User Interface Feature Requests

If you have any feature requests for the Steam User Interface, feel free to post them here. Please note that this page is not for reporting bugs, bug reports go in User Interface Bugs.

Be advised that there is also a page for opinions; please don't post any here.

Open requests

Steam Interface

• The links on the right side of the client window for individual game pages within the library should have a link to the workshop for that game or the ability to add your own links from a menu. —Tadda 18:40 (UTC) March 12, 2018

• The client should work more like a web browser, with tabs and stuff. For example: When you are browsing your wishlist or a friend's library (or any long page) and wants to visit the store, you can't go back to the page you were browsing previously without re-loading it and needing to scroll everything again. Opening pages on new tabs (with the middle mouse button and/or right click menu on the URL) would be nice and save us a lot of time. — Dv2y December 2012 (BRT)

• When Steam does long operation, like creating gcf files for downloading or decrypting files, Steam should play a simple animation (now it freezes).

• Update of the Server Favorites. Instead of only a separate section for Favorites, have a column in server list where you can mark servers as either "Good" Or "Bad".

• An option to automatically close Steam (so it'll only run in system tray) when entering a server (like in "The All Seeing Eye"), that way instead of using 13mb+- of RAM, it'll only use 2-3mb which is very important for people with older machines (256mb of RAM and less) -RP

• Will it be possible to skin Steam to look similar to this: [1]?
  • Yes but unneeded. Users use steam for the functionality. Not the look. —InvisGhost 14:57, 14 Oct 2009 (PST)

• Change steam to detect mod installs while running, instead of requiring a restart
  • The old UI did this, not sure if the new one does, just close the games window and reopen it from the systray and it should find the new mods. - The MAZZTer

• Add back the bandwidth monitor to the right click steam tray icon. ^Ben 15:47, 11 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• Add more information about the games that are being updated etc to the bandwidth monitor. ^Ben 15:47, 11 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• When icons for third party games are created, use the icon defined for that game rather than the steam icon. —AlphaWolf

• The option to *remember that you are in offline mode* so that every time you start steam it doesn't prompt you about it being offline. - User:- Flynia

• Add the possibility to store the password of the favorite servers.

• Add showing percentage completion of update when update is paused.
  • In addition, percentage completion of update shows the percentage completion of the updated cache files, not the percentage completion of the update to be downloaded.

• Option to backup game content for third party mods. —StonedSmurf
  • Also to back up the maps and other content you have for you games.

• In the server browser list, add an option to show the number of bots on the servers rather than just a "B" icon. Also consider negating that number from the actual number of players shown to be on the server (since they aren't actually players.) —AlphaWolf
  • One way to do this would be to have a + in the player# field. For example: 3+3/10 indicating 3 players and 3 bots on a server allowing 10 players.

• Make the favorites list in servers save what your sort your list after, and what order you want them showed ( IE the minor arrow going up or down ).

• snapping windows to one another still sucks. windows should snap not only to edges of the screen and one another, but to corners as well.

• If the cursor is over either the minimize or close window box, it would be nice to see a visual feedback

• Have a tab to the news page on the main screen instead of it opening a browser window?
  • I agree with this. In fact, I recommend that you reorganize the Games/Main window's tabs into News (general Steam news and option to browse individual game news), Browse (for downloading/purchasing), Play (for installed games) and Tools (for server, SDK, etc.). This will allow you to remove the unnecessary News option with the context menu and the icon down at the bottom of the Games/Main window. [Bwmathis]
  • Better yet, have a tab to the RSS feed.

• Add an ETA To all process bars - I.e. updating platform files.
  • This might be an engine update, but add an ETA to Source Games, like what Gold Src has, for when you are downloading assets from a game server

• The account name should not appear in window title. People often post screenshots of their games list on the Internet (usually in the course of trouble-shooting), relieving their account name. Since the account name is one of two pieces of information a nefarious individual requires to hijack an account, it is best not to make such sensitive information so visible. The user can easily view their account name from the Setting window, which is far less likely to appear in a screenshot posted to the Internet.
  • Seconded, have it use the friends nickname --Steamfraiser 07:40, 23 Mar 2006 (PST)

• In the Interface Settings, it would be nice to be able to set my favorite window to Tools.
  • Seconded. As someone that primarily uses the SDK this would be very useful, as SDK access is frequent and awkward at times.

• Tools should also be accessible through the "mini games list"

• When viewing status of "Not yet installed" games, it would be nice to have an install button. If a game is installed you can uninstall (delete local game content...) from status, so the inverse sort of makes sense to be there.

• It would be nice to chose voices/subs languages ( also different ) about a game from its properties. ( It will be cool also if Mods can do this ... )

• One must scroll to see games released before Condition Zero in the Backup wizard's games list. If one right-clicks on such a game - say, Ricochet - the Backup window should open and the list should automatically scroll to revile that game.

• A "Server" tab in the expanded main window (see Fig. 1). The aesthetics of two sets of tabs would need to be explored. There is also the redundancy problem of having a Servers tab and a link to the Servers window at the bottom.

• It would be nice if this nicer looking skin could be applied to when your playing a game or at least have an option to change it. For example, when your joining a Counter-Strike: Source server and the loading bar or the servers list is in this nicer looking skin.

• Clear history for server browser.

• Somewhere that says what content server your connected to. This is very important for me because if I get connected to my ISPs content server then the downloads don't go on my download count. Also it would be great if I could change the content server to my ISPs but I doubt that would happen.
  • It tells you what content server you are connected to during the "preparing to play" dialog.

• User can customly change the size of the backup. (Some CD can store up to 700+ MB)
  • Agreed: In fact most CDR media sold these days is 700+. 640MB discs are very rare to find. --Boneless

• GUI option to install optional components, and make it more prominent.
  • The HD-pack (HL/OP/BS).
  • The condition zero models (CS/CZ)

• URL mouseover for developer websites

• Add ultra mini mode (toolbar with only game icons or/and small/short text name) in short smaller than actual mini-games window [Dwarden]
  • Ultra mini mode could just be that square section of the mini-games list. Have a look, the gray colored small section. None of the surrounding borders or menus. —Agret

• Add ability to launch games directly through tray icon (right click on icon choose Play > choose game to play, let say working only for "key" game titles) [Dwarden]
  • It works fine for a large list through the XFire tray icon. I'm not sure why they cant support it for every one of your Steam games. —Agret

• Interface option to choose level of opacity / transparency , color schemes too, font colors/types etc (ie inversion) [Dwarden]
  • Get Steam skin support working again. Maybe let me use my old skins on the new interface somehow? —Agret

• I actually have a good feature/fix..firstly change game names to be filtered out correctly while playing CS 1.6(not being also to see CS source games), that's pretty annoying.Add more filters like filter "no bots","max players"(to easily find a 0/10,0/32)..better mute player control and mute text option. Also fix "view server info" window being always on top(annoying cause you can't play so it makes that useless in-game).Faster loading times on opening games.[El3]
  • Mute player now works, and my "View server info is never on top - it always hides when I hit ESC to get back to playing. :/ --Steamfraiser 07:40, 30 Mar 2006 (PST)

• Add their manuals for the good old HL1 games.

• Store the game manuals (i.e. Half-Life 2 and Day of Defeat) locally on the user's hard drive. I'd prefer viewing the user manual from my hard drive than having to download it from the web site. Also, the Half-Life 2 manual is a PDF file, but Steam doesn't mention anything about needing Adobe Acrobat Reader. Although most

people have Acrobat Reader, I'm sure some people do not.

• Easy way to delete mods: right click and select Uninstall/Delete (this would just delete the mod folder within the half-life directory). --12:25, 10 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• Add feedback to the Product activation wizard windows to let the user know what Steam account he/she is applying the CD key too. See image. (screenshot)

• Globally memorise the last open tab in Properties dialogs.

• When selecting custom categories, Steam should remember the category settings/order for each window (favorites, server list, spectate, history). For example, I would like to remove the VAC symbol column and add the Bots column, but I have to do this manually every time Steam is restarted. This is pretty minor. —Hampster

• It would be nice if Steam shows the percentage on the status column only if the game is incomplete. There isn't also any reason to show "Third party mod" instead of "Ready" ( like VALVe productions )

• On the Settings Window's Voice tab it would be useful to be able to select which audio devices to use for speakers and microphone, rather than just detecting the Windows default. This way, users with a USB headset or second sound card have the option of separating voice chat from system and game audio.

My Games list

• Valve should remove the DLCs from the user's games shown in his profile page, so that this list shows exactly the same stuff available in his library. Not only it's a mess to browse through the endless DLCs, this also falsely increases the number of games that the person have to a ridiculously bigger amount, especially if he has Magicka's DLCs or other examples.

• Support drag & drop games links to and from Steam. --KindDragon 00:55, 17 Dec 2008 (PST)

• Make it possible to add your own sections in the 'My Games' mini list. As mentioned here and demonstrated here.

• Properties for Third Party Games allowing you to change the icon and the display name. --C00lryguy 03:44, 9 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• A refresh button for My Games would be useful for game developers. —Ts2do 18:51, 8 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• Decrease the vertical space between games listed in the "my games" area.

• Wacky idea: display a random game screenshot (from the store) in the background. Perhaps from games you own, or from ones you don't, with a "Play this!" button that either starts the game or goes to the store page. This could sneakily generate interest in games that wouldn't otherwise be noticed.
  • This would ruin the look of some user created skins. Also, Users can get something like that just by having the "Notify me of new releases" option checked in the Settings >> Interface tab. No need to take up even more resources to have a screenshot in the background. —InvisGhost 14:53, 14 Oct, 2009 (PST)

• Now that some users have many many games, this list badly needs organization features.
  • Groups beyond favorites, installed, and not installed. I'd like to see groups for "mods" and "demos" as a start.
  • New columns for sorting would be great, too - interesting ideas include game age, time since last play, total time played, date of last game update.

• Integrate drag-and-drop categorizing to save users from the meticulous 'right-click, set category, ok' for every game they own. —Retro51 13:04, 18 March 2014 (PST)

Steam Backend

• Memory footprint is better now. However, after games I went from 5-11MB when steam starts up, to 30++, especially after playing a game. It is slightly better than before, but please work hard to get this memory footprint lower. Thanks! --StonedSmurf 05:07, 11 Oct 2005 (PDT)
  • Memory management does seem a bit buggy. For example. I start Steam, the games window opens, and memory usage is 15MB. I close the window, it drops to 2MB, which is to be expected. However, I reopen the games window, usage climbs up to 6MB, and stays there.
    • This is do to the fact that instead of closing the window, steam just hides it. The window is still there and thus still taking up memory, it just isnt visible. —InvisGhost 14:52, 14 Oct 2009 (PST)

• detect out of date video drivers before launch for Goldsrc games do not - not only source games.

• XML skinning support like Winamp. --C00lryguy 03:44, 9 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• Release a skinning tool for Steam.

• Option for mod developers to allow updates to their games via steam, having them supply the hosting of course. If this is at all possible, please do. It can only help you to have "one stop shopping". [Smurf]
  • Mods could supply a special field in their gameinfo.txt to limit URLs to allow updates from, to prevent a malicious user who accesses a developer's system from being able to link an update to any file on the internet. —The MAZZTer
  • Yea there are several ways to make this a "safe" thing, as safe as you can get, that would allow mod makers a chance to get their products out, etc. —StonedSmurf

• Add an option to automatically exit steam when you close your game. (a full exit, not just closing the UI menu) —AlphaWolf

• Allow for multiple account management, fast user switching, or some sort of quick account login or management tool.

• Standardised GUI for all Steam platform games so that "one skin will fit it all".

• Allow the changing of login usernames.

• Put an option in steamscheme.res to modify steam in-game chat/netgraph font... old UI used to have it ("EngineFont").
  • Found a fix for this by editing the registry and reusing a trackerscheme.res old file.
  • There is another way too, a .res file in the local game directory, visit here to find more works for most Mods. —INsane
• Protection against files (i.e. com files) as developer_url

• More accurate detection of AMD "Cool&Quiet".

• Optimize the speed for downloading and add BitTorrent (Option) into the client so users can help other users on steam —Wiak
  • On the way :) —Steamfraiser 07:40, 23 Mar 2006 (PST)

• Launching a HL2 mod in the games list will show the name of the mod instead of HL2(e.g. "Preparing to play Perfect Dark", but if you launch using an icon it says "Preparing to play Half-Life 2", perhaps make the desktop icons do this too?
  • Desktop icons are launched through command line parameters yet the ones on the list actually know what the game is called. I think that it would have to look at gameinfo.txt while launching to work out the name. Certainly possible.

Storefront and browser

• Userrating of games in the shop, we now know what is available but how much does the community love it? —FishBrainX 21:13, 9 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• Keyboard access in store.

• Ability to maximise the storefront window.

• It would be nice to have a throbber for the Store to let the user know that a page is loading.

• Add an upgrade option for ATi bundle.

• Could we get the http://www.steampowered.com/status/game_stats.html somewhere, in its own tab or in the store?
  • Maybe put it in the "Games" menu since that has only got the one option? "Activate A Product On Steam..." —Agret
  • Maybe we can have a connection page that describes more network details
    • The current content server we are connected to
    • The current network status (Total/Used bandwidth)
    • Firewall tester (To allow people to see if firewalls are breaking their game)
      • I've got a hardware firewall and the only thing that would disrupt your game is when you are hosting. It's hardly worth coding a tester just for that as people should already know when they are in a position to host or not. —Agret

• Mark games you don't own bold in Store. Makes it easier to pick them out.

• Server Browser integrated in the big games/store/tools menu

• The store's html margin values should be checked because on the right the text is slightly truncated.

• The store's HTML should have doctype declarations to make it valid HTML. On top of this, the HTML should really come closer to validation than it does, Tidy spits out an average of 10 warnings per page.

• "Total cost of games bought individually..." in "Valve Complete Pack" shows savings of $200+, but that calculation assumes that every game does not come in a package and bases it off "package price.

• Should "store" really be called store? I anticipate using it to download a lot of free mods. "Browse" would probably be a more attractive name. [segarch]
  • Maybe "Browse Titles" or "Steam Titles" or "Steam Games"? —Agret
    • Or even... "Browse Games"!!!:D —Pon 17:14, 9 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• Advanced search! The GUI equivalent of SELECT * FROM games WHERE price<10 AND metacritic>75 AND 3rdpartyDRM=FALSE ORDER BY price; —Jrr 18:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistencies

• update SDK UI to match new style

• When installing a backup, it uses the old GUI.

• When steam updates the platform, it uses the old GUI.

• Inconsistent browser launches: Some of us use Firefox exclusively. "view game manual" pops up in Firefox, links to mods from the store pop in IE.
  • In fact, it would be nice if you could embed a Firefox control into Steam, to make it more secure - it is an online shop, after all —DrBob 00:52, 10 Nov 2005 (PST)

• Better use of capitals, e.g. "My games" to "My Games" etc.

• The in-game Steam GUI is not consistent with the new out-of-game Steam GUI. In Counter-strike: Source and Half-Life 2 it uses the round-cornered second Steam GUI introduced, while older Half-Life 1-based games all use the original square-cornered Steam GUI. [Bwmathis]
  • I don't think that's a problem, the new skin would look terrible in the old HL1 games.
    • I don't see how. It would allow you all the updated settings and options of Steam, which the old GUI lacks. It would change the in-game graphics (including the HUD) in no way, shape, or form. It would merely give you a single, consistent Steam GUI for everything you do.

• Main window is "STEAM - <username>" (all caps Steam)

• "File > Settings" opens window titled "Settings - Steam"

• "Games > Activate a product on Steam..." opens window titled "Product activation wizard" (no "Steam" and "activation" not capitalized)

• "Help > About" opens window titled "About"

• Most menu items that open up a new window have text ending in "...", except for "File > Settings" and "Help > About"
  • Don't forget about "View > News", "View > Friends", "View > Servers", "View > Settings", "View > Support" and "Help > Technical Support

Page" —Agret

• Inconsistent capitalization of text in titles. Eg, "Update News" versus "Backup wizard"
  • 'Wizard' is not a part of the title. e.g. "Update News wizard" is a wizard for Update News, "Update News Wizard" is a magician who make patches appear out of top hats.

• No "Steam - " leadin text on "Video Driver Outdated" dialog title

• Game property windows are titled with "- Steam" at end rather than beginning of title. Eg, "Day of Defeat: Source - Steam"

• Loading "Properties" for a game gives you a window titled with just the name of the game (no mention of "properties"). It has a single tab titled "Status". Why not ditch the "Status" tab (one tab makes no sense) and just label the window like "Steam - Half-Life Properties" (for example).

• Launch options window is titled "Launch Options - <game name>" rather than the "Steam - " style title.
  • That's because the launch options aren't related to the Steam launch options. They are related to the game in question. —Agret
    • To keep the same style, it'd be "STEAM - Launch Options - <game name>"

Nitpicks

• The "Stop refresh" button isn't aligned correctly. screenshot —Snkcube 21:34, 11 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• In the Steam settings (on latest update) "Don't save account information on this computer" is not lined up with the check box next to it —Agret

• Having "Not Installed" games in the mini-games list is pretty illogical, they can be installed from the full games list anyway.

• There are 2 duplicates in the 'toolbar'. There is file->settings, view->settings and view->support, help->technical support which basically refer to the same.

• Disabled text is green, so it appears quite out of place when featured against a grey background, such as with the "I agree with the terms of the Steam Subscriber Agreement" in the Product activation wizard.
  • While you mention it, when you click "I agree with the terms of the Steam Subscriber Agreement" the Back button is highlighted rather than the next button as though you should go back? —Agret

• "Server Browser > History & Favorites" CTRL+A (Select all) does not work.

• Half-Life: Source uses the old, orange HL icon rather than the new, white HL:S icon
  • same for the old UI [Koraktor]
  • Where is this "new white HL:S icon"? I've never seen it, and VALVe has never used it to my knowledge. —Steamfraiser 07:26, 28 Mar 2006 (PST)
  • That's right. I think also "Condition Zero Deleted Scenes" and "Half-Life 2: Deathmatch" should have their own icons. —[User:Freno|Freno]

• Option to show list after what engine they run like Half-Life: Counter-Strike, Half-Life Blue Shift, Day of Deafeat, Deathmatch Classic, etc. and Half-Life 2: Half-Life: Lost Coast, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch etc.. —Wiak

• Steam should indicate that it is doing a rollback instead of an update when it is in fact doing a rollback. For example, when you run steam without the -clientbeta parameter after you have run it with that once, it says it is "updating" to an older version. —AlphaWolf
  • It is in fact updating to the latest version. The command line switch forces Steam to think there is a new version but the content server still reports the other one as the latest version. —Agret

• Viewing update news for a game. Title of window does not contain name of game being displayed.
  • Game name appears just below that in a big line that says "UPDATE NEWS - HALF-LIFE 2: DEATHMATCH" so i'm pretty sure you'd know what game you were looking at the update news for.

• "Activate a product on Steam..." should only be clickable on the text part and not the width of the window
  • "Activate a product on Steam..." should open the "Product activation wizard" on MouseUp

• Windows lack any border separate from the dark OD green, which means if you have two windows on top of each other, the edge of the top window vanishes into the background of the bottom window.

• Opening "Change password..." dialog there is a minimize and close button in title bar ( _ and X), yet "Change contact email..." only has close and no minimize.

• The font used for the ip address in the "Game Info" dialog should be a bit brighter
  • I second this - it's a small aesthetic nitpick that's very annoying! —Hampster

• "Settings" is listed in both the File and View menus. Redundant?

• "Activate a product on Steam..." at the bottom of the Store tab link appears as underlined text rather than a button. This seems to break the aesthetic convention of the UI: buttons are used to open other Steam windows, underlined text is used to open webpages.
  • And on that subject, wouldn't it be better next to the back/home buttons, with the space it is currently taken up used to show more of the web page?

• The interface is too chunky. The space between the games list and window border (as a matter of fact most of the dead space) needs to be trimmed. You shouldn't have to scroll as much as you do when you have 25 items.

• Ability to try and install the half life 2 demo even though I already own half life 2, launch obviously fails.

• Source SDK should feature the link to www.valvesoftware.com for the developer_url and developer.valvesoftware.com for the manual. —ts2do 21:13, 9 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• The dotted selection outlines on buttons, tabs, etc. could do with being swatted. We already know what's highlighted...'

• Error in Minerva's Store page: "Something something, really extraordinary!"

• The grey outer window of the games list is visually not in sync with the rest of the app. (Example)

• The "Steam Update" window crops a bit off of the bottom of HTML pages it opens up, even if you scroll down all the way. screenshot —Moleculor

Friends List: Tagging Friends' Names

• My friends change their steam name so often, I have a hard time keeping up, and never know who is who! Add the ability to tag a person with whatever you want (only visible to you) so you know who people are!

—itzmashy 21:04, 24 Jan 2014 (PDT)

Fixed or dismissed

• Description for Automatic Updates under Properties -> Updates always reads "(Content for this game will not be automatically acquired.)" even when it is set to automatically update.
  • No it doesn't —Steamfraiser 12:52, 30 Mar 2006 (PST)
• After right-clicking a game in the My Games window to open the context menu, right-clicking on a different game changes focus to that entry and closes the context menu for the first game. However, left-clicking also does this. If I right click on one game, then on another, it should close the first menu and also open the menu for the second, rather than just re-focusing.
• "Server Browser > History" has a "remove server from favorites", instead of "remove from history"
  • No it doesn't —Steamfraiser 12:52, 30 Mar 2006 (PST)
• There is a space character before the word "Built:" in the about dialog
  • No there isn't —Steamfraiser 12:52, 30 Mar 2006 (PST)
• Maybe for some of the more popular mods you can add the developer website link for them. (I think it's a mod file setting, not sure I don't mod that much.
• When starting Steam, there should be an option not to show any screen (games etc.) at Favorite Window
  • Add -silent to the command line —Steamfraiser 07:40, 23 Mar 2006 (PST)
• Add an option to verify GCF caches when right clicking a game.
• Allow third party games to have their icons in the 'My games' section
• Ability to collapse sections in Mini-games mode [Dwarden]
• Support for launch options for third party mods, like Valve games (-console for example). UPDATE: Done in last new updates, but still buggy as hell. [Smurf]
• After clicking on "Delete local game content" from within a game properties box, the "Delete" button is highlighted. Traditionally, the Cancel button is highlighted to prevent accidental deletion. —Hampster
• File menu says "Backup games..." whereas window is titled "Backup wizard"
  • That's because when you want to backup your games you get a wizard to guide you through the process. This isn't a bug. —Agret
• "About" dialog wasn't updated when the October 7th update was released.
• Third party mods randomly show icons of other games. —Koraktor
• The bandwidth readout in My Games doesn't go into MB/s. Could confuse those who misread it as kilobits/second?
• For unreleased games, put the "(unreleased)" text in a different, perhaps slightly darker, color.

See also

• User Interface feedback