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Organizing Your Library

The Steam & GOG-style sidebar games list, authentic SVG icons, unified media tabs, and per-game customization

Organizing Your Library

Universal Game Launcher pairs a proven Steam and GOG Galaxy-style games list sidebar with a dedicated Main Game Showcase View, giving you instant access and rich customization over your entire multi-platform library.

🎮 Left Sidebar — The Games List

The left sidebar is dedicated strictly to the Library view (/library), serving as your interactive game selector while other application views (Dashboard, Store, Social, Storage, Settings) render full-width without clutter:

  • Instant Search: Type any title to filter the games list in real time with sub-millisecond responsiveness.
  • Filter Pills:
    • All: Displays all imported titles across all platforms.
    • Installed: Filters exclusively to titles with verified local installations on disk.
    • ★ Favorites: Shows your pinned favorite games across all storefronts.
  • Background Scan (↻ Scan): Trigger an asynchronous background scan across all platform integrations and EmulationStation ROM folders without interrupting your gameplay.
  • + Add Game: Opens the Standalone Game addition modal to import arbitrary local executables, DRM-free games, or custom shortcuts.
  • Authentic Vector SVG Platform & Console Icons: Every platform and emulation console is represented by an authentic vector SVG icon (PlatformIcon.svelte) instead of generic Unicode symbols.
  • Collapsible Platform & Console Accordions: Expand or collapse storefronts (Steam, Epic Games, GOG Galaxy, Xbox, EA Desktop, Ubisoft Connect, Battle.net, itch.io, Amazon Games, Standalone) and retro console categories with live game counts.
  • Collections Tree: Expand custom and dynamic collections to focus on specific user-curated groups.
  • Instant Selection: Clicking any game immediately loads that title into the Main Showcase View with zero page reload latency.

🖼️ Main Game Showcase View (/library)

When a game is selected, the showcase view presents the title in rich detail with optimized layout density:

  • 16:9 Hero Wallpaper Banner: High-resolution backdrop with a dark vignette overlay.
  • Title & Primary Action Header:
    • 2:3 Portrait capsule artwork.
    • Authentic Vector SVG Platform Badge indicating the source client.
    • Transparent game logo or crisp title typography.
    • Big prominent PLAY NOW launch button that delegates to the native platform client or executes the local binary.
    • Favorite star toggle (★).
    • ⚙ Manage Button: Opens the full Per-Game Customization Modal.
    • Playtime counter and Last Played timestamp.
  • Consolidated Unified Media Showcase:
    • Replaces disjointed carousels with a streamlined, tabbed media section:
      • 🖼️ Screenshots & Art: High-resolution screenshot gallery with an interactive fullscreen lightbox viewer.
      • 🎬 Trailers: Modern Steam Akamai CDN MP4 video trailer streaming (https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/{movie_id}/movie_max.mp4) with native HTML5 player controls.
      • 🎵 Soundtracks: Dynamic ambient soundtrack player playing theme audio when available.
  • Tightened Layout Ergonomics: Card margins, .details-grid, and .details-sidebar are tuned to eliminate dead vertical space and maximize screen real estate.
  • Overview & Metadata: Developer, Publisher, Release Date, Store links, and Community Tag pills.

⚙️ Per-Game Customization Modal (⚙ Manage)

Clicking ⚙ Manage on any title in the showcase opens the comprehensive Per-Game Customization modal:

  • Title (Display Name): Edit the game’s displayed name in the sidebar and showcase.
  • Short Description: Custom overview text.
  • Developers & Publishers: Authoritative creator and publishing credits.
  • Release Date: Custom release date string.
  • Genres: Comma-separated genre tags.
  • Custom Artwork Slots:
    • Portrait Capsule Cover: 600×900 vertical box art via direct URL or local file picker (Browse...).
    • Hero Wallpaper Banner: 16:9 wide backdrop art via direct URL or local file picker (Browse...).
    • Transparent Logo: Transparent PNG title logo via direct URL or local file picker (Browse...).
  • Safe Persistence: All customizations save directly to local SQLite (game_meta:<appId>) and update the UI reactively with 0ms reload latency. Background platform scans will never overwrite your custom entries.

🧹 Settings-Only Cache Controls

To keep the Library interface focused strictly on gaming and customization, manual cache management buttons have been moved out of /library and into Settings → Storage & Cache:

  • ↻ Refresh Metadata Cache: Safely re-runs the multi-source enrichment cascade for all games without touching user customizations.
  • 🗑 Purge Data Cache: Clears temporary cached images and in-memory KV records to rebuild from scratch.

🗂️ Adding to Collections

You can assign games to custom collections directly from the game’s Manage menu or the Collections inspector, safely persisted in local SQLite (database.sqlite) with 0ms in-memory cache synchronization (mem_kv).

➡️ Next Steps