A SteamVR dashboard patch (vr-pet) drawing a baked 3D pet next to the
windows: the Toon Cat in five coats, a Shiba Inu, a Fox and a Dachshund,
plus models from steamFrame.pet.extraModels. It walks around, follows,
sits, lies and sleeps, can be picked up by its grip bar, petted and
switched in its menu; its spot, pose and model are saved state.
Also the vr-pet command, "Pet" in the "+" menu with the current model's
icon (steam-frame-nix-pet-icon), the flake outputs pet-models,
pet-icons and pet-preview, and the check pet. A built-in model with
"private": true fails evaluation; private models belong in extraModels.
keyboard.vr.touchTyping (off by default): a key is pressed when a
controller's tip, where SteamVR's laser starts (/pose/tip: the device pose
times the render model's "tip" component), passes through it from the
front; released when pulled back 1 cm, re-armed 5 mm in front. Both hands,
also at once. Keys go through the keyboard's own HandleTouchStart /
HandleTouchEnd, like a laser press (Backspace repeats while held). Options
depth (cm) and haptics.
The geometry lives in a reusable controller bridge (vr-keyboard-controllers,
internal option): a systemui patch reads the keyboard's pose with SteamVR's
SGQueryService (an empty transform of ours in the keyboard's mount) and both
controllers' poses, and streams per hand the tip, the laser's hit on the
keyboard and the trigger (~90 Hz while relevant) through the
vr-keyboard-controllers-relay service to __sfuiControllers in Steam's
SharedJSContext. Tests: flake checks vr-keyboard-controllers and
vr-keyboard-touch.
Steam keeps VR screenshots (Steam button + trigger) in
~/.local/share/Steam/userdata/<account ID>/760/remote/250820/screenshots,
where Dolphin, Gwenview and the file pickers don't look.
screenshots (module screenshots, opt-in) links ~/Pictures/<name> (default
"SteamVR Screenshots") there. The account ID comes from steamUserId, or,
unset, at runtime: the Home Manager link points to
<runtimeDir>/steam-frame-nix/screenshots (tmpfs), which the oneshot user
service steam-frame-nix-screenshots points to the account last logged in
(loginusers.vdf MostRecent, else latest timestamp, else the only userdata
folder), on switch, at login and when loginusers.vdf or userdata changes.
install.sh cleanup knows the tmpfs link (--keep screenshots while used).
Flake checks: account detection on fake Steam dirs; cleanup of the link.
Steam sends Tab as the text "\t" and drops Shift. With Shift, Tab now
goes to the xdotool helper (shift+Tab, ISO_Left_Tab on any keymap); the
suggestions text model resets on it like on Shift+arrows. The helper's
allowlist moves to allowlist.mjs with a test (flake check
vr-keyboard-extra-keys).
Neither Valve backend (gamescope, holo) implements FileChooser, so sandboxed
apps fell back to an in-sandbox dialog without the home dir (e.g. Element's
Attachments). session.portalFix.fileChooser (on) links kde.portal into the
Steam session's portal dir and selects kde for FileChooser;
xdg-desktop-portal-kde is D-Bus activated with DISPLAY=:0. Flake check
for the portal config.
SteamOS only ships /etc/xdg/menus/plasma-applications.menu; the nested
desktop sets XDG_MENU_PREFIX=plasma-, the Steam session doesn't, so KDE
apps started there (Dolphin from the "+" menu) built an empty app
database: "no installed application can open" every file.
session.applicationsMenu (module applications-menu, on by default) links
~/.config/menus/applications.menu to Plasma's menu. Flake check: the link
is generated by default and absent when disabled.
steamFrame.launchers.<desktop ID> takes the app's own entry (a Flatpak's
export, a Nix package's or a host file) and rewrites only its command lines
(hostEnv, env, flatpakArgs, args, wrappers) and the keys asked for
(mimeTypes, defaultFor, settings), so name, icon, translations and actions
stay the app's and follow its updates.
- Package entries are rewritten at build time; Flatpak/host file entries at
runtime by steam-frame-nix-launchers into
<session.runtimeDir>/steam-frame-nix/applications (tmpfs), on switch, at
login and when Flatpak installs/updates apps (path unit); the Home Manager
links point there.
- keyring.{enable,electron} replaces steamFrame.keyring.{flatpaks,programs}
(clean break: the old options fail with the new form).
- Firefox's launcher is the Flatpak's entry with the profile wrapper in
front (no --profile for the profile manager); Jellyfin's hardware
decoding sets flatpakArgs and env.
- cleanup --all removes the tmpfs entries.
- Check on copies of the real Element, KRDC, Firefox, gedit, Jellyfin and
Claude entries, quoting and generator behaviour.
- keyring.flatpaks / keyring.programs: desktop entries shadowing an app's
own that run it on the outer bus (one kwalletd6 for both sessions), with
the wallet's D-Bus names as `flatpak run --talk-name` options (no Flatpak
overrides), --password-store=kwallet6 for Electron, and login callback
schemes as default + recommended handlers.
- firefox.defaultBrowser: the launcher as default for http, https and
text/html.
- docker: rootless dockerd as a user service, socket in the outer runtime
dir, CLI with DOCKER_HOST for both sessions.
The desktop profile's user.js link (undoing the fullscreen fix there) was
kept in place on every switch and before every launch. Now the launcher
(nested desktop only) makes it right before Firefox starts, waits for
Firefox instead of exec'ing it, and once it has exited and the profile is
no longer in use removes the link and the value Firefox stored from it in
prefs.js. A second launch that hands its URL to the running Firefox returns
at once and leaves both alone; a user.js of the user's own is never
touched. The desktop profile itself is a normal Firefox profile (browser
data) and is never removed.
No activation step touches profiles anymore: leftovers of a crash and what
older versions wrote (user.js copies and links, their prefs.js values) are
steam-frame-nix-cleanup's (orphans on switch), which leaves the desktop
link alone while the profile is in use; the firefox-desktop-userjs --keep
is gone. The launcher lives in firefox/launcher.nix; checks.firefox runs it
against a fake flatpak (link only while running, forwarded second launch,
prefs.js cleaned only once unlocked, own user.js untouched, Steam session).
Every module imports cleanup.nix (also exported as
homeManagerModules.cleanup), which
- puts steam-frame-nix-cleanup (install.sh cleanup) on PATH;
- runs `cleanup --orphans --quiet` after linkGeneration on every switch,
keeping what the configuration still uses (steamFrame.cleanup.keep, set
by the modules: debugger while steamvrDebugger is on, the Firefox desktop
profile's user.js while its fix applies); in a dry run it runs with
--dry-run;
- runs `cleanup --all` instead when Home Manager's `uninstall = true;` is
set (the manual uninstall route);
- removes links of older versions at paths Home Manager is about to own
before checkLinkTargets (steamFrame.cleanup.migrateLinks), which would
count as collisions otherwise.
install.sh cleanup gains --quiet (only actions, deferrals and warnings;
the header only when something is printed). The Jellyfin module's own
removal of the old shim copy goes: cleanup does it.
`install.sh cleanup [--dry-run] (--all | --orphans [--keep <artifact>]...)`
knows every file any version wrote outside the store and Home Manager's
links, removes only what is provably its own, prints every action and
reports everything else as "left alone"; a second run changes nothing.
Only bash, coreutils, findutils, grep, sed, awk and jq (all in /usr/bin on
SteamOS), so it also works piped from curl after a rollback or with Nix gone.
- SteamVR debugger: VRWebHelper.DebuggerEnabled is put back to its value
from before (steamvr-debugger.armed; the old empty marker means "absent"
and is migrated), only while SteamVR is stopped. While it runs, a runtime
drop-in (/run/user/<uid>/systemd/user/steamvr.service.d) runs a /usr/bin-only
restore script from /run/user/<uid>/steam-frame-nix when SteamVR stops.
- icon fallback links into Breeze and their manifest (dirs only if they
held nothing else; hicolor's mtime bumped so Steam rescans).
- Firefox: the desktop profile's user.js link, older user.js links and
marker-headed copies, and the values they left in prefs.js (only with the
profile closed; deferred otherwise).
- Jellyfin: the hwdec shim entries in the Flatpak override (devices=all
only when it came with them), an empty override file, the old shim copy.
- the dashboard patches' saved state: --all only; --orphans removes just
stale *.json.tmp files.
`install.sh uninstall` runs `cleanup --all` before removing Home Manager
(replacing its own ui-patches removal) and names what is deferred;
`install.sh status` shows what `cleanup --all` would do. The flake exports
it as packages.<system>.cleanup / apps.cleanup
(`nix run github:lhns/steam-frame-nix#cleanup -- --all`), and
checks.cleanup runs it against fake home and runtime dirs: every artifact
next to look-alikes that aren't ours, --dry-run, second runs, SteamVR
running (deferral, restore script), the user's own debugger key.
Jellyfin Desktop hard-sets mpv's hwdec=auto-copy, whose probe list leaves
out V4L2 M2M, and the Flatpak can't see the Frame's V4L2 decoder. An
LD_PRELOAD shim (preloaded straight from the store, only that path exposed
read-only) rewrites hwdec to v4l2m2m-copy,auto-copy; devices=all makes the
decoder visible. Overrides via nix-flatpak, or a home-manager-owned override
file without it.
Opt-in with steamFrame.keyboard.vr.enable; swipe, autocorrect and
completion suggestions, Backspace drag and haptics are on under it.
- vr-keyboard/patch.js (Steam UI): swipe decoder, a model of what the
keyboard typed, suggestions that only replace what they typed, Backspace
drag with word detents and retyping; checks its Steam internals by
signature (signatures.json: vr-keyboard) and stays stock otherwise.
- vr-keyboard/panel.js (SteamVR systemui) + relay.mjs (user service
vr-keyboard-relay): the suggestion strip as a dashboard panel below or
above the keyboard (signatures: vr-keyboard-panel).
- Dictionary built from nixpkgs' wordfreq and hunspellDicts; default: the
keyboard.layout language (de, fr, es, it, nl, pt, sv) plus English.
- Tests: keyboard.vr.checks and the flake check vr-keyboard.
steamFrame.dashboard.frameControls: a long press (longPressMs, default
1.5 s; a ring shows the progress from half of it) on a control under a
dashboard window or on a More Options (three-dot) menu row opens a popup
with "Show in bar", which moves that control between the window's bottom
bar and the menu, for all windows. Placement is keyed by the control's
action icon, kept in the page and its localStorage (survives SteamVR
restarts); inBar / inMenu set defaults. floatInTheater gives theater
windows the Float control back.
The popup is a scene-graph panel of its own, attached to the pressed
button's (or the menu's) anchor like SteamVR's tooltips and menu, so the
bar and menu panels don't change; the menu's focus auto-close is held back
while its popup is open. Coordinates with window-curvature through its
sfui-curv-* contract. Lookups by signature ("frame-controls" in
lib/signatures.json, check-only anchors for the rest).
steamFrame.dashboard.windowCurvature: the "Toggle Curvature" row of a
window's More Options menu becomes a control (click: curved -> flat,
flat -> stock; drag up/down with the laser: curvature relative to
SteamVR's stock curve, snapping to 0 and 1). The patch moves each frame's
curvature-origin node to stock distance / value in outgoing scene graphs;
per-window values live in the systemui page. Lookups by signature
("window-curvature" in signatures.json, incl. check-only anchors).
Shared method hooks (lib/hooks.js, passed by mkPatch as 4th argument):
one SendMessage wrapper for dashboard-windows (now VERSION 3) and
window-curvature instead of a chain of per-patch wrappers; legacy
wrappers on top are unwound.
steamFrame.dashboard.steamCloseButton.enable (default false) gives the
SteamVR dashboard's main Steam window a close button: it docks the window
back into the dashboard, then switches to the previously active window or,
with none, leaves just the dashboard bar. Bar-only survives dashboard
reopens and patch restarts (state in window.__sfuiSteamCloseState, taken
over from the earlier personal version 4 of this patch); the stock
"no active frame -> show Steam" paths are suppressed while it lasts.
MobX, the dock-location enum and the closing component class are found by
signature; check-only signatures cover the dashboard internals it uses.
dashboard-windows: steamFrame.dashboard.windowMaxScale and
windowDistance.{world,theater,dashboard}.{min,max}, one runtime patch of the
SteamVR dashboard (systemui, 127.0.0.1:8087) that rewrites
frame-resize-scale-max and grab min/max-distance in the scene graph sent to
vrcompositor, then asks for one resend so changes apply immediately.
Registered only when an option is set. The mailbox class and the
scene-graph scheduler are found by signature (mkPatch, "dashboard-windows"
in lib/signatures.json, bundle vrwebui-systemui), so
scripts/check-signatures.mjs checks them offline too.
steamvr-debugger: steamFrame.steamvrDebugger.enable, defaulting to true when
a UI patch uses port 8087; merges VRWebHelper.DebuggerEnabled into
steamvr.vrsettings before every SteamVR start, and reverts it (only if it
set it) when turned off.
steamFrame.uiPatches.patches registers JS patches that the
steam-ui-patches user service keeps injected into Steam's (or SteamVR's)
web UI over the local CEF DevTools ports and reverts when it stops.
steamFrame.launcherMenu uses it for the VR "+" menu: sort = true sorts
the programs by name; pinDesktop = "top" / "bottom" pins Desktop above or
below the scrolling list.
install.sh installs Nix (nix-installer, steam-deck planner, flakes
enabled) and activates a Home Manager configuration, creating one from
the new flake template if there is none; uninstall stops Home Manager's
user services, runs home-manager uninstall and removes Nix and per-user
leftovers; status shows the current state. Works piped from curl.
- steamFrame.vrKeyboard -> steamFrame.steamKeyboardPatch (module, service
and script names follow): it patches Steam's own on-screen keyboard
- clipboardSync.enable defaults to true: without it the nested desktop's
clipboard is isolated
Portal fix, Steam-session keyboard layout, VR keyboard patch, hidden
apps, clipboard-sync and a Firefox Flatpak launcher, all under
steamFrame.*, plus the outer-session user-services mechanism.
Pierre Kisters