I've got the Steamworks HTML renderer working with Leadwerks GUI now. The current build on Steam uses the Windows HTML renderer, which is part of IE. This isn't cross-platform, which is one reason why game launcher isn't available for Linux right now. The Chromium-based Steamworks HTML renderer is cross-platform but there are some issues.

The HTML renderer works by rendering a web page into a memory buffer and then uploading that buffer to a texture and drawing it onscreen. The visible rendering is performed in a 3D graphics context, which means the Steam overlay will appear in it. So for example, it shows the little notification box in the lower-right popping up when you start the application. In Leadwerks Editor, we have the Steam overlay disabled for the entire application. This prevents the Steam overlay from appearing on all the viewports and 3D views in Leadwerks. This is also why games launched from Leadwerks Editor do not display the Steam overlay.

In game launcher, we DO want the overlay to appear on launched games. So disabling it for that application isn't an option.

At the same time, game launcher presently relies on an internet connection to a web page on our server that uses the Steam web API to query Steam's servers and display a grid of games. I've wanted to make it work in offline mode for a while, and now I have another reason to do this.

So it looks like I will be writing a routine that builds a list of all available games, downloads their preview images, and creates an initial cache. The preview images will then be displayed in a custom widget I will write with a Leadwerks GUI widget script.

Long story short, Game Launcher is going to ditch the HTML interface, work offline, and is coming to Linux. This blog entry was a window into some of the design decisions I deal with every day.