New Steam Update Improves UI, Adds Notes Feature, Window Pinning & More

Valve has announced that the Steam Desktop Client has received a significant new update. Several improvements and additions have been implemented, including a new framework, as well as an updated UI for menus, fonts, colors, and dialogue. The main Steam header and footer, Settings, and the Screenshot Manager, in particular, boast notable upgrades.

Notifications have been updated to become more useful, with the bell only appearing green when there’s something new available. Additionally, the tray will only show new notifications.

The in-game overlay has received a massive overhaul, as quoted below:

“…a brand-new user interface, adding new utility and allowing for more customizability. There is a new toolbar, giving you access to anything you may need in the middle of a game – friends chat, achievements progress, guides, discussions, a browser, and more.

…you can pick and personalize the pieces of content you’d like to see in your own overlay – settings are saved between games.

…new Notes feature lets you jot down notes about the game that you’re currently playing. It comes with rich text formatting, the ability to paste images, multiple notes per game, and can even be used in offline mode. These notes are saved per game and are synced across to any other PCs (or Steam Decks!) you are logged into. They are also accessible outside the in-game overlay, on the game details page.

…added the ability to pin windows from the overlay, so that they can appear on top of the game – while in-game. The opacity level of these windows is adjustable, and only the contents of the window will be pinned, excluding the title bar and other extraneous UI. This new functionality is available for Notes, Guides, Discussions, Achievements, and the web browser. This feature is perfect for keeping track of progress or guides while in-game, or for multi-tasking maniacs who love to have a movie on in the background while they game.

The controller experience has been improved as well. The updated controller configurator from Steam Deck is now part of the overlay when a gamepad is connected, and virtual menus can now be used while gaming on Desktop.”

As you can see, there’s quite a bit going on here. For the full deep dive, check out the official Steam blog post.

You can view the video formally introducing this new public Steam update below: