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Steam and Steam Deck Beta add the ability to move the on-screen keyboard

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Valve continues to roll out new unstable releases of the Steam Client for Desktop and Steam Deck, with a new update giving the ability to move the on-screen keyboard. Looks like someone has been reading my wishlist.

In the Steam Deck Beta:

General

  • Added ability to move the standalone & overlay keyboard. The keyboard will cycle through a set of positions.

  • Fixed controller input in the windowed version of the controller configurator
  • Added mouse buttons to the events that will skip the start-up movie

The Desktop Beta included the above and additionally these changes:

New Big Picture Mode

  • Added a notification when an Xbox controller is plugged in, but Windows settings prevent reading the Guide button (which prevents bringing up the Steam main menu and other functionality like chords).

  • Added a quick guided tour

Right now, the ability to move the on-screen keyboard is a bit hit and miss. Sometimes it works, sometimes it vanishes needing you to open it again and sometimes doing it will then seemingly break Steam Input where only the touch screen then works on Steam Deck. So they have a lot more work to do on that. That's what a Beta is for though of course, to test. It also only seems to work in Desktop Mode and the locations are limited to top and bottom.

New Big Picture Mode is also still terribly buggy and slow on NVIDIA when trying it on Desktop, pretty much unusable. Hopefully Valve or NVIDIA can solve that.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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7 comments

neffo Jan 25, 2023
I the only person who has Steam Big Picture running very slowly (like 10 fps) on Desktop Linux ... though it's fine in games though?

I've not seen anyone else mention it but I can't work out what it is.


Last edited by neffo on 25 January 2023 at 10:53 am UTC
rustybroomhandle Jan 25, 2023
Quoting: neffoI the only person who has Steam Big Picture running very slowly (like 10 fps) on Desktop Linux ... though it's fine in games though?

I've not seen anyone else mention it but I can't work out what it is.

QuoteNew Big Picture Mode is also still terribly buggy and slow on NVIDIA when trying it on Desktop, pretty much unusable. Hopefully Valve or NVIDIA can solve that.
soulsource Jan 25, 2023
I really hope the movable keyboard works on the desktop.
It does already appear on different screen edges based on some heuristics, but that functionality does not work well (at least for me) and having the option to move it to a different edge manually would be a great improvement imho.
Turkeysteaks Jan 25, 2023
Quoting: neffoI the only person who has Steam Big Picture running very slowly (like 10 fps) on Desktop Linux ... though it's fine in games though?

Yep, I'm getting the same. I switched from Ubuntu to Nobara recently so it might've been that, but the non-beta BPM didn't have performance issues on Nobara, and the beta was fine under Ubuntu. Honestly just assumed it was my issue, as my GPU died and I messily reinstalled my system at the same time.
neffo Jan 25, 2023
Quoting: Turkeysteaks
Quoting: neffoI the only person who has Steam Big Picture running very slowly (like 10 fps) on Desktop Linux ... though it's fine in games though?

Yep, I'm getting the same. I switched from Ubuntu to Nobara recently so it might've been that, but the non-beta BPM didn't have performance issues on Nobara, and the beta was fine under Ubuntu. Honestly just assumed it was my issue, as my GPU died and I messily reinstalled my system at the same time.

I'm on Ubuntu, so it's likely the new beta or new drivers then. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one!
Fourteen00 Jan 26, 2023
Quoting: neffo
Quoting: Turkeysteaks
Quoting: neffoI the only person who has Steam Big Picture running very slowly (like 10 fps) on Desktop Linux ... though it's fine in games though?

Yep, I'm getting the same. I switched from Ubuntu to Nobara recently so it might've been that, but the non-beta BPM didn't have performance issues on Nobara, and the beta was fine under Ubuntu. Honestly just assumed it was my issue, as my GPU died and I messily reinstalled my system at the same time.

I'm on Ubuntu, so it's likely the new beta or new drivers then. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one!

Same is happening for me on a brand new fedora install. Honestly just assumed I did something wrong, good to know it's not something I did.... At least not this time 😆
cokybv Jan 26, 2023
What I would also like (since I'm also using Desktop mode and don't always have a keyboard on hand) is a button on the On screen keyboard that switches to the lesser used buttons on normal keyboards. Like the Home/PgUp/Dwn/etc. I mean we can't even press Delete if we wanted to. There is no such key. I had to bind X on the controller to be Delete (I needed to do some screenshot editing on the go). There are a lot of buttons basically missing, so it would be nice, with a click of an icon on the on screen keyboard to have the keyboard swap with the other buttons, similar to how you switch to the Emoji page (bottom left) or like any phone's Numpad switch.
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