BegoneWhatsNew
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zero318
Latest Steam Update Changes UI and CSS Framework
As of June 14, 2023, Steam recently released an update that overhauled the Steam UI including that of the library. As a result, the CSS files that control the What's New section has changed and so the skin (and a workaround I have been using for the last several months) does not work. We need a branch or a workaround for the newest update.
So for those who find this later with the same issue, I have been using a workaround that I found in the previous issue #9 that involves changing one line of code in the css. The same technique still applies after the latest update, it just involves a different file now. To recap, you open your Steam directory (something like C:/Program Files/Steam), go to steamui and then css. In the css folder, there is a file called sp.css, Using the editor of your choice (I used Notepad++), open this file and use the Find function to locate the following code:
.libraryhome_UpdatesContainer_17uEB{box-sizing:border-box;padding:16px 24px 0px 24px;position:relative;height:324px
The method for removing What's New just involves changing height:324px to display:none in this line. The new piece of code should look like this:
.libraryhome_UpdatesContainer_17uEB{box-sizing:border-box;padding:16px 24px 0px 24px;position:relative;display:none
Once that is done, close Steam if you didn't already and then restart Steam. Steam should reboot and What's New should be gone. I don't know all the details behind why this works, but I do know that replacing height:324px with display:none keeps the size of the file from changing which prevents Steam from detecting that the code has been tampered with, so be sure to only change that and nothing else.
I hope this helps somebody like me in the future. I ended up turning this into a script for myself so if anybody wants the code (or the executable) to do this change, let me know and I can probably post on GitHub.
Thanks for opening the issues up more! Alas, the fix no longer works. I just loaded up Steam, and it now updates itself after the sp.css has been modified (even when set to read only. It creates a new file, and changes the modified to .old). Tried it multiple times, and even tried changing the ownership of that file. Same thing happens. Not sure why they keep fighting us. I really hate that new section. It doesn't even stay properly organized when I look through it. It'll have updates to games that happened weeks ago. I don't need to see that crap.
Anyway, hope someone figures out how to keep that section removed, permanently.
Seems the new fix works in the short term. I tested yesterday, closing Steam, updating the file, reopening Steam has suppressed the "What's New" shelf. But it came back again today. I repeated the same steps from yesterday and it seems to suppress it again. It's possible that Steam is updating a bunch and every update resets the file. So you might have to update the file every time. But it might be possible the updates calm down in the coming weeks.
Sometimes it updates that specific file on Steam update, so that will be when it reverts. I don't usually see the sp.css file properties change, though. What I was doing, (after setting sp.css to read-only) on every Steam restart, it would re-download the sp.css file. However, I just tried something different that I hadn't before, I left the file as is after the display:none change.
So, it now works as long as sp.css isn't set to read-only.
In my mind, I thought read-only would keep it from reverting. It's weird to think telling the file not to change, is what causes Steam to change it.
Anyway, thanks for changing my way of thinking:)
It returned once again. This seems to be because the sp.css has changed size and we know that if Steam detects sp.css is the wrong size, it'll rename the current one as ".old" and download a new copy.
Doing the same fix on the new sp.css fixes it. It seems like every time they tweak sp.css, you'll have to run the same fix. Kind of annoying, but it's not that bad.
Looks like it's back again.
I'm not sure if everyone has the same experience, but my css folder now has an "x" folder with the old sp.css file in it. It seems like they're not using that anymore.
And it seems like they're using the old "chunk.css" file again. So...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/10r753g/whats_new_section_came_back/j6v0ye5/
Worked for me again.
Looks like it's back again.
I'm not sure if everyone has the same experience, but my css folder now has an "x" folder with the old sp.css file in it. It seems like they're not using that anymore.
And it seems like they're using the old "chunk.css" file again. So...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/10r753g/whats_new_section_came_back/j6v0ye5/
Worked for me again.
It worked for me as well. I'm getting sick of this cat-and-mouse game. Why the f*ck can't they just add a damn toggle and be done with this crap?! sighs
It does look like they moved back to the chunk file.
It's really frustrating for me cuz I set up a simple script that I can run whenever Steam does a small update that is supposed to edit the file for me, but everytime Steam changes it, I have to revise the script.
This time was the last straw for me so I made something I think is pretty bullet-proof. I wrote a script that checks every file in that directory to find the correct file with the line that needs changing, save the original file as a backup just in case, and then do the edit to the line to remove what's new. I turned it into an exe and called it Begone What's New - suitable I thought.
If anyone else wants this script, I can edit and tidy it up to make it more flexible to make sure it'll work on any machine and then share it here. Just let me know if someone is interested.
New Steam update, same old fix.
chunk~2dcc5aaf7 is now 1 KB bigger, so we once again need to fix it. Redeploying the same fix worked.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/10r753g/whats_new_section_came_back/j6v0ye5/
Happy Halloween Sale! Steam update brought back the What's New bar. But the same old fix works. Edit chunk~2dcc5aaf7 and you're good to go.
Back again. Seems like the same fix continues to work. I'll probably just stop posting on every update until a new fix is needed.
I got tired of patching the chunk file manually every single time, so I made a small application to work in the background, monitor it, and patch it automatically for me when needed. I used Kopert's method, which is working...for now.
Here it is in case one is interested: ChunkPatcher
Update: ChunkPatcher has been updated to version 1.0.0.4 to accommodate for the new changes in Steam's 05/2024 patch.
I have also made a python script to update the steam css removing What's New section: https://github.com/bakkerthehacker/remove-whats-new
It's back again.
Slight change to the fixes now.
We're still changing "chunk~2dcc5aaf7.css".
Search for the first instance of "._17uEBe5Ri8TMsnfELvs8-N".
Go on the inside of the curly brace, hit insert so you're overwriting what's inside the curly brace, and type "display: none !important;" without the quotation marks, then hit space until you reached the end of the curly brace. This way the file size is identical and Steam won't redownload the file.
Nice and clean again.
So I followed your instructions Dartkun, and couldn't seem to get it to work, but through trial and error found what did.
I found the only change now is searching for the second instance of "._17uEBe5Ri8TMsnfELvs8-N" instead of the first of ".libraryhome_UpdatesContainer_17uEB".
In the Find window of Notepad++, upon first opening of the file, click "Find Next" twice. On that 'second' instance of "._17uEBe5Ri8TMsnfELvs8-N", you change "{height:300px}" to "{display:none}"
Also, to be a bit more precise, there is no space between ":" and "none" (display: none → display:none).
Hope that helps as another way of removing the annoying, "What's New" section.
So in the latest update, can confirm we are now looking for "_17uEBe5Ri8TMsnfELvs8-N". For me however, if I include the period in front, neither Notepadd++ nor my script will find the first instance of it - it will skip over the first, so I just remove the period and it's good. If you just change to looking for "_17uEBe5Ri8TMsnfELvs8-N" instead of "libraryhome_UpdatesContainer_17uEB", then you can still just find the first instance of "height:324px" and change it to "display:none" and it seems to work. I'm thinking of opening my own repository with the Python code I have written. If I do, I'll post it here.
In ChunkPatcher I treat ._17uEB as a prefix, then I look for the first instance of ._17uEB and using regular expressions I get the CSS between the curly braces, and replace that with display: none !important; and pad the rest with spaces.
I use CP on my own PC, so it's working fine for me.
This one-liner has been working well for me on Linux:
perl -pi -e 's#(17uEB[\w-]*\{[^\}]*?)height:[0-9]{3}px#\1display:none#g' ~/.steam/steam/steamui/css/*.css
