The All New Gabriel Newell's Digital Wonder Emporium, aka, The Steam Update Thread

ukickmydog wrote:

I liked the parts that showed you who had the game and who had been playing too. But other than that, the only thing it had going for it was that it was shiny. It caused me to crash quite a bit and the missing buttons on the bottom for servers and stuff was annoying. The way the games are listed on the left that default to show all games when it first turns on sucked too. I don't want to have to click an extra button to show my favorites every time, i'm lazy.

They fixed all that.

I still dislike the new Library views. The "here's some shiny, pretty Steam games" vs "oh and some other ugly ass games you also linked to" display is really annoying me.

I also dislike how Steam now automatically plays a trailer movie every time I click on a game in the store. At least they play it in mute mode. But if I want to see a movie, I'll click on the damn thing.

MoonDragon wrote:

I still dislike the new Library views. The "here's some shiny, pretty Steam games" vs "oh and some other ugly ass games you also linked to" display is really annoying me.

I agree. They have updated a lot of games that didn't have the new image structure, so I'm hopeful that they'll get around to it. Though I guess you're talking about non-Steam shortcuts.. I'm also hoping they'll add a way to customize the image shown. It doesn't actually bother me too much, though, as I use the Details view more often than not, and you can disable the images in the List view.

Here's a quick screenshot of what it looks like now, in case you're curious: http://i985.photobucket.com/albums/a...

I have been having a problem with the Beta window staying the size I set it to. I'm using it on my TV and having it full screen leaves way too much empty space; so I size it to fill most of the screen; whenever I reboot the comp and launch Steam it goes back to a default small window.

Is there a way to resize the text? Using it on a 42 TV, it gets hard to read the text on my friends list and stuff.

MoonDragon wrote:

I still dislike the new Library views. The "here's some shiny, pretty Steam games" vs "oh and some other ugly ass games you also linked to" display is really annoying me.

This actually seems a little mean-spirited to me. Sort of like "how dare you buy a game from someplace that isn't steam". Bioshock 2 has a tiny little picture because I got it for cheaper on amazon. I realize that it's kind of shallow of me to care about the aesthetics of steam but damn it I like pretty things.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
MoonDragon wrote:

I still dislike the new Library views. The "here's some shiny, pretty Steam games" vs "oh and some other ugly ass games you also linked to" display is really annoying me.

This actually seems a little mean-spirited to me. Sort of like "how dare you buy a game from someplace that isn't steam". Bioshock 2 has a tiny little picture because I got it for cheaper on amazon. I realize that it's kind of shallow of me to care about the aesthetics of steam but damn it I like pretty things.

Then don't add it into Steam and run it through the games explorer where you see the picture of the little sister. I mean, of course Valve wants to make Steam more enticing to gamers to purchase products through the store. I cannot fault them for that.

This is a bit random, but I thought of the Mac game I'd most like to see on the new Mac Steam: Civilization IV, especially if it has pricing similar to the PC version. It's currently $50 without Beyond the Sword and Colonization through Amazon versus $40 with every expansion on the PC through Steam.

Ulairi wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:
MoonDragon wrote:

I still dislike the new Library views. The "here's some shiny, pretty Steam games" vs "oh and some other ugly ass games you also linked to" display is really annoying me.

This actually seems a little mean-spirited to me. Sort of like "how dare you buy a game from someplace that isn't steam". Bioshock 2 has a tiny little picture because I got it for cheaper on amazon. I realize that it's kind of shallow of me to care about the aesthetics of steam but damn it I like pretty things.

Then don't add it into Steam and run it through the games explorer where you see the picture of the little sister. I mean, of course Valve wants to make Steam more enticing to gamers to purchase products through the store. I cannot fault them for that.

Just to be clear I am not actually mad about this. I don't even have the library set to the big buttons view so it isn't really an issue. It just struck me as odd the way non-steam games are handled.

I'm still having the same problem as Thin_J after going back to the old version and then switching back to the new version.

I find it interesting that the new client is more stable on Wine than the old one, yet some Windows users seem to be having issues. It's probably due to the webkit browser, which works much better than the previous IE hack.

"- Fix for some users getting stuck on the “Tools” view even when clicking “Games” due to a bad saved configuration value"

Alright, *now* they fixed it.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...

They also fully integrated Win7 Aero Snap. Interestingly, though, the maximize snap actually fullscreens the window instead (as does double-clicking the title bar). It gives a nice preview of what a Steam OS might look like, heh.

Dirty skimmer here, but can someone bottom line it for me. Is it worth installing the new browser now, or waiting until it is out of beta?

All you have to do to get rid of the beta is opt-out, just the same way you installed it. They've seemingly fixed all of the horrible deadly bugs that threatened your game library, and caused instant crashes.

So yeah, I'd say give it a try. If that's your thing. If you're indifferent, you might as well wait. Aside from the bug that disabled the games view (that, as I said, has been fixed now - I hope), it's a surprisingly stable beta. I find that most people know if they want to try betas or not, and maybe if you need to ask, you're better off waiting.

Bottom line: If you decide to try it, I recommend moving (or copying) your steamapps folder somewhere. It contains all your games, and it's better to be safe... than.. you know... sorry. And, also, backups are totally rad.

-

I jumped over this part the last time around: - Update styling on VAC ban dialog in client UI

Cheaters need eye candy, too!

Prozac wrote:

Dirty skimmer here, but can someone bottom line it for me. Is it worth installing the new browser now, or waiting until it is out of beta?

It takes like 5 minutes tops and you can change it back any time, just try it.

Steam picked up the 3/2 beta client update overnight and after I installed that I was able to get to my games list normally again. *shrug*

Hyetal wrote:

"- Fix for some users getting stuck on the “Tools” view even when clicking “Games” due to a bad saved configuration value"

Ah thank god. That just happened to me last night. I could switch to downloads, vidoes and tools but not my actual games.

I could however join servers and accept invites.

Steam updated just a minute ago and now wont start...

I dunno, I've had very few issues. There was that one point earlier where I couldn't see any text in the pop-up windows. Since that's been fixed for a long time though, this version has run rather well for me. I'm almost convinced it actually loads up faster for me than the old version does, as well.

"Small mode" returns. It's in the 'view' menu.

Scratched wrote:

"Small mode" returns. It's in the 'view' menu.

Nice to see they're working on this, it needs the icons though.

Huzzah! I can see my games again.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...

Skin for the beta. Yes, it's still beta, and using a skin is a bit heedless, maybe. But it looks really good, and is overwhelmingly easy to install. I recommend giving it a try.

That looks like the skin I used before the redesign. Big fan of dark and user friendly.

Here's the one I've been using.

Hyetal wrote:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...

Skin for the beta. Yes, it's still beta, and using a skin is a bit heedless, maybe. But it looks really good, and is overwhelmingly easy to install. I recommend giving it a try.

So what exactly did he change, I glanced at the screen shots and it looked like the Beta Skin to me. Through skins, would you be able to enlarge the font size for everything? Playing on my TV I can't read most of the text on my friends list or chat window.

wopps double post

Tigerbill wrote:

So what exactly did he change, I glanced at the screen shots and it looked like the Beta Skin to me. Through skins, would you be able to enlarge the font size for everything? Playing on my TV I can't read most of the text on my friends list or chat window.

Default
vs
Skin

Quite a bit of difference, actually. As for changing font sizes, you may want to check this thread out: http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...

I haven't tried it myself, though.

Edit: That skin might be a bit easier to read on a bigger screen, now that I think about it.

Hyetal wrote:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...

Skin for the beta. Yes, it's still beta, and using a skin is a bit heedless, maybe. But it looks really good, and is overwhelmingly easy to install. I recommend giving it a try.

Ooooh, that IS nice. Thanks.

That skin looks nice, but the author chose really bad file hosting. Both are already disabled.

The mediafire one worked for me.

http://www.filefactory.com/file/b0c0... - Quickly uploaded, in case you still want to try it.

Scroll all the way down.