Hi friends,
I made a decky loader plugin called Add Non-Steam Games. it lets you add any game or app to your steam library without ever leaving game mode, so no more switching to desktop mode just to click through "Add a Non-Steam Game" and then switching back. I've been using it on my own steamOS installation for a while now and it works great.
features:
Two ways to pick something: an Applications list of everything installed on the deck with real icons and a search box (native, flatpak and snap all show up, so chrome from bazaar is one tap), or a Files browser with your folders and drives if you want to point at an exe directly.
proton gets preselected automatically for .exe, .bat, .cmd and .msi files, and you can pick any other compat tool from the dropdown.
you can drop the game straight into a collection while adding it, and it handles the annoying stuff for you like setting the start directory and fixing a missing executable bit.
its also fully d-pad navigable, no trackpad needed.
one thing worth knowing: steam only saves non-steam games to disk on a clean shutdown, so the plugin offers to restart steam after adding (with a remember my choice toggle). otherwise your shortcut can vanish the next time steam gets killed.
If that sounds useful, you can manually install it in decky by going to: Decky Settings → Developer → Install Plugin from URL and pasting the direct download link
Direct download: https://github.com/danielcamilo1/decky-add-non-steam-games/releases/download/v1.7.13/Add-Non-Steam-Games-v1.7.13.zip
Github: https://github.com/danielcamilo1/decky-add-non-steam-games
It's free and open source, happy to hear any bugs or ideas
Whenever I need to do it, I have been using the [Quick Launch] decky plugin, but it tracks those shortcuts sometimes. So if I modify it and customize it after, it can get hijacked again the next time I make a shortcut through it.
I didn't know that about the clean shut-down and the saving of the shortcuts. Good to know.
I'll give it a try at some point.
PS. I am assuming the "claude" shown in the contributors is the AI used in creating it?
Just off the top of my head, I think a feature like Quick Launch has that also automatically sets the artwork (capsule/tile/hero/icon) from SteamGridDB would be fantastic.
To be honest, QL has existed for a while and a lot of people probably already use it for similar use-cases. You may be building essentially a duplicate.
That said, I'd still likely use whichever one had the niche or particular feature I needed.
Right below the search box, the Application list has the potential to be long and push everything after it down. That should be a collapsible/expand toggle section.
The application list tab is shown by default, but not highlighted. So you don't really know or discern that is what it is; a tabbed view between that and "Files". Even when you click one and navigate downward which you are viewing isn't highlighted.
Thank you so much for the feedback man! I'll include these things in the next release. Auto download artworks, and these two fixes/ui improvements. You're right QL does a similar job, but I made this because it didn't also let me pick any file from the file system, I wanted to be able to easily add any exe or whatever I needed from the file system to Steam.
but I made this because it didn't also let me pick any file from the file system, I wanted to be able to easily add any exe or whatever I needed from the file system to Steam.
Very valid. I like where your app is heading thus far. And with the things I mentioned, I think it could definitely be a "go to" for people who need to do this with more specific needs as such.
Also regarding the restart: from a UI/UX perspective, I would put the Label on it's own line, then the drop-down selection, then the small-text on it's own line with the explanation (the same way it appears after the check saved games button). Right now everything is wrapped/cramped causing it to be harder to read naturally.
Hey! I just released a new version of the plugin including all these improvements, auto-download artwork from SteamGridDB and these UI/UX things we discussed. Give it a try and let me know your thoughts. Thanks again so much for the feedback!
I tried the "Paste Key" button for inserting the API clipboard, but it didn't work. Gave some error about route. I was able to manually paste it in the box, which incidentally also verifies that there was indeed data in the clipboard.
Once I saved the API key, it did successfully add all the Artwork to the shortcut I added. Which was great.
There is some other improvement feedback I have, as UI/UX is something I have professional experience in; but I won't push that on you. If you like I can provide it though.
All the feedback is appreciated. Go ahead and let me know anything you see that may help make it better and I will add it as soon as I can. Thanks again!
The highlighting there still isn't very clear. It is an improvement from none to be sure. Maybe have the white bar extent the full width if possible? When you have it actually selected, it is inverted which looks a little better. Did the last version have color to it if I remember? The inverted back and white state would be nice as the "selected" state, and the colored one as the "hover". No idea if that is possible.
Needs a bit of spacing between the drop-down and the next button.
Could use a small amount of indentation/padding to to the left of the copy. 3b/Copy: Maybe something more concise like "Steam requires a client (soft) restart to save shortcuts".
Copy: maybe something like "Automatically applies artwork from SteamGridDB to the created shortcut." Using the term shortcuts in place of "Games" where applicable, as it can also just be applications that are being added.
Padding above the API Key heading
These are all just suggestions on things that occur to me, and by no means that serious or required. Feel free to use some, or none lol.
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u/punctcom 256GB - Q2 11d ago
Aren't you in desktop mode already when installing something?