How do you like the new STEAM library?

1. Can't even see the Library elements on switching from another tab until I scroll up and down a bit or just click blindly on a specific game and the Library loads a new page. Seems like a common page rendering problem.

2. If they want the What's New shelf to act as a would-be advert that you can't completely remove, at least let me customise it by tags, price range, content type, what have you.

3. The game page now lists your screenies in two places (at the top and in the side bar), and clicking on either of those does not actually lead you to that specific screenie's page - with comments and stuff, you know. To get to that one, you have to scroll down and find the specific event of you posting that screenie on the timeline.

4. Can't default to a specific category when switching over to the Library page.

5. Can't tell my own games from those that come from shared libraries.

6. Can't remove icons from the game list.

And now for the advantages of the new Library over the old one.

Ahem.

Well, lets me search my own library by tags? Oh, and no more seeing dubious RPS articles under every game. I guess.

it's an improvement. Still, it saddles me with stuff I don't care about (what's new), and is still missing some functionality I'd really like (nesting folders), but it's definitely an improvement.

I started using the new design from day 1 of the beta, and I can say it pretty much solved every single problem I had with Steam. I used to have dozens of categories, I deleted most of them as now I can search my library by tags. It was also a pain checking if a game I play got an update, they now show up on "what's new" and on the game's feed. It's also easier to check which games I have never played before, if you sort by "last played" there's a "never" category at the bottom. And the change from horizontal to vertical banners makes it easier to navigate my library.

I really enjoy it. It has some great covers, easy to move games between collections/shelfs. Can use tags to search my library, can easily see when my friends are playing games, scroll to the top button.

I'm not a big fan of it. I was one of those weirdos who always used the list mode in the previous interface. I like to be able to quickly sort by Last Played date or size on disk. I found out how to sort with the new library so i can live with it, but i find it quite inefficient compared to what we had.

it uses more resources

It's horrible. It's much slower to load than the old version and is harder to use. Everything is just a big cluttered mess of pictures I don't want to see. I hope there is a way to switch back.

Edit: It's also kind of broken. If I click to go to a different tab or it I minimize the client and bring it back up, it becomes a completely black window. I have to move my mouse around the window and each individual image shows up as my mouse is moved over them and then they stay. Some images and parts of the client never come back and just stay black.

Enabling low bandwidth and low performance mode doesn't seem to have any affect as far as I can tell.

Edit: Edit: I was able to switch back to the old version by using the script posted in another comment here.

• Half of my Steam library was apparently well-informed about the latest visual update and looks fantastic.

• Love being able to sort by tags, though I'll probably still use Lorenzo Stanco when I'm not sure what I'm looking for or want to exclude a tag.

• I don't like that it shows you the number of achievements you've gotten as a fraction at the top, instead of which specific achievements you earned. It feels less personal and more geared toward achievement hunters. I know you can scroll down for more info, but still.

• The blue ribbon you get for having all the achievements looks cartoony.

• I miss having the news articles and updates when I scroll down. I imagine the sites that do gaming news aren't too pleased, either.

• I used to use that one library view that was a mix of pictures and a list to quickly check which games have Steam Cloud. As far as I can tell, the only way to do that now is to hit the info button on each individual game?

• The other half of my library looks like exactly what you’d expect if the robotic overlords took a random screenshot from your game, supersized it, and overlaid it with the title in an unattractive silver-white default font.

EDIT: Apparently if you go to Steam -> Settings -> Library, you can enable Low Bandwith Mode to get rid of all the community content stuff!

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Pretty meh. It's working better now that I enabled Low Bandwidth and Low Performance Mode but there is still... element lag when I switch to it.
I have a habit of switching to the Library tab when I'm not doing anything else on Steam (aka, most of the time) so it being so messy really isn't to my liking.
All the "new" information being displayed for each game is honestly worthless for me. The old layout displayed everything I needed (mainly achievements) in a cleaner way.

So, overall, it's like with the chat overhaul- a bunch of useless stuff got forcefully added to make things more "modern", they made things buggier and/or slower, and I have to find out how to disable or make them less intrusive. Because I guess a switch to go back to the old design is too much of a hassle.

I really like the genre-search option, and seems like there was no hit in fields I often use, though there is a definite lag to the library now. I hope they'll end up ironing out these problems now that instead of listening to a fairly small number of testers, they have to face the complaints of the whole userbase.

Finally, there is a filter function and a collection function. These two alone make the whole Steam experience much better for me.

Most if not all game launchers are web based so they are basically memory hungry bloatware. They do this for maintenance purposes, it's easier to patch and update for multiple platforms at the same time (Linux, OS X, Windows). This new client uses even more "web helpers" (Chromium) than before so now it's heavier and spends a lot more RAM.

This problem is not restricted to game launchers, lots of other programs are similar: Skype, Spotify, Discord, etc. All of them are "mini web browsers", they launch several memory intensive processes at the same time.

Ummm... I don't see a difference. And I had a steam update install when I loaded steam.

It's slower and more clunky than the previous one. That's the only thing that I care when it comes to a game library. So I don't really it.

I'd really like a way to adjust the font size of the game titles on the list! I remember having to go through some hoops to resize on the previous version.

dont really care, it shows the games properly so it does the job

I had vastly preferred the compact list of things on the right side (in Details mode, I almost never used the mode that told you about size on disk, and NEVER used the tiles mode) to how it is now spread out sideways with flashy pictures and white space.

Finding the link to the CD key, manual, etc, is no longer intuitive--and the manual link is a "must-have" for me.

My most-used item is the compact list of games on the left side. Currently, the sizing options for said list do not work, thought they theoretically exist. I have 7.5" of vertical screen space and I want as much content as possible to show at once. (For this reason, most websites get set to a zoom level of 80%.)

IMO, this update added prettiness (arguably?) and flash, but sacrificed simplicity and usefulness.

Then again, I am one who couldn't care less about updates, news, achievements, community content, or how my friends are doing or have done in a particular game.

Related to this--how do I stop my friends from seeing my achievement progress? It seems like an invasion of privacy to auto-show it without being asked.

Most of the vertical pictures are horribly messed up and look ugly as a result.

I am biased against tiles because of my small screen size and my jealous defense my vertical space (with a goal of cramming as much as possible onto one screen vertically). I am a desktop gamer, not a console gamer. I hate touchscreens and do not have one, so why should my client be forced to look like a touchscreen-based thing?

The old drop-down list of "total games, installed, recent, tools, etc" was much more useful as it was all in one spot and could be seen by hovering the mouse over one button. Now I have to hover over 4(?) separate ones.

To my mind, it is another case of Big Tech favoring those with more resources and being consciously or unconsciously biased and prejudiced against those who lack resources or the ability to upgrade.
The memory leak when it is minimized is a shame.
The client takes much longer to load the library.

If I used family sharing, I would HATE that my games are mixed up with the games my family has shared with me. I want MY games separate from THEIR games. If I like a game, I might purchase it. If I get confused because a game is in my library, I won't purchase it. This means that when the family sharing ends (or when the owner boots up the game), so does my access to potentially my favorite game--all because Valve didn't put it in a separate category and as a result I got confused.

The above are my more reasoned, calmer, objective thoughts on the issue.

My initial, appalled thoughts: (I am a lot more outspoken when giving feedback to Valve via Valve's forums, as it seems they ignore polite, soft-spoken feedback which runs contrary to what they want to hear.)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/593110/eventcomments/1640926712932113346/?ctp=383#c1640926712935295490
https://steamcommunity.com/app/593110/eventcomments/1640926712932113346/?ctp=393#c1640926712935399748

It is slow as hell. I made a video how the new Steam client behaves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3F7oFxT9JY
How can I work with something like that? Or there is a problem with my machine?

Is there a way to show games that were in the old "RECENT" category, (last played and last purchased). the new library seems to have only "last played"...

Most people saying they're hating aren't giving it a chance. By default we as a species are averse to change, so unless its something someone really wanted or is open to shifting the gut reaction is 'nope'. I would compare most of the complains as the same scenario as a software update changing some shortcuts- our body got so used to the old shortcuts we have to learn and aclimatize all over again and feels terrible, even if ultimately the new shortcuts are as effective or better. Its just the time needed to aclimatize- its akin to how a noob may struggle with a game unlike any he ever played versus months later owning the other players like its natural. May not seem like it since its not a game with buttons but thats how our brains react to uis all the same. We're used to quickly 'click here, go there' and suddenly its all different.

The only complain thats not only founded but worrysome is resource use. Most other complains fall either to aclimatizing or small features that are sure to be implemented or really small and niche (and no game breaking). I hope the resource hog reduces, but thats entirely faith- valve isn't the most reliable in this aspect. I recall old steam, waaay back when it was implemented taking awhile to improve in its system footprint- and heck im not even sure how much steam actually improved or my hardware got better and past it.

-Most stuff we did previously is all there
-The amount of user made collections for basic things on big libraries was ridiculous. This alone is a tremendous improvement
-Subject to taste but come on- the game art is finally on a level that makes the games a service and speaks to pc gaming. Pc gaming have been made into vertical boxes even when games were floppy disks, even when coming in gaming magazines, covers are vertical, freaking posters are vertical. The old thumbnail was small and the opposite, in a orientation that is good for wallpapers but too small to even use official landscape art well.
-'List' users: you can still see a list and you can filter and sort games on size etc. All that is missing is the table-like view that allowed to see size and last played and such at the same time.

Also most 'list' users act unaware of how much a minority they are, and sadly the most common use case will always have priority. In steam's case they can and perhaps should implement better views for the fans of lists later on, but they absolutely have to priorize the grid and game art.
The reason is simple really- readability.

Im sure the fans of lists play the same games most of the time (same overall or the same couple of 'current' games), don't have too many installed at once or if you do they were separated well into categories so you looked at smaller lists of each category each time. Its humanly impossible for someone to perform better at recognition through a list of small text versus images and i mean it- phisiologically, science proven, we are a visual species. Heck we don't even 'read' letters, our brain blends then together in pictures of words so much that we can remove letters from every word and read it all easily.
So its a no brainer wich they should priorize: the way to better identify a game when scrolling a big library. And thats the pictures. The only way to use a list effectively is not too long lists, dividing in categories and typing on the search a title to quickly find something in a huge list.

And on that regard...
-theres stil a list; heck, the current model made list mandatory, i switched between views all the time in the old library because i wanted the best of both worlds but grid view was listless.
-you can sort all by played time and size- and this time you can do so with the pictures, eliminating one of the main deficits the grid had over list
-The quickest way to launch games still is via rigth-clicking the system tray icon to launch a recent game, avoiding even opening the big view and the main go-to for most cases anyway.

And all this defense is coming from one of the least social gamers i know of. I always ignored social features and im finding it no harder or different to avoid those then before. unless someone gets physically ill to accidentally stumble into mentions to friends achievements or whatever its all easily ignored so shouldn't be such a huge deal-and if anyone is on that level it begs the question why you even have friends on steam.

can you finally add free 2 play games to your library like nornal games without having to install them? that's the feature i wanted most

I'm ok with it, I just wish more devs would update their box art. Almost half the games in my library don't have the proper aspect ratio covers now -_-

Been using it for a few weeks now, at first it was a bit overwhelming. Right now I can't imagine going back, this is way better. It's nice to see what games received updates and especially if you have a lot of games you can organise your library way better then before.