How to get rid of the "What's New", and how to (almost) blank the right (main) part of the new Library UI

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

The title is two different things because they're sorta related.

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How to get rid of "What's New"

There are basically two ways to do this:

1. editing the css for Steam's interface itself. There are multiple ways to do this, but the key points are either you have to edit it perfectly to fit the original length of the file or else Steam undoes your edit, or you can do whatever edits you want then prevent Steam from updating.

2. editing the css in a Steam skin. (I'm using this method right now.)

Method 1: Editing Steam's interface itself

For this, you'll need to go to your Steam install folder, then go to the steamui subfolder, then the css subfolder, then open the libraryroot.css file.

1a. "perfect edits" method

(credit to Taco_Taco for posting the old method, and credit to Blitz4 for improving on it)

Search for the text "WhatsNew". You should be able to find this:

.libraryhome_WhatsNewContainer_gdZT7 {
  position: relative; }

Change BOTH lines, so that they instead say this:

.libraryhome_WhatsNewContainer_gdZT7{
display:none;!important}

(Note how the first line is missing a space, while the second line has an extra character length.)

Alternatively, here's the old method. Change those lines to this:

.libraryhome_WhatsNewContainer_gdZT7 {
height:0%; opacity:0; }

(Note how both lines are exactly the same length as before. In this older version, you only need to modify the second line.)

This old method will cause the Add Shelf button to be broken. The first (new) method doesn't have this problem.

Make sure that you have the exact same number of characters in the replaced file, or else this won't work right and will keep getting reverted every time you restart Steam. The new method subtracts one character from the first line and adds one more to the second line, to fit the code. The old method only changes the second line, and keeps enough spaces to make it the same length. WARNING: Simply doing a copy-paste may change the number of spaces or whether there's a linebreak, so you may need to copy this by hand, or edit it after pasting.

After you've copied it over properly, save your libraryroot.css file; don't close it until you're sure it worked right. Saving should cause the "What's New" banner to disappear. You should see your Steam Library UI update immediately if you have your Steam library window open in the background. (If you've made a mistake, the Steam library should be completely broken, and you can fix that by undoing your changes and saving again.)

Also, this method will get reverted every time Steam updates. So there's the following alternative...

1b. "stop updates" method

Do any edit you want, and then block Steam from updating itself. (Credit to CriticalAlpha for writing that up!)

If you do this, you can edit more stuff too. And you're not beholden to file size or line lengths. Furthermore, you can make even more extensive changes to Steam, without Steam overwriting your stuff.

But what if there were a way to make the changes we've been talking about without having them reverted every Steam update?

Method 2: using a Steam skin

(credit to The HopelessGamer™ for posting this)

Go to the skins folder ( Steam\skins ). Use an existing Steam skin, or create a new one by creating a new folder with whatever name you want. Go to the resource folder inside the skin's folder ( Steam\skins\SkinName\resource ). If you don't have such a folder, copy the resource folder (including all its contents) to the skin's folder. Now inside resource, look for a file called webkit.css .

Paste the following at the top of that file.

[class*="libraryhome_WhatsNew"] {
        display: none !important;
}

Save the file. Now, the skin you just edited will have the What's New removed.

You can't see the change immediately, but just go to Steam menu -> Settings -> Interface -> "Select the skin you wish Steam to use (requires Steam to restart)", then restart.

It should work. And if you horribly screwed things up, switch your skin back to the default. If you've screwed things up so horribly that you can't even access Steam settings again, delete the skin folder and restart Steam and Steam should default to the default skin.

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And now for part two...

How to (almost entirely) blank the right side (the main part) of the new Steam Library UI

This is simple. Do the above, then remove all your shelves.

Now you should have an entirely blank grey rectangle, aside from a pale ghostly "+ ADD SHELF" mark at the top which you should be able to easily ignore.

The left side is now a crappy version of Small Mode, because it's not small, the icons are forced to load, and you can't start games using keyboard. But, hey, if you wanna do this, all the more power to you.

Edit: left sidebar is now a less crappy version of Small Mode because icons can now be turned off. However, you still can't start games using keyboard, and lag is still generated when the detail pages load. I guess the result is a crappier version of the old Detail Mode?

Also this may be useful if Valve truly removes all access to what's left of Small Mode. Hopefully they never do this. And hopefully they restore List View.

How to revert this

If you used method 1, just change that part of the css code back to what it was, then save the libraryroot.css again. Now the What's New is back (and Add Shelf works again, if you broke it earlier).

If you used method 2, switch your Steam skin.

[Flava Clown]

Why not just "display: none;" instead of height and opacity? Maybe with "!important" if necessary?

.libraryhome_WhatsNewContainer_gdZT7 { display: none;  !important }

[Joce]

Would it be possible to reorder the shelves so that What's New is below Recent Games or any other custom shelf?

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Flava Clown:

Why not just "display: none;" instead of height and opacity? Maybe with "!important" if necessary?

.libraryhome_WhatsNewContainer_gdZT7 { display: none;  !important }

Because I don't actually know how css works and just took that line from Taco_Taco.

I'll have to experiment around with your code. Thanks!

Oprindeligt skrevet af Joce:

Would it be possible to reorder the shelves so that What's New is below Recent Games or any other custom shelf?

I would love to do that but as I said I don't actually know css and I'm just copying someone else's code.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Flava Clown:

Why not just "display: none;" instead of height and opacity? Maybe with "!important" if necessary?

.libraryhome_WhatsNewContainer_gdZT7 { display: none;  !important }

Oh I think Taco_Taco picked the stuff written above (albeit revised a little by me to line things up right, in contrast to what he/she posted) because it fit into the size of the line.

It seems to run into problems of getting overwritten on restart if it's not the exact correct line length? Let me know if you've got a better implementation that works.

[Flava Clown]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Quint the Alligator Snapper:

It seems to run into problems of getting overwritten on restart if it's not the exact correct line length? Let me know if you've got a better implementation that works.

Mmmm maybe they check the file size. I might experiment with it a bit once I am on a PC.

[Aahzmandias]

It just works ... If we start to modify the CSS for Steam in general, that is the beginning of the end for them. :D

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Edit: left sidebar is now a less crappy version of Small Mode, because you can now disable game icons which previously took time to load.

However, it's still a crappy version of Small Mode, since keyboard navigating that list is still (1) unable to launch games, and (2) laggy because it tries to load detail view for any game that you stop on.

[_I_]

best to make a backup of the file first then edit
if that file gets borked, steam library will not display properly or at all

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Oprindeligt skrevet af _I_:

best to make a backup of the file first then edit
if that file gets borked, steam library will not display properly or at all

If you bork it, just exit steam and restart; unless you borked it just perfectly, it'll just redownload and replace the borked file.

[Blitz4]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Quint the Alligator Snapper:

(Make sure that you have the exact same number of characters in the replaced line, or else this won't work right and will keep getting reverted every time you restart Steam.)

Thank you!

[Blitz4]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Flava Clown:

Why not just "display: none;" instead of height and opacity? Maybe with "!important" if necessary?

.libraryhome_WhatsNewContainer_gdZT7 { display: none;  !important }

Oh I think Taco_Taco picked the stuff written above (albeit revised a little by me to line things up right, in contrast to what he/she posted) because it fit into the size of the line.

It seems to run into problems of getting overwritten on restart if it's not the exact correct line length? Let me know if you've got a better implementation that works.

this works

.libraryhome_WhatsNewContainer_gdZT7{
display:none;!important}

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Blitz4:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Oh I think Taco_Taco picked the stuff written above (albeit revised a little by me to line things up right, in contrast to what he/she posted) because it fit into the size of the line.

It seems to run into problems of getting overwritten on restart if it's not the exact correct line length? Let me know if you've got a better implementation that works.

this works

.libraryhome_WhatsNewContainer_gdZT7{
display:none;!important}

I tested this and it doesn't work for me. Just mangles the display.

And more importantly, the change is one character too long, so it doesn't persist through a restart.

[Blitz4]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Blitz4:

this works

.libraryhome_WhatsNewContainer_gdZT7{
display:none;!important}

I tested this and it doesn't work for me. Just mangles the display.

And more importantly, the change is one character too long, so it doesn't persist through a restart.

I deleted the space after the gdZT7

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Blitz4:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Quint the Alligator Snapper:

I tested this and it doesn't work for me. Just mangles the display.

And more importantly, the change is one character too long, so it doesn't persist through a restart.

I deleted the space after the gdZT7

Oh I see! Now it works. Let me see if it persists...

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

It appears to persist. Also, this solution seems better because the "Add Shelf" feature is still operational.

Thank you! I'll edit it into the OP.