new steam based on chromium?

[nullis81]

so the new improved version of steam is based on chromium right?

if thats the case shouldn't i just be able to login to steam in the chrome web browser and download/play my games without even needing the client installed at all, since the whole new UI is chromium(which is noting more then google chrome)?

why dont steam just release an extension for chrome/firefox/etc, they'd still have the new UI, and it would save on dev time/cost

lets face it, the new steam is just a skinned version of the chrome browser, memeory leaks included

[TwinShadow]

According to this one steam skin customizing group, the main Steam UI is now built off Electron and the web browser built into Steam is based off Chromium, which is the open source base for Chrome, Google's browser. So, it wouldn't quite be that easy I would think as far as an extension goes despite that fact.

[nullis81]

so just googled Electron
it use's HTML, JavaScript and CSS

so it's just a web browser, given a fancy name
it accepts the same lines of code as chrome/firefox/etc for displaying webpages/web app's

so if we could disasemble the new version of steam, you could launch chrome in developer mode, or use firefox developer edition, insert the code into it, and have all the new features and access to your library inside of a web browser

[nullis81]

so just looked at the Electron website as well
twitch use's it, discord uses it, itch.io uses it just to name a few

can download there programs or just visit sites via web browser, doesn't seem like it would be hard for valve to do since they already have the framework in place

[BUS]

I know this is old AF but I've built apps in Electron + ReactJS and they're basically websites first. Electron has some rules you have to follow if you want it to launch as an application instead of a website. Remove the electron scaffolding and it's just a website.

[p0k314NET]

Originally posted by nullis81:

so just looked at the Electron website as well
twitch use's it, discord uses it, itch.io uses it just to name a few

can download there programs or just visit sites via web browser, doesn't seem like it would be hard for valve to do since they already have the framework in place

Believe me, Electron is extremely cheap solution, used for non demanding markets (eg. like kids, teenagers), but believe me again, everything is better then 2 decades ancient code based on Chromium like Steam client today. The current Steam client is only suitable for blowing away (in its entirety). The best part is that as of 2019, this programming monstrosity hasn't changed even a step. It's still the same junk. But how many revisions and versions there were during that time. What a development! What a joke.

[Firehawke]

Yeah, no. They did have to add code for actually launching the games, for handling installations, etc. The UI itself is HTML/JS/CSS, but there's a lot of OS-interfacing code behind that necessary to make it work.

[aiusepsi]

Originally posted by nullis81:

so the new improved version of steam is based on chromium right?

if thats the case shouldn't i just be able to login to steam in the chrome web browser and download/play my games without even needing the client installed at all, since the whole new UI is chromium(which is noting more then google chrome)?

No. It's just the UI which is in Chromium. That UI interfaces with a native code, written in C++, backend in the client which does stuff like game downloads and lots of other stuff. If you try to load the UI in another web browser, like Chrome, the native code backend is missing so the UI doesn't work at all.

[Jinx]

Sure, you can totally lauch exes via web browser, but how often do you download tens of gigabytes through your browser? How fast do downloads go (even from well hosted websites)? Can you mass move files via web browsers? Can you change file properties via web browser? How would sub-windows work without being ugly asf? I guarantee you steam has heaps of features that chrome/firefox/edge might not be capable of supporting. Plus you'd be cluttering your browser and having the browser's ui taking up a large chunk of space.

[SeanCodyfan37]

im done with everything on my computer just being a glorified webbrowser! discord, spotify and steam; all running with electron; they all eat up my ram! this is so damn annoying--the redesign of steam is just a simplification of the ui, and now it takes up even more ram; 500 mb when closed!!?? insanely stupid. and no im not gonna reinstall restart reset cause before it just worked. i like the redesign but this couldve been done without electron..

[RiO]

Originally posted by jinxmaster¹:

Sure, you can totally lauch exes via web browser, but how often do you download tens of gigabytes through your browser? How fast do downloads go (even from well hosted websites)?

Often enough. YouTube 1080p and 4K content comes to mind.
And it goes just as fast as it goes through Steam, which is also just HTTP(S) traffic.

Originally posted by jinxmaster¹:

Can you mass move files via web browsers? Can you change file properties via web browser?

For very obvious reasons*, browsers don't get arbitrary file system access.
The web platform does give them access to a sandboxed file system using the File and Directory Entries API. But files written within that sandbox are flagged non-executable. Again: for the same very obvious reasons*.

For these particular use cases though; you would best use a native headless service installed on the local system. And said service could connect to the client's UI running in a web browser, through a custom protocol handler. (Steam actually already has one.)

*) reducing malware attack surface

Originally posted by jinxmaster¹:

How would sub-windows work without being ugly asf?

In-page overlays, just like Steam implements many of them today.
Or failing that, just opened as new tabs.

Why couldn't I have one browser tab with my library; and two or three with various community threads? Seems perfect really.

[BraveCaperCat]

Originally posted by nullis81:

so just googled Electron
it use's HTML, JavaScript and CSS

so it's just a web browser, given a fancy name
it accepts the same lines of code as chrome/firefox/etc for displaying webpages/web app's

so if we could disasemble the new version of steam, you could launch chrome in developer mode, or use firefox developer edition, insert the code into it, and have all the new features and access to your library inside of a web browser

HTML JS and CSS is what makes a webpage, not a web browser, like chrome. (web browsers display webpages)

[Dieter]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.