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QuakeConsole

Friday afternoon I stumbled across an Instructables article about a way to use AutoHotkey and Console to make a Quake 2 console.  Basically, the author configures the Console program’s config.xml file to make the Console program show up in the top left hand corner of the screen, just as most video game consoles do.  Then they wrote a small AutoHotkey script to show the console at the touch of a hotkey so you can access it whenever you need, and then press the hotkey again and the console would disappear, just like with most video game consoles.

Now, being an experienced and everyday AutoHotkey user, and an experienced fan of Quake 2, I got a little excited.  I read through the article again and follow the instructions to create my own version of the Quake 2 console look-alike.  After much time spent completing the tutorial and trying to get Console’s .xml config file to make Console look like it should, I realized someone had posted a download link of their (already working perfectly) config.xml file.  So I downloaded it, now I only needed to do the AutoHotkey programming for the hotkey, in which case I used the tilde key (just like in Quake and most other video game consoles).

 So I used the code I created while following the tutorial, with a few minor and important changes here and there, done by yours truly.  And viola, I now have a stable version of a Quake 2 styled console, or “QuakeConsole”.

After completing the script for QuakeConsole, I realized how complicated it was completing this process even for me, an experienced AutoHotkey and console user.  So I decided to post the entire end product here so anyone could download it and use it instead of going through the entire process of creating it.  Instructions for installing it are below.

Using QuakeConsole:

1. Download .zip file here.
2. Unzip folder somewhere permanent on hard drive (I put it in Program Files).
3. Add QuakeConsole.exe to your Startup folder so it starts at system start up.
4. Double-click QuakeConsole.exe to start it for the first time (after this, it will automatically startup with Windows since its in your Startup folder so you won’t need to double-click it next time).

Try it out by pressing the tilde key a few times to see the console show up and hide itself.  You’ll notice two new icons in your system tray; the Quake icon is the QuakeConsole script program .exe file, the little “C:>” icon is the Console program’s .exe file.  If Console isn’t running, then the first press of the tilde key will make QuakeConsole open the Console program.


Tell me what you think and if QuakeConsole is useful to you:

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