14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has issued a new Steam Beta update for all the supported platforms and it looks like things are quickly advancing towards a stable release.
The Valve developers are not taking their time and now they have just released a new Beta update, which is quite consistent. The number of changes made to the client just this week is staggering and it looks like the upcoming Steam stable version will be a sight to behold.
According to the changelog, the shift key no longer gets stuck down after shift-clicking a link in the web view, by-category filter options have been added to the filter dropdowns in all library views, when switching between library views the category of the game selected is now remembered, the image of the game is now displayed on all instances of the game instead of only one, and the “add to/remove” option from the family games feature has been fixed and it should now work with multiple selection.
Also, games are no longer losing focus when switching for the first time from the details / list view to the grid view, the Big Picture overlay is no longer flashing when it's visible on Linux, a crash that occurred when using the web view has been fixed, the Steam runtime for Linux has been updated, a crash in Max Payne 3 with a streaming controller has been fixed, a crash with Dirt 3 and GRID 2 when there is a local controller attached has been corrected, and the color range on NVIDIA cards has been fixed as well.
It's unlikely that this is the last Beta update in the series and we might even get other major updates for Steam, if the developers continue on the same path.
This is the Steam Beta branch, which means that users will need to open Settings and choose the Beta option in order to get these latest changes. It's possible that Steam might crash or other issues could arise. This is a development release and it should be treated as such.
These improvements have been made so far only for the Steam Beta client, but they should land soon in the stable branch as well.
If you don’t have the client, you can download the Steam for Linux installer from Softpedia. This is not the actual application, but a small tool provided by Valve that downloads the actual software and takes care of any dependencies.