If anyone else finds Steam’s desktop chat client a bit unreliable on Linux—sluggish UI, finicky context menus, emoji pickers that vanish when you try to click them—there’s a solid alternative worth knowing about.
You can use Steam’s web-based chat directly in your browser at:
https://steamcommunity.com/chat/
Just log in and everything works noticeably smoother: menus behave, emojis are clickable, and the interface feels much more responsive. The only catch is you’ll need to keep a browser tab open for it.
Hope this helps anyone else looking for a more stable Steam chat experience.
Still find it strange that the steam linux client performs that badly, you’d think with steam os they’d focus on knocking these bugs out but I’ve had vanishing context menus for years now, even in alt tab view
Ikr?
Steam Big Picture still has a lot of navigation jank, especially in the Steam Input configuration screens.
While I’m sure the move to web tech brought advantages to development, I can’t say it did the User Experience many wonders…