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Game Shortcut of Non-Steam games added to Steam #275

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Smoukus opened this issue Nov 25, 2023 · 16 comments
Open

Game Shortcut of Non-Steam games added to Steam #275

Smoukus opened this issue Nov 25, 2023 · 16 comments
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@terrymacdonald
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enhancement New feature or request

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@Smoukus
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Smoukus commented Nov 25, 2023

Hey, I'm writing here because I haven't found any contact link / info other than the issue tracker.

First of all, thanks a lot for writing this piece of software. It is amazing, and made my workflow 10x better and efficient!

Here comes my problem:
I have bunch of games added to Steam via "add non-steam games" setting in order to get Steam Input functionality. If I don't do that, games don't recognise my controller input.

Is it somehow possible to create DisplayMagician Game Shortcut from those Non-Steam Game Shortcuts?
They look like this for example:
image

image

Is something like that possible?
@Smoukus Smoukus added the enhancement New feature or request label Nov 25, 2023
@terrymacdonald
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Hi @Smoukus. This is exactly the right way to add feature requests and enhancements.

Thanks so much for the kind words. I get a big kick from people making use of my hard work, so it's lovely to have such nice feedback.

I'd have to do some testing in order to see how Steam handles those 3rd party apps. I've never used that feature before so I don't really have any understanding of how difficult it would be to do. As long as Steam provides a URL way of running the app (which it appears to do from the screenshots you posted) then I should be able to do something with them. We'll have to wait and see.

I don't have as much time to work on this as I have in the past unfortunately due to life, but I'll keep this in the backlog as I think it shouldn't be too difficult to add..

Thanks
Terry

@Smoukus
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Smoukus commented Nov 27, 2023

Hey Terry,

thanks for your reply. I'm glad that there's hope for this functionality after reading your answer :)
In case you need help with testing or providing any additional information regarding this specific topic, just let me know.

I tried to add that Steam created shortcut into Display Magician as an executable, however it hadn't worked. I pressume that it hadn't worked because the Steam's shortcut has an .url extension.

Thanks in advance!

@Smoukus
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Smoukus commented Nov 29, 2023

Just wanted to ask if this feature would be added with the 3.0 release, or could it be added before it?
As I've read in your other issues, 3.0 release is a huge rewrite of the entire codebase, and it's pretty time consuming.
Therefore it might take quite some time before the 3.0 releases alongside this feature.

@terrymacdonald
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@Smoukus I've finally had a bit of time to review this. I want you to know it's not a simple addition. There is quite a bit of research and testing that needs to go into producing this. I need to figure out the structure changes that Steam have made in order to add this feature, then understand how to extract the information I need for getting the Game Shortcuts. I then need to write code to be able to do this in a reliable fashion. It all takes a lot of effort.

I have spent an hour or so looking for where the data is written. It appears to be stored in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata<UserID>\config` folder in the shortcuts.vdf file. It seems like it is set per user, which complicates thing a bit more. It is a VDF file which we already can import thanks to prior work, but the impact of per user settings needs to be investigated more.

I'll have a think about how much time this will take, and then I'll figure out if I'll be able to do it within the next release or not. The next release v2.6.0 is due soon, so I may not have time to get this in before that ships. There are a few critical improvements to video handling in v2.6.0 which means I need to get it out sooner rather than later.

I'll drop more notes here as I complete my research so I don't lose them, and hopefully they may help others on the internet wanting to add their own similar feature.

Thanks
Terry

@Smoukus
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Smoukus commented Feb 10, 2024

Hey @terrymacdonald, thanks a bunch for still looking into this and taking your time. If you need help with testing, or help in some other way, just let me know.

@Smoukus
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Smoukus commented Mar 15, 2024

Any progress on this topic? This is such a game changer for people who wish to play non Steam games with a controller.

@terrymacdonald
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terrymacdonald commented Mar 15, 2024 via email

@Smoukus
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Smoukus commented Mar 15, 2024

Thanks for the reply Terry. I understand what you mean and that's alright. Thank you for your time into developing this app regardless.

I'd like to comment on the following:

I'm not 100% convinced that supporting non Steam games from steam will
impact that many people as they can always create an application executable
shortcut manually if needed.

That is true, however that way you rely entirely on application's support of the controller. Steam Input doesn't work unless the game has been added to Steam, and launched via Steam or via Steam-created shortcut.

There are bunch of games that have only Xbox Controller native support. If you wish to use Playstation Controller for example in such game, you need to enable Steam Input for it to work.
If you have that game on Steam, it's not a problem (works already via Display Magician perfectly). However if you don't have the game on Steam, the only way for you to get the Controller working is to add the game into Steam and launch it through there.

@terrymacdonald
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terrymacdonald commented Mar 16, 2024 via email

@Smoukus
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Smoukus commented Mar 29, 2024 •
edited

I keep thinking about this feature the entire time, and can't wrap my head around it.
According to the game shortcut, Steam doesn't differentiate between Steam and Non-Steam games:
Untitled

As you can see, run parameters are the same for both shortcuts. That's why I am confused as to why those games aren't being recognised when refreshing game list inside of DiplayMagician.

@terrymacdonald
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terrymacdonald commented Mar 29, 2024 via email

@Smoukus
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Smoukus commented Mar 29, 2024

Yeah that makes sense, thanks. I was just trying to figure out what could be the difference :)

@terrymacdonald
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terrymacdonald commented Mar 29, 2024 via email

@Smoukus
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Smoukus commented May 22, 2024

Any progress on this? This is the only feature that's really preventing me from truly using DisplayMagician. I've completed all games that I could use this with.

I've tried looking for alternatives such as DisplayFusion, but I've no idea if it has the same monitor profile swtiching functionality when launching / closing games.

@terrymacdonald
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terrymacdonald commented May 22, 2024 via email

@Smoukus
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Smoukus commented May 22, 2024

Hey Terry, thanks for responding. No problems.
Sure, I could do some tests for you. Just let me know what to test for exactly, and how.

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