New Steam UI Beta Released

Dekstar

Dekstar

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A superb new Steam UI beta is now available. To participate you must have Steam installed and click the following link - Steam UI Beta.[br]
​
As of today, a new version of Steam is available through a public opt-in beta, open to all Steam users. This Steam update provides several major upgrades to the platform's core functionality. We've overhauled the Steam user interface to enhance the way you already buy and play games, adding more info about the things that matter ? getting games, playing them with friends, and staying current in the gaming world.
Click to expand...
Improvements:
  • Complete overhaul of Steam client UI design to improve discoverability of features and to better expose all the information related to games in your library
  • Complete overhaul of in-game overlay UI design to create a richer in-game experience exposing context sensitive information related to the game you are currently playing
  • New game details view, presenting a detailed view of all the information for a single game in your library
  • New grid view, presenting a graphical view of your game library
  • New news page in the store/client/overlay which aggregates from Valve related news sites, official community groups, and third-party gaming news feeds
  • New downloads view in the client, making it easier to track your progress downloading new games or game updates
  • New Steam store design, including more integrated community features, improved recommendations, and improved video and screenshots viewing (and much more!)
  • Now using a WebKit based rendering engine for the client and in-game overlay web browsing components (replacing Internet Explorer)
Lots of new features and fixes with this new UI, you can see them all on the Steam UI 2010 page. Thus far the transition has been smooth with no major issues (you even get your friends list back). A significant improvement and well worth checking out.
 
This ui really does look gorgeous. I dunno if I can adapt to this, I was so used to the old ui but ima check this out.
 
One of the unexpected upsides for me was that my friends-list was fixed. Unfortunately Sliver's wasn't, so your mileage may vary.

Looks gorgeous though, I agree.
 
This looks absolutely stunning. Stigmata pointed this out to me, but it resembles the Zune media player/Zune interface/Windows 7 Phone Series with the large text as the menu buttons, etc.
 
Will take a while to get used to - but its bloody good from the outset.
 
I'm nearly crying here(not really) but this makes me really happy. Steam had become such a burden interface-wise. It hadn't been updated in forever and well, it's like 3 years late.
 
When I click the link, my steam interface menu pops up, but i dont see anything about a new UI
 
It looks nicer, but feels a lot less streamlined and has more clutter. I liked the functionality of the collapsible small icon + game name list.
 
Before I go on, I should mention that I tend to like my programs as barebones as possible. To me, "pretty" modern styles are ugly as they tend to bloat things both in terms of physical size (I'm not that blind folks!) and additional functions that I never use. I still set Winamp to the Classic skin. I still set Windows XP to the blocky gray "Windows Classic" style. Keeping with that trend, I'm not a fan of New Steam.

There's a lot of unnecessary stuff. I will never be interested in, or need to know, anything that's listed on the "Details" view for games. "Grid" view is pointless unless you have a thing for GIANT icons? The fact that they added a "Zoom" slidebar on "Grid" view just makes it even more ridiculous. Why anyone would use anything except the smallest zoom is beyond me. Maybe there are a whole lot of icon-oriented people out there, but I'm not one of them (I actually recognize users here by their name, not their avatar).

Anyways, neglecting "Details" and "Grid", I'm left with "List" view, in which I was thankfully able to remove the giant icons, thereby shrinking it back down to normal size and making it exactly like Old Steam.

But I don't hate it, because I was able to make it look the way it used to, and it's stupid to whine about extra features when you're not forced to use them.

All the other tabs (Store, News, Community) don't seem to be working.
 
Well, it looks nice and all, but I'm certainly missing the compact view.

If they added that, this would be perfect.
 
It's definitely a very nice and long past due update to the UI, it'll take me a bit to adapt to using it. Only thing I miss is the Obsidian skin, all this grey... blargh.
 
Never had a problem with the old interface. This one is pretty though. I wish the games library could be sorted the same was as the old one though. I liked being able to see all my games, with the installed ones on the top. Just having it alphabetical with bold ones indicating installed games isnt as intuitive.

EDIT: Oh, they do have that in list view. Want it in the details view too though, because list has too-large icons.
 
The beta uninstalled some of my games :(

Not too big of a deal because I have them on DVD, however, those with slow net might want to avoid using the beta until the uninstallation bugs have been resolved.
 
It's pretty interesting.

ALSO
MORE CATEGORIES THAN JUST 'FAVORITE' FOR YOUR GAMES LIST
VALVE I AM PROUD.
 
Selected the beta, restarted Steam, now it won't connect. At all.

/me claps slowly
 
It didn't connect for me the first time but it worked on the 2nd try.

But it was so terrible (and laggy) that I switched back.
 
I think this has been long overdue, and it indeed looks gorgeous.

I like the way its more modernised in its design and layout. Steam was originally great with its simplicity, but it was such a bore to look at.

Glad to see thats all changed. Makes me want to browse Steam now, as usually its just open Steam, go to games and double click, or not go on Steam at all if you have your game icons on the desktop.
 
Kinda matches this site with the colour theme :p

It's very nice, I'm liking it. I wish it would show online friends at the top of the friends list though, rather than having it all alphabetical. Also it would be nice to be able to sort games into groups perhaps. I like the details view, but I'd rather have my most played games at the top.

Under Half-Life 2 on the details view it has the achievements listed (I assume from the Xbox 360 version) Are they going to be adding these soon perhaps?
 
A few problems:
- I see nothing in the context menus - they're just empty. It was pretty hard to find Settings and opt-out from the beta :D
- it's slow as hell: when I tried to move the window around my desktop, it felt like below 10 frames per second. The interface itself is pretty responsive, but why can't I smoothly drag the window?
 
I don't like change so screw this. I'm gunna sit here happily in my comfort zone for as long as I can.
 
Ren.182 said:
It's very nice, I'm liking it. I wish it would show online friends at the top of the friends list though, rather than having it all alphabetical. Also it would be nice to be able to sort games into groups perhaps. I like the details view, but I'd rather have my most played games at the top.
Click to expand...
My friends list shows those online (in alphabetical order) on top. Check that you haven't got "Sort by name" ticked when you click on Friends in the title bar.

As for your most played games, you can assign them into your own custom made category by right clicking and selecting "Edit Categories..." You can only do it one at a time so it might be a bit tedious. Or you could sort it by Last Played but that's been wiped clean so you'll have to open up your games first.
Przemek said:
A few problems:
- I see nothing in the context menus - they're just empty. It was pretty hard to find Settings and opt-out from the beta :D
Click to expand...
Well, if you decide you want to try it again, there's a fix for it.
 
Krynn72 said:
Never had a problem with the old interface. This one is pretty though. I wish the games library could be sorted the same was as the old one though. I liked being able to see all my games, with the installed ones on the top. Just having it alphabetical with bold ones indicating installed games isnt as intuitive.

EDIT: Oh, they do have that in list view. Want it in the details view too though, because list has too-large icons.
Click to expand...

In list, you can right-click the title bar and uncheck "Image" to get rid of the icons.
 
FishBulb said:
My friends list shows those online (in alphabetical order) on top. Check that you haven't got "Sort by name" ticked when you click on Friends in the title bar.
Click to expand...

That worked, thanks. :) It was checked but had no tick next to it, clicked it and it fixed it :)
 
I hope they redesign it from scratch.

I can't point out anything that's better than the old design.
 
Can't join a steam group chat while using the in-game overlay. Browser works fine though.

If the menus are showing up as blank for anyone this is a fix.

You can also use this to change your menu font to anything you like. Observe:
steamtgqsq.jpg
 
Hectic Glenn said:
eh? This beta is the new design. Why would they do it all again, don't be so ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Don't take him so literally. His point was that he does not like the new design at all.

It's not so bad, except for some over-use of gradients.

My main problem with it though is the lag. Like the group chat window, when I'm typing the characters show up at like 2 fps.
 
Everything works great for me. No lag, no nothing. It's wonderful.
 
I'm going to wait to update this till tomorrow when I have some free time. i just don't want any big issues when i'm playing my games
 
Przemek said:
A few problems:
- I see nothing in the context menus - they're just empty. It was pretty hard to find Settings and opt-out from the beta :D
- it's slow as hell: when I tried to move the window around my desktop, it felt like below 10 frames per second. The interface itself is pretty responsive, but why can't I smoothly drag the window?
Click to expand...

This was basically my experience. Looks good though.
 
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