zip file (right-click and choose “Extract all”.)
Look inside the folder “Game Controller Wedge-main”.
Copy the inner folder “Game Controller Wedge-main” and paste it wherever you like.
Inside the inner Game Controller Wedge-main folder you will find everything needed to run GCW. GCW does not require installation. Inside the folder you will find both executable applications: GCW.exe and GCW2.exe. If you double-click either of them you will likely see:



To be safe you can use your virus protection software to scan the contents of Game Controller Wedge-main to reassure yourself that it is OK to run the executable. Then click the “More info” link, followed by clicking the "Run anyway” button.

-OR- for no worries--

Download AutoHotkey V1.1 installer from https://www.autohotkey.com/
Once downloaded, open the installer. Then choose the Express installation.
After that, you can double-click either of the GCW.ahk or GCW2.ahk files to use GCW and not get the worrisome Windows warning.

Always keep everything in the Game Controller Wedge-main folder together.

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