Steam Client Beta Available - Web browsing using the STEAM Overlay

Gimpymoo · 13 Dec 2008 at 01:00

jasonr@Valve said:
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

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8654375&postcount=1

Mmmm... so when using the STEAM overlay, can now access web pages too.. Interesting.

Obviously BETA but a great idea.

To enable BETA paticipation:

Goto your STEAM settings
Under "BETA Participation" - Select Change
Apply BETA
STEAM will restart and Update.

Same process top remove BETA participation.

Craig321 · 13 Dec 2008 at 01:02

Could be good, but only if you can play the game and have Steam in the corner, unlike XFire where you can't put a chat screen in the corner of the game window and carry on playing

Tom|Nbk · 13 Dec 2008 at 02:28

Excellent, always thought that should be implemented

MikeHunt79 · 13 Dec 2008 at 02:45

I've been doing that for ages with dual screens, nice idea to be able to do it on single screen tho...

Devil_Spawn · 13 Dec 2008 at 11:41

ingame msn

MumboJumbo · 13 Dec 2008 at 12:07

you can do it with xfire, you just pin it to the screen and ajust the transparancy of the window. Been doing that for ages..

UKTopGun · 13 Dec 2008 at 12:21

Now this is a good idea.. I actually downloaded http://rogue.gotgame.com/ yesterday to do this !

Hopefully it doesnt mean people getting distracted while playing though... I hate it when people play it windows mode, and chat on MSN at the same time. Its frustrating as they miss so much!

Lyon85 · 13 Dec 2008 at 13:08

Works quite well.

I've wanted this feature for a while now, now that I have it I don't know what to do with it

How many people need to browse while playing games? Guess I can F5 OcUK while I'm waiting to spawn.

Calneon · 13 Dec 2008 at 13:53

Great for watching replays (RTS mainly) while also browsing the internet.

Craig321 · 13 Dec 2008 at 14:10

8igdave said:
you can do it with xfire, you just pin it to the screen and ajust the transparancy of the window. Been doing that for ages..

Oh, cool. Thank you

Darg · 13 Dec 2008 at 14:25

Great.. now all the kids will be running around TF2 while watching pr0n at the same time.

MumboJumbo · 13 Dec 2008 at 14:49

Craig321 said:
Oh, cool. Thank you

no worries, i like to have the time and fps counters on xfrie pinned to the screen as well.

Does anyone else find xfire doesn't qwork with COH or crysis warhead? like u cant talk in game yet it picks it up that ** in game?

Calneon · 13 Dec 2008 at 22:53

Aww, anyone know if you can make it semi transparent and have control over the game, not the browser? I want to watch South Park while playing CoH.

Calneon · 13 Dec 2008 at 23:14

Nevermind, I'll just use Rogue.

Final8y · 14 Dec 2008 at 11:53

8igdave said:
you can do it with xfire, you just pin it to the screen and adjust the transparency of the window. Been doing that for ages..

Been doing the same for ages as well.

Revolution6000 · 14 Dec 2008 at 13:31

You used to be able to do this when Steam Community first came out, and then for some reason they removed it, and now they've added it back.