Steam Client Beta Available

jasonr · 12-12-2008, 11:37 AM

There's a new Steam Beta client available. To access the Beta, go to File -> Settings, and on the Account tab will be a drop down. Select Steam Client Candidate, and then allow Steam to restart itself. Here are the specific changes:

- Updated game overlay web browser to support generic web browsing, including web sites that use flash
- Fixed games list scrolling behavior with pageup/pagedown and mouse wheel
- Many back-end Steamworks changes in preparation for a Steamworks SDK update

12/13/2008

- Fixed crash when launching Half-Life 2 64-bit

12/15/2008

- Fixed a bug where the in-game overlay web browser could hang the overlay process
- Fixed GTA4 backups not restoring correctly
- Fixed several cases where matchmaking wouldn’t work in Left 4 Dead in using Café accounts
- Changed Friends to be enabled for Café accounts
- Removed ‘view invites’ dialog on startup, now clicking on a group/user invite toast will take you directly to the Community control page
- Fixed Javascript not always working in the in-game overlay web browser
- Fixed guest passes not showing immediately in games list
- Fixed case where a user would be told a guest pass had expired after they had bought the full game

12/16/2008

- Fixed case of being switched out (alt-tabbed) when clicking on certain URLs in the in-game web broswer

12/24/2008

- Improved Steam Windows Service restart logic in serveral places

12/31/2008

- Fixed javascript confirm() messageboxes not showing up in the client

01/05/2009

- Fixed possible connection issues when starting Steam or launching a game

01/07/2009

- Gracefully handle long steam service startup times (Windows Vista)
- Fixed localization bug in the in-overlay browser that would cause incorrect display of non-english characters in the status bar

florro · 12-12-2008, 11:44 AM

eeehm can I post bugs of TF2 here???

Kailieann · 12-12-2008, 11:46 AM

No?

Unless they're specifically caused by the new client beta.

Kapitein Iglo · 12-12-2008, 11:46 AM

Three very interesting updates, certainly worth the beta testing!

Just out of interest: how have you gotten around the problems that you faced when making the overlay open regular websites and flash?

DruiDz' · 12-12-2008, 11:51 AM

OMG! In-Game Webbrowser through Steam Overlay! Sweet *-*

By the way, could we have some more details about the SteamWorks Update?

jmccaskey · 12-12-2008, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kapitein Iglo

Three very interesting updates, certainly worth the beta testing!

Just out of interest: how have you gotten around the problems that you faced when making the overlay open regular websites and flash?

With lots of low level trickery and hacking. Using IE for this is still not ideal as it makes things hard and doesn't expose APIs at the level we really need for the overlay. We may still evaluate changing the browser/HTML rendering engine in the future.

jmccaskey · 12-12-2008, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by florro

eeehm can I post bugs of TF2 here???

Only if they are specifically caused by the Steam client beta, otherwise please post in the TF2 forum.

AngelGraves13 · 12-12-2008, 11:53 AM

Seems the in-game browser doesn't enable javascript. Some sites refuse to work without it.

stranded · 12-12-2008, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngelGraves13

Seems the in-game browser doesn't enable javascript. Some sites refuse to work without it.

Confirmed. GMail is pretty useless. Keeps hanging.

Stuckinabox · 12-12-2008, 12:00 PM

Awesome, I've been waiting for an official browser for awhile.

Kailieann · 12-12-2008, 12:00 PM

Not that this changes the fact that javascript doesn't work in the overlay browser, but there is an HTML-only version of GMail.

jmccaskey · 12-12-2008, 12:02 PM

JavaScript should work with the browser, if it isn't please post the exact URL you are at (not if it's gmail though), as well as your IE version. This may be caused by you having JavaScript disabled in IE period, if you don't normally use IE you may want to fire it up and go check your privacy/security settings and reset them to the defaults and see if that helps.

I've tested with gmail in-game a bunch and had no issues.

stranded · 12-12-2008, 12:05 PM

IE8 beta2.

Can't really post EXACT site I'm on, basically it's:

Quote:

https://mail.google.com/mail/?account_id=MYMAILLOGIN%40gmail.com#inbox

That would be it. Clicking on links just takes you to lets say the same address but ...#spam at the end.

AngelGraves13 · 12-12-2008, 12:08 PM

IE 8 Beta 2 here as well

IE 8 Beta 2 works correctly, but the in-game browser says Javascript is disabled.

I get the same message for the ACID3 test.

http://acid3.acidtests.org/

Karma_Police · 12-12-2008, 12:10 PM

gmail works fine for me, even with some labs features turned on like the calendar. It has a strange problem though, because the scrollbars turn into the default windows ones (probably a CSS reset) and I can't move them with the mouse. I can click on the empty space on the scrollbar, and the page moves though.

12-12-2008, 11:37 AM	#1
jasonr Valve Join Date: Feb 2006 Reputation: 174 Posts: 98	Steam Client Beta Available There's a new Steam Beta client available. To access the Beta, go to File -> Settings, and on the Account tab will be a drop down. Select Steam Client Candidate, and then allow Steam to restart itself. Here are the specific changes: - Updated game overlay web browser to support generic web browsing, including web sites that use flash - Fixed games list scrolling behavior with pageup/pagedown and mouse wheel - Many back-end Steamworks changes in preparation for a Steamworks SDK update 12/13/2008 - Fixed crash when launching Half-Life 2 64-bit 12/15/2008 - Fixed a bug where the in-game overlay web browser could hang the overlay process - Fixed GTA4 backups not restoring correctly - Fixed several cases where matchmaking wouldn’t work in Left 4 Dead in using Café accounts - Changed Friends to be enabled for Café accounts - Removed ‘view invites’ dialog on startup, now clicking on a group/user invite toast will take you directly to the Community control page - Fixed Javascript not always working in the in-game overlay web browser - Fixed guest passes not showing immediately in games list - Fixed case where a user would be told a guest pass had expired after they had bought the full game 12/16/2008 - Fixed case of being switched out (alt-tabbed) when clicking on certain URLs in the in-game web broswer 12/24/2008 - Improved Steam Windows Service restart logic in serveral places 12/31/2008 - Fixed javascript confirm() messageboxes not showing up in the client 01/05/2009 - Fixed possible connection issues when starting Steam or launching a game 01/07/2009 - Gracefully handle long steam service startup times (Windows Vista) - Fixed localization bug in the in-overlay browser that would cause incorrect display of non-english characters in the status bar Last edited by jasonr : 01-07-2009 at 05:10 PM.

12-12-2008, 12:02 PM	#12
jmccaskey Valve Join Date: Nov 2006 Reputation: 433 Posts: 1,644	JavaScript should work with the browser, if it isn't please post the exact URL you are at (not if it's gmail though), as well as your IE version. This may be caused by you having JavaScript disabled in IE period, if you don't normally use IE you may want to fire it up and go check your privacy/security settings and reset them to the defaults and see if that helps. I've tested with gmail in-game a bunch and had no issues. Last edited by jmccaskey : 12-12-2008 at 12:05 PM.

12-12-2008, 12:08 PM	#14
AngelGraves13 Join Date: Jan 2007 Reputation: 41 Posts: 1,329	IE 8 Beta 2 here as well IE 8 Beta 2 works correctly, but the in-game browser says Javascript is disabled. I get the same message for the ACID3 test. http://acid3.acidtests.org/ Last edited by AngelGraves13 : 12-13-2008 at 10:45 AM.

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12-12-2008, 11:44 AM	#2
florro Join Date: Aug 2008 Reputation: 14 Posts: 367	eeehm can I post bugs of TF2 here???

12-12-2008, 11:46 AM	#3
Kailieann Join Date: Sep 2008 Reputation: 388 Posts: 3,950	No? Unless they're specifically caused by the new client beta.

12-12-2008, 11:46 AM	#4
Kapitein Iglo Join Date: Oct 2006 Reputation: 53 Posts: 435	Three very interesting updates, certainly worth the beta testing! Just out of interest: how have you gotten around the problems that you faced when making the overlay open regular websites and flash?

12-12-2008, 11:51 AM	#5
DruiDz' Join Date: Mar 2008 Reputation: 1 Posts: 72	OMG! In-Game Webbrowser through Steam Overlay! Sweet - By the way, could we have some more details about the SteamWorks Update?

12-12-2008, 11:53 AM	#8
AngelGraves13 Join Date: Jan 2007 Reputation: 41 Posts: 1,329	Seems the in-game browser doesn't enable javascript. Some sites refuse to work without it.

12-12-2008, 12:00 PM	#10
Stuckinabox Join Date: Sep 2005 Reputation: 26 Posts: 1,331	Awesome, I've been waiting for an official browser for awhile.

12-12-2008, 12:10 PM	#15
Karma_Police Join Date: Jul 2008 Reputation: 24 Posts: 192	gmail works fine for me, even with some labs features turned on like the calendar. It has a strange problem though, because the scrollbars turn into the default windows ones (probably a CSS reset) and I can't move them with the mouse. I can click on the empty space on the scrollbar, and the page moves though.