Steam plugins

[djsamuraisam]

Hey,
First of all thanks for the best gaming platform on earth.

Anyway, I have a suggestion; steam should allow plugins to be installed. By plugins I mean something that can be accessed when hitting shift+tab, something akin to dashboard for mac.

What I'd love to see is a media player plugin/VLC controller of some description. When I'm in a game it's a pain in the ♥♥♥ to alt+tab out of the game to change song/movie/whatever. Now I realize this may be a bad idea in that it might introduce a lot of compatibility problems, but even if the plugins were limited to being very very simple it would be great.

Another great plugin might be MSN/google talk/twitter through steam; one of the main reasons I have to alt+tab is MSN. If I could access MSN through steam I would never again have to stop playing the wonderful games that you sell.

Once again thanks for the best gaming platform on earth, and double thanks for the double TF2 update (yeah, valve rule)

EDIT: I realize some of these things can be done via the steam web browser, however I was looking for something more dedicated, specifically talking about MSN, so that I can see ♥♥♥♥ pop up in the corner (like when steam notifies you that your battery level is low, or when someone comes online)

Also what about like a ventrilo/skype/whatever plugin?

[Malth_Viking]

I'd like to see something like this, too

Or at least have the IM client notively support aim/msn/yahoo so I dont have to alt tab out of the game to use them

[pumpkinserpent]

In all fairness, they probably will not do this. Hundreds of ideas are pitched to them here, but I doubt they ever take them seriously, as I have only seen a few ever be actually implemented on Steam.

[djsamuraisam]

well what about a ventrilo plugin then? that would definitely have lots of use

[GreenJelly]

Well I thought about this too... but what if people started modifying plug ins to key log your account. Then they start Gifting games to everyone on your credit card! I would like to see more Social Networking features to each persons profile. Allow people to make notes on players who they play with (and dont want as friends), etc. It would be nice to make a note like "Griefer"

[2SeeKU]

Cool idea, but any media keyboard should be able to control Winamp e.c.t while in game...

[Maledict21]

In my opinion, an overlay API would be the ultimate addition. There are security issues among other things that come along with that unfortunately. It really would be nice though.

[leveller]

I'm not sure about your specific ideas neccessarily, but the idea of plugins made me think of Wordpress blogs. You can change the themes easily by installing new packs made by the community. You can add to the functionality of the blog (i.e. tracks users movements, page impressions, map locations. You can even allow them to become part of your blog and add their own content as well as comments).

Now thinking in terms of Steam ... user created skins and plugins ...

Easily accessible through a Steam page/tab ...

With the interest in Steam as it is we would have had those download schedulers, prioritise downloads, Win7 skins, IM plugins ... and so on by now.

Of course, all plugins would need to be checked for nasty bits of code. But when you've got trusted coders providing plugins and they've always previously supplied interesting, useful plugins that have always been great pieces of code - you could always prioritise their submissions over the odd randoms who are ubmitting their first ideas or those that have proved themselves to be hopefuls but bad coders!