OK players, we are going to actually fix this trash.

[WreckWren]

Time to actually do something about this, since for the past 9 years, Valve has done worse than nothing - they've done nothing while promising update after update.

Enough. We will make our own alternative, and it will have a better controller mode than this or Playnite because we will actually work on it, unlike the devs for Playnite or BPM who apparently have never even launched their "offerings".

Quite frankly, 2-5 devs working intermittently could easily create an application for this purpose in a relatively small timeframe, even from scratch, and if Valve refuses to do the work, we will. No more BS excuses.

So, if you want to solve this problem, PM me. You must have some graphic design or programming experience (preferably in C).

[WreckWren]

Key problems/features I think should be top priority to fix/implement:

UI: anything would be better than the current offering. Working auto-crop/scale for cover art is critical.
Controller battery indicators: Valve failed with this one and gave up. We could do better.
Friends/Chat/Voice: this is the worst part of BPM due to sheer laziness. As long as we are not as lazy as a paid employee sleeping at work, ours will be better. Mainly getting rid of all cursor interaction and moving back to sensible digital navigation. Whoever thought cursor navigation was acceptable should be fired.
Control bindings: also absolute garbage on Steam; mainly caused by UI issues. Definitely could be fixed but hasn't been.
HD+ support: not even a thing on BPM, Playnite scales badly. Could be way better than either.
Skins/customization: nonexistent in BPM or Playnite for no reason. Could have easily let us change the hue at a minimum. Easy to implement.
Overlay: big picture overlay is useless, extremely time consuming, fiddly and painful to send/read messages, send invites etc. Could be way better even with just a day spent on it. Don't even get me started on playnite.

For starters

[76561199085831852]

nice cssgo

[Jonius7]

I deal with tweaking the main library, which is ReactJS and CSS.

Don't know about fixing the BPM, sorry.
Could use help from other programmers, definitely.

[XeeB]

Big Picture is broken mess especially since dual launcher introduced (Origin, Rockstar Social Club, Uplay, Xbox Windows 10)

[WreckWren]

To be more specific about what I'm proposing; I am saying we should focus our efforts on a BPM replacement. An application that purely handles controller support and a UI to launch/manage games, message/invite/add friends and browse media.

There are numerous starting points one could go from, and I've been messing with some already.

[Jonius7]

If you're thinking about a separate application, I found this interesting:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/6y46fa/custom_steam_client_anyone/

His GitHub is here:
https://github.com/73cn0109y/TecnoSteamClient

An alternative client, and he tried to make best use of SteamCMD to enable functionality but ran into roadblocks.

I did a bit of searching for repositories in GitHub, there's bits of gems in there

[WreckWren]

This is a slightly more ambitious outing than what I am proposing. While it looks simpler in the beginning, those API issues are exactly what keeps me from trying to do anything with "official" integration. I am currently toying with logic for assigning controls in a sensible way, which is obviously a big task given what an appalling job Valve did of it.

As of right now I have got the chat section of big picture working without any mouse input. Of course, Valve could have done this, but did not bother as they did and do not care about the state of the UX.

The sad thing about all this is that it would have taken a group of 2-5 of them no more than a day or two to make the UX of SBP really shine, but they clearly just didn't care at all about the end product or its user base which is substantial, if generally silent. The elements like opening the overlay to a notification source in BPM etc are all steps in the right direction but totally isolated amongst years of "f**k it" design like the aforementioned chat pane, which really should result in someone being fired.

One thing I would love some help with is redirecting store links in News away from Steam since the store has been totally broken in BPM and reported for a number of years, and Valve once again clearly has no intention of fixing their mistakes. I would like to redirect these to default browser in Steam, and then when that (I assume) fails, desktop browser.

[WreckWren]

Update: now have no-mouse/all-digital control of Friends/Chat and full-size OSK in these windows.

No more stupid forced quarter-height keyboard! Yet another fire-worthy UX mistake even a first-timer should never make.

[vertigo]

cs go

[turtle]

Originally posted by WreckWren:

Update: now have no-mouse/all-digital control of Friends/Chat and full-size OSK in these windows.

No more stupid forced quarter-height keyboard! Yet another fire-worthy UX mistake even a first-timer should never make.

Hi Wreck, I'd like to help out. Sent you a friend request.

Also baffled as to why Valve doesn't care about this part of their software suite at all.

[󠁳⁧⁧󠁳⁧⁧󠁳󠁳]

Originally posted by WreckWren:

Update: now have no-mouse/all-digital control of Friends/Chat and full-size OSK in these windows.

No more stupid forced quarter-height keyboard! Yet another fire-worthy UX mistake even a first-timer should never make.

I sended u a FR

[Artemis]

Playnite is made by 1 guy, give him some respect he has a job and and its easier said then done

[turtle]

Originally posted by Artemis:

Playnite is made by 1 guy, give him some respect he has a job and and its easier said then done

Playnites incredible! It is my go-to for a fullscreen solution on PC.

[󠁳⁧⁧󠁳⁧⁧󠁳󠁳]

Originally posted by turtleneckthomas:

Originally posted by Artemis:

Playnite is made by 1 guy, give him some respect he has a job and and its easier said then done

Playnites incredible! It is my go-to for a fullscreen solution on PC.

Big picture supports chat for friends while playnite doesnt and also no browser during game

[Konork]

Hello, unfurtunately I can't help you with anything you said but I hope you guys can do something about the Big Picture Mode because its very outdated and it's the main way to use Remote Play, so it's very anoying that a lot of functions don't work properly yet... Good luck!