Steam Gives Storage Manager and Download Page a Much-Needed Refresh

Steam has released new-and-improved versions of its downloads page and storage manager, and PC gamers everywhere are rejoicing. The release allows you to view multiple libraries at once, view all download speed details in one clean line, and reorder downloads, among other capabilities.

For those with extensive game libraries, the update is long overdue. Steam’s previous storage manager wasn’t as much a manager as it was an underwhelming display. It didn’t contain any real functionality; all it did was show the amount of storage space you were using for games on any given drive. The only thing you could do with it (besides wonder why you bought so many games) was create a new library folder, into which you could shift future downloads.

Steam’s new storage manager is much more user-friendly and offers improved visibility as to which games are installed on a specific drive. You can still create new folders, but now you can also easily select individual games and move them onto other drives. The updated storage manager also features a visual display of how much storage you’re spending on games and other content, versus how much free space you have to fill with wishlist items. You can even order by game size, title, or which games you last played.

Steam’s downloads page also received a facelift, both in regards to accessibility and to overall user-friendliness. Valve changed the page’s color scheme to be more discernible to the visually impaired. Rather than only showing content progress as a game is downloading, the page now displays disk allocation, which prevents confusion as to whether a download has actually completed or still has a while to go. You can select an information icon next to a game’s title to convey what category the update falls into: Game Content, Downloadable Content, Workshop Content, and Shader Pre-caching. And for those with several updates or installs to catch up on, downloads are now reorderable by dragging and dropping titles.

If you want to try out the new storage manager, you first have to enroll in Steam’s beta program. This can quickly be accomplished by opening Steam settings, and under the “Account” tab changing “Beta participation” to “Steam Beta Update.” Steam will prompt you to restart the software. After that, open settings again, and under “Downloads,” click “Steam Library Folders.” The updated downloads page can be found at the bottom of the Steam client by clicking “Downloads.”

Continue reading

Adobe Begins a Much-Needed Overhaul of Premiere Pro’s UI

Adobe's breakthrough mobile video editor, Premiere Rush, showed that the company could pack the power of Premiere into a simpler UI. Now they've taken what they learned and have started on the process of overhauling the Premiere Pro interface to make it more intuitive, and more efficient for the user.