Posted May 21, 2025
I recently purchased the WinWing URSA MINOR Airline Joystick to replace my old worn out Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro Joystick which is a HUGE upgrade in quality. I bought it primarily to play older legacy games such as Wing Commander.
But much to my surprise, the WinWing Airline joystick trigger and missile buttons on the joystick grip are buttons 21 and 22 instead of buttons 1 and 2. As far as I can tell, there is no way to tell these older games to use buttons 21 and 22 instead of buttons 1 and 2. Wing Commander does see buttons 1 and 2 on the Airline joystick, but those buttons are on the base and not on the grip.
This is unlike other multibutton joysticks such as Logitech 3D pro which keeps the legacy button assignment for buttons 1 and 2.
Is there a way for buttons 21 and 22 to be renamed or remapped to be buttons 1 and 2 for these older games?
I have looked at the WinWing SimAppPro joystick program but I am getting lost because the manual says "Coming Soon" for the section of interest - so I have gotten nowhere in that part of the program but perhaps the solution is in that program and I am still looking for somewhere that I can ask for help with the program.
Any suggestions or help is greatly appreciated.
UPDATE (May 22)
I figured out a way. But it is definitely a work around.
I realized that the mouse Left and Right buttons have identical functions to Joystick Buttons 1 and 2. So using JoyToKey, I did a binding of Joystick Button 21 = Mouse Left Click, and Joystick Button 22 = Mouse Right Click. It worked great.
Bit I still think that the easiest way is to just to reassign the buttons. And JoyToKey does have an option "swap two button assignments between this button and another" but I can't figure out how to do that. I think that is still the way to go if someone knows how to do that?
In JoyToKey, I right click on Button 21, and select "swap two button assignments between this button and another", and then select Button 1 from the menu ... and nothing happens. I must be missing a step or something? Has anyone used it and can perhaps tell me how to make it work?
Or, if anyone has another way to swap buttons or reassign a button number, I would be interested in knowing how. I still want to button 21 to be reassigned as button 1, and button 22 reasssigned as button 2 because that would be my generic cure for all games without a need for individual profiles.
Oh, after playing Wing Commander for a while using the WinWing Airliner Joystick -- it is definitely a huge upgrade from older joysticks.
UPDATE (June 8)
I contacted JoyToKey, and they said their software will not re-assign buttons the way I want. They say that their software is not JoyToJoy. And assigning mouse buttons to joystick buttons was only half working.
So I decided to abandon the idea of somehow rr-mapping the way I wanted, and rethought it all, and now I am using my WinWing Fighter joystick, and assigned most of the functions to the stick buttons. That works good and I am happy with that solution.
But much to my surprise, the WinWing Airline joystick trigger and missile buttons on the joystick grip are buttons 21 and 22 instead of buttons 1 and 2. As far as I can tell, there is no way to tell these older games to use buttons 21 and 22 instead of buttons 1 and 2. Wing Commander does see buttons 1 and 2 on the Airline joystick, but those buttons are on the base and not on the grip.
This is unlike other multibutton joysticks such as Logitech 3D pro which keeps the legacy button assignment for buttons 1 and 2.
Is there a way for buttons 21 and 22 to be renamed or remapped to be buttons 1 and 2 for these older games?
I have looked at the WinWing SimAppPro joystick program but I am getting lost because the manual says "Coming Soon" for the section of interest - so I have gotten nowhere in that part of the program but perhaps the solution is in that program and I am still looking for somewhere that I can ask for help with the program.
Any suggestions or help is greatly appreciated.
UPDATE (May 22)
I figured out a way. But it is definitely a work around.
I realized that the mouse Left and Right buttons have identical functions to Joystick Buttons 1 and 2. So using JoyToKey, I did a binding of Joystick Button 21 = Mouse Left Click, and Joystick Button 22 = Mouse Right Click. It worked great.
Bit I still think that the easiest way is to just to reassign the buttons. And JoyToKey does have an option "swap two button assignments between this button and another" but I can't figure out how to do that. I think that is still the way to go if someone knows how to do that?
In JoyToKey, I right click on Button 21, and select "swap two button assignments between this button and another", and then select Button 1 from the menu ... and nothing happens. I must be missing a step or something? Has anyone used it and can perhaps tell me how to make it work?
Or, if anyone has another way to swap buttons or reassign a button number, I would be interested in knowing how. I still want to button 21 to be reassigned as button 1, and button 22 reasssigned as button 2 because that would be my generic cure for all games without a need for individual profiles.
Oh, after playing Wing Commander for a while using the WinWing Airliner Joystick -- it is definitely a huge upgrade from older joysticks.
UPDATE (June 8)
I contacted JoyToKey, and they said their software will not re-assign buttons the way I want. They say that their software is not JoyToJoy. And assigning mouse buttons to joystick buttons was only half working.
So I decided to abandon the idea of somehow rr-mapping the way I wanted, and rethought it all, and now I am using my WinWing Fighter joystick, and assigned most of the functions to the stick buttons. That works good and I am happy with that solution.
Post edited June 08, 2025 by AlGat
