Steamworks Documentation
Legacy Mode Bindings
"Legacy mode" bindings are always available for any game. Even games that support native Steam Input actions still allow the player to mix in legacy mode bindings in the configurator.

Through legacy mode, you can rebind any input on your controller to any emulated system input -- mouse, keyboard, or gamepad (ie, XInput events).

The legacy mode binding screen looks like this:

legacy_mode.png

To apply an emulated input, simply click on the appropriate input.

Mouse

Available bindings include left, middle, and right mouse buttons, mousewheel up, mousewheel down, and two auxiliary mouse buttons (4 and 5).

Keyboard

Available bindings are all the keys on a standard keyboard. Note that the inputs here are sent by scancode, so although the display here is a standard USA English keyboard, the input that is actually sent depends on your system language/keyboard layout. So inputs like "WASD" on the configurator layout will actually map to whatever keys are in the corresponding positions in your system layout.

Non-standard keyboard layouts

There are some known issues with this if you are using a layout other than the default one for your language -- e.g. Dvorak or Colemak for English. There can also be issues if the default layout for your language doesn't match what we expect (there are some known issues where the Polish one doesn't match the layout most games expect). In this case you must either fix the keyboard bindings in game, or in the configuration.

Gamepad

All the typical gamepad buttons in the XInput standard (those that typically appear on an Xbox 360 / Xbox One controller) are available here.

Special inputs


In addition to emulating mouse, keyboard, and gamepad input, there are also a row of special bindings at the top:

legacy_mode_2.png

Change Action Set/Layer


legacy_action_set.png

This lets you activate Action Sets or Action Set Layers that you have defined yourself. This is useful for games that have various different "modes" that you might want different control bindings for, such as "walking" vs "driving" vs "flying", etc.

Show Virtual Keyboard


legacy_show_keyboard.png

This brings up the on-screen virtual keyboard via the Steam overlay.

Take Screenshot


legacy_screenshot.png

This takes a screenshot.

Select Cursor Position


legacy_select_cursor_position.png

This lets you generate a mouse click on a specific screen position as its own binding. For instance, if you need to click a particular button on a game's GUI that doesn't have an exposed hotkey of any sort. This is particularly useful in games like Papers, Please and Hearthstone -- check out this player's video as an example.

Warning

Although Steam Input re-scales the mouse position proportionally with resolution, many games do not apply consistent proportional scaling to their GUI elements. This means that a cursor position binding that works in one resolution on a given game might not work in a different resolution because all the elements have moved around in unexpected ways.

Toggle Magnifier


legacy_magnification.png

This toggles the operating system's magnification tool, zooming in on the current mouse position.

Currently the only operating systems that support the magnifier are Windows and Steam OS.

Power/System Options


legacy_power.png

This lets you issue various system commands.

Options include:

  • TURN OFF CONTROLLER
  • OPEN BIG PICTURE
  • MINIMIZE BIG PICTURE
  • QUIT BIG PICTURE
  • SUSPEND HOST PC
  • SHUTDOWN HOST PC
  • RESTART HOST PC

Set Light Options


legacy_light.png

This lets you control how the controller's LED functions (if it has one). Only PS4 Controllers support colored light options.

  • Default User Setting
    No change to how the light functions
  • Default XInput Slot Number Setting
    Slots 1-4 are colored red, blue, green, and purple, respectively.
  • Custom Setting
    • Controller Light Color
      Change the color of the light
    • Controller Light Saturation
      Change the intensity of the light

Music


legacy_music.png

This lets you control music playback from your Steam music player.

Options include:
  • STEAM MUSIC PLAY/PAUSE
  • STEAM MUSIC NEXT
  • STEAM MUSIC PREVIOUS
  • STEAM MUSIC VOLUME UP
  • STEAM MUSIC VOLUME DOWN
  • STEAM MUSIC MUTE

Empty


legacy_empty.png

This does nothing, and is used for clearing out a previously selected special action.