OG-Steam

Update: Steam's latest Beta is a complete rewrite of the UI, with removal of all VGUI elements. This update effectively renders this skin unusable. All good things come to an end, and I knew the end was coming when I started this project. Thank you to everyone who used OG-Steam in its short lifespan. Thank you to the contributors, and those of you who submitted bug reports. It has been a fun nostalgia trip that I won't forget.

I am leaving the README below for posterity.

OG-Steam

Update: Try OG-Steam-Library theme for use with SFP (Previously SteamFriendsPatcher).

An Internet Time Warp

Steam, in its current form, is hardly recognisable when compared to early releases. However, you may be surprised to learn that, despite innumerable changes made to Steam in its 17-year lifespan, its Graphical User Interface system, VGUI (which is built into the Source engine), has remained virtually unchanged. This has allowed me to create a skin which very accurately replicates the look and feel of the Steam client from around 2004. I have future-proofed this skin to the best of my ability by including as few files as possible (and, therefore, fewer points of failure). Ostensibly, Valve has plans to re-write the Steam client in JavaScript; we have already seen several moves in this direction. Until such time, welcome to 2004.

This version has been tested on Windows running the latest version of the Steam client (As at 2022-05-13).

Installing

Note: This skin has not been tested on Linux or MacOS

Copy the OG-Steam folder into Steam/skins
Select the new skin through Settings/Interface
Install the WineTahomaBit font for a truly authentic retro look (Credit: Xenthio, based on "Wine Tahoma Regular" Version 0.001 (C) 2004 Larry Snyder Based on Bitstream Vera Sans (C) Bitstream Inc GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1).

WineTahomaBit is enabled by changing basefont from "Tahoma" to "WineTahomaBit" on line 36 of "OG-Steam\resource\styles\steam.styles". This will be enabled by default with the next release. Note: DirectWrite must be disabled through Settings/Interface, or characters will be invisible.