Steam updated the new beta client, which made considerable changes to the built-in interface (Steam Overlay) in the game. Steam’s built-in interface can be opened by pressing shift+tab in any game opened through the Steam launcher. Currently, it provides chatting with friends, music, achievement progress, posts and guides from the community, and more. In the new version, Steam has redesigned its interface, and you can choose to display all the functions as icons below, or expand them in the form of a list.
In this way, users will be able to see more clearly the functions provided by the embedded interface, and it will also facilitate Steam to add new functions. There are currently two newly added functions: “Game Overview” allows you to see what updates or DLCs are available for the game, and you can also see the progress status of achievements, which friends are playing this game, popular guides, news, etc. . The “Notes App” is an interface similar to Apple’s Notes, allowing you to write down game notes or create to-do lists.
This note is independent of each game, and can be synchronized on any computer logged into Steam, and can be used offline. For players who often open the game and forget what they were going to do before, or some more complicated puzzle games, it should be able to play a very good auxiliary role. Steam has also added the ability to “window on top” for the built-in interface, allowing you to pull the annotations, guides, discussion boards, and even the web browser of the built-in interface into a semi-transparent layer and pull it on top of the game. In addition to being convenient for reading notes, the browser can also let you watch something else during the boring part of the game to kill time.
These features are currently only available in the beta version of the client. If you want to try it out, go to the “Account” tab in the “Settings” to find “Test Participation” and select “Steam Beta Update” from the drop-down menu. After restarting, you can try out the Beta features. This update also includes updates to notifications and screenshot tools, and changes to the way code is shared between the Steam desktop client, Big Picture mode, and Steam Deck, allowing new features to be rolled out more quickly on each platform in the future.