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That's it, done, finished. The beta for the new Steam Library is over and the Remote Play Together beta is now out for everyone as soon as your client updates.

We have tons of new features to play with that have been talked about before like: the ability to sort games into dynamic collections, the customizable home page with different shelves of games made from your collections, a list of recent updates at the top of your Library home, overhauled game pages, a new events system, a Linux "Tux" icon to filter only Linux games in your list and so on.

This update also rolls out Remote Play Together (beta) for everyone now too. The new feature of Steam that allows you to play games that only have local co-op/multiplayer, across the net with your Steam friends. Only the host needs to own it too. It's a huge feature, one that's quite exciting and full of possibilities. For some of us, it's not easy to get people in the same room and not just that, so this breaks down a few walls.

You can see the official announcement on Steam here and there's also a changelog here.

Something else they didn't seem to announce directly, is that Steam will now prompt you to make or update a review when you've put a number of hours into a game. This is good, as we've been told many times how important reviews are for games to get noticed.

Not just to get more good reviews onto store pages though. In the era of live service games that are constantly updated, it's good to get accurate and up to date reviews. Games change drastically often now, so having a client that can actually remind people a little like that is good.

Also, something else seems to be coming involving the Steam Runtime for Linux, which now shows up in the Tools section of Steam. Developer Timothee Besset replied to me on Twitter with "soon (tm)", so when I have more info on what exactly it's for I will let you know.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Steam, Update, Valve
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47 comments
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Xpander Oct 30, 2019
Thank you for forcing a incomplete UI into our face, seems to be a trend these days, Youtube Sudio thingy as well, luckily that can be opted out still, but its keeps changing back to the new sh*t again and again.

I mean, there are features missing on the new one, where is the proton info on games.
Why is the UI still slow and clunky. Why is everything huge like its made for blind people or fits more as a big picture replacement for TV..

im really not happy with this. It needs alot more work imo
Usual Oct 30, 2019
Anyone know if the library is electron based now?

Anyway, I'm finding it to be sluggish loading stuff and resource hungry.
dubigrasu Oct 30, 2019
I have mixed feelings about this. I welcomed the new UI because progress and all, but soon enough I found myself reverting to the stable client (and for years I used only the beta client).
I do like the direction they took, but as an interface is inconsistent and fragile. Feels like it was put together in haste and I believe it is too early to push this to stable status.
lectrode Oct 31, 2019
Thank you for forcing a incomplete UI into our face
I respectfully disagree - the new UI functions quite well and the client got more stable since it was first introduced into beta, and certainly since it was first leaked.

While the client can always be better, I think it's about time they made this the official stable version. I wouldn't want minor issues to delay the wider adoption of the new UI (though I do hope they get the proton version easily visible soon).

I'm sure consolidating this change makes it easier for the dev team as well - less surface area to support (old interface and new interface)

Why is everything huge like its made for blind people or fits more as a big picture replacement for TV..
I think the larger elements better utilize standard screen sizes of today. The element sizes go quite well with a 1080p screen, and seem fine on a 1280x720 screen... The main list is still compact, and IMHO that's how it should be.

Have you tried this setting?
![


Last edited by lectrode on 31 October 2019 at 12:36 am UTC
Grifter Oct 31, 2019
I don't begrudge anyone use of the new interface, but it's kind of dickish of them to completely remove access to the old one; I run steam with -no-browser which gives me the old-style chat, I could not view the store, profiles, community corners, forums or anything because that all needed the browser (which is entirely fine by me, if I ever needed that I'd just load up steampowered.com in a proper browser which was a lot more speedy than the steam client itself anyway), but the library was fine, it stood on its own, I could see my entire library even without the browser part turned on. But with the restart this is gone, the library gives the same 'steam browser is disabled' as the other pages do, why couldn't they just have let the old style still exist, and not force the new-style library on those of us with -no-browser, sigh :(


Last edited by Grifter on 31 October 2019 at 12:59 am UTC
Xpander Oct 31, 2019
Have you tried this setting?
![

enlarge is allready off, its still has too big text and icons (gamelist is fine, but the rest). I have 2560x1440 27" monitor

edit:


This is what i mean. Everything is huge under the game info. I't could fit a lot more onto screen.
Spoiler, click me


Last edited by Xpander on 31 October 2019 at 1:13 am UTC
hoolaparara Oct 31, 2019
Well I was going to say it had fixed my problem with the wallet stuff appearing under the menu stuff, but I just loaded up my invert skin to see what sort of disaster it was and found the money had moved, so skins fault. I hope someone comes up with a light skin quickly.

As for the client, every time I click on a game I can see it laying stuff out which is clearly slow and clunky. Hmmm I can't see shared games? oh I see they are jumbled up in uncategorized instead of under each user. And it still keeps changing offline to invisible in friends when I restart! The OS filter is gone? (or is that because I have proton enabled?)
Aeder Oct 31, 2019
Anyone know if the library is electron based now?

Anyway, I'm finding it to be sluggish loading stuff and resource hungry.

I think it's still just using the Chromium Embedded Framework alone. If it's Electron it's really underutilized, seeing as a lot of panels don't really update on the fly, and the library scrolling is terribly sluggish.
Salvatos Oct 31, 2019
I wonder if they will fix the ordering of the recent news shelf anytime soon. Yesterday, this week, this week, yesterday (‽), last week, this week...
no_information_here Oct 31, 2019
I like that it will enable the steam overlay for the controller without forcing me into big picture mode.

For the rest of it: Meh.

I would like my minimal icon-only view back, please.

Edit: Digging through the reddit rage thread dug this up. Paste this into your start arguments for steam.

-no-browser +open steam://open/minigameslist

Warning, it completely disables the store, etc. and you are just left with the minimal list. Not exactly what I was looking for.


Last edited by no_information_here on 31 October 2019 at 5:05 am UTC
Purple Library Guy Oct 31, 2019
Anyone know if the library is electron based now?
Isn't all computing electron-based? :P
Grifter Oct 31, 2019
I like that it will enable the steam overlay for the controller without forcing me into big picture mode.

It's always done that for me previously :s
vlademir1 Oct 31, 2019
Honestly, while I don't care for the new interface I also really didn't care for the old one and have mainly loaded games from outside their library interface for ages now. I practically treat the Steam client as a mix of IM client and old DOS TSR type utility that other software needs around in active memory to run but which I don't directly interact with unless some config work is needed (himem.sys comes to mind). Remote Play Together seems much more valuable on paper, but I've not had time to give it a try in practice because it's a horrid time of year to find gaming time outside my normal tabletop gaming group night.
no_information_here Oct 31, 2019
I like that it will enable the steam overlay for the controller without forcing me into big picture mode.

It's always done that for me previously :s
Then why is this line in the update?

"Added support for enabling the Big Picture overlay when using controllers with the desktop client"


Last edited by no_information_here on 31 October 2019 at 5:08 am UTC
Grifter Oct 31, 2019
Then why is this line in the update?

I'm probably just misunderstanding what it does in that case.
vector Oct 31, 2019
As to be expected, the dynamic collections are only as accurate as the individual games' details are. As a test, I created two dynamic collections, one for games with achievements, and one for games with trading cards, but some games with achievements (e.g. 103, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, etc.) and/or trading cards (Stacking, Super Hexagon, etc.) are left uncategorized as they exclude mention of achievements and/or trading cards in their app details block.

At least they don't rely on user-defined tags for filtering dynamic collections. Cyberpunk 2077 is still tagged "dating sim".


Last edited by vector on 31 October 2019 at 7:19 am UTC
Pinguino Oct 31, 2019
That's it, done, finished. The beta is over and the new Steam Library along with Remote Play Together is now out for everyone as soon as your client updates.

Maybe I'm misreading all of this, but isn't Play Together still on beta?
Phlebiac Oct 31, 2019
The OS filter is gone?

There is a little (chubby) penguin icon to filter.
Liam Dawe Oct 31, 2019
That's it, done, finished. The beta is over and the new Steam Library along with Remote Play Together is now out for everyone as soon as your client updates.

Maybe I'm misreading all of this, but isn't Play Together still on beta?
Correct. Bad wording on my part. Adjusted it.
Ardje Oct 31, 2019
In the mean time, big picture hasn't changed a bit. It actually still has the videos store, you can still buy videos. Just you can't play them because the player is broken.
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