Steam Achievement Notifier Changelog

What's new in Steam Achievement Notifier 1.9.0

• UI:
• Customise Menu: The Customise button is now shown more prominently on the Home screen
• Select Theme: Custom User Themes can be recalled via the new Select Theme menu on the Home screen
• Collapsible Menu Sections: All sections within both the Settings/Customiser menus are now collapsible by clicking on the section's title
• Reset Window: When right-clicking the system tray icon, the window size can be reset to default by selecting Options > Reset Window
• Manage Linked Games: Associate a game (via it's AppId) with a specific executable file on your system. Linked Games added via this menu will bypass automatic process tracking, so only the specified executable will be checked when the associated game's AppID is detected as running by Steam Achievement Notifier.
• Settings:
• Notification Shortcuts: Set keyboard shortcuts to trigger a Test Notification for each notification type. Useful when testing compatibility with in-game display settings!
• Show Percentage: Choose whether to show achievement percentages for All (all notification types), Rare Only (only Rare notification types) or Off (hide for all notification types)
• Tracking Scale: Increase/decrease the scale of the Now Tracking notification
• Additional Media: Various options for generating additional media achievements are unlocked - such as Take Steam Screenshot, Screenshot with Notification Overlay and Notification Image
• Audio Source: As audio is generated from within notifications by default, a new Settings option has been added for V1.9 - setting Audio Source to App will ensure that notification audio can be captured by streaming software via the app window itself (Or, if sounds aren't your thing, mute all in-app audio by selecting the Off option)
• Screenshot Delay: Add a delay of up to 5 seconds before taking a screenshot when using the Screenshot with Notification Overlay option. Useful when achievements usually unlock at inopportune times, such as during cutscene transitions!
• Poll Rate: Increase/decrease the interval in which updates to achievement data is checked. Increasing this value may allow achievement unlock notifications to spawn faster, at the cost of slightly increased system load. Conversely, decreasing this value will reduce system load, but may cause achievement unlock notifications to spawn fractionally later
• Disable App Window Animations: For those sensitive to animations/movement (or just if it's a preference), you can remove all app window transition effects for all UI elements
• Show Tooltips: Toggle whether to show tooltip hints when hovering over UI elements
• Check for Updates: Check for updates to Steam Achievement Notifier without having to restart the application
• App Log: All events and errors that happen within the application from startup will now be shown in the dedicated App Log window
• Use Custom App Files: For those who love to tinker beyond what the app already provides, enable the Use Custom App Files option to load customisable HTML/CSS/JS files, which will then be used for notifications instead of the built-in ones! Click the Show Custom App Files button to open the directory where the custom files are stored, then get creative!
• Customiser:
• Sound Menu: The Sound menu has been moved from the Home screen into the Customiser menu
• Custom Text/Use Game Title: Set a custom unlock message for each notification of this type, or Use Game Title to show the game name instead
• Custom Font: Load a custom .ttf/.otf font file to use within the notification, instead of the default font
• Opacity > Background Only: Enable transparency only for the background of the notification, leaving all other elements at full opacity
• Tertiary Color: Set the color of extra elements only present in certain Notification Presets
• Customisable Logo/Decoration/Rarity Elements: Customise (or completely remove) any image element in any notification type - logos, icons, rarity indicators, XP elements etc.
• 100% Icon: Set a custom 100% Icon to show for all completed games
• Save Theme: Once your notification is looking the way that you want it, save it as a Theme, which can be loaded or changed from the Theme Select window on the Home screen
• Hidden Icon: Set a custom icon to indicate an achievement is a Hidden achievement
• The Hidden Icon can be completely hidden from each notification type by unticking the Show Hidden Icon option. Additionally, it can be toggled in Customiser Previews/Test Notifications by clicking the / icons
• Use Percent: To simulate values provided by various other achievement ecosystems, some Notification Presets will calculate an XP/Score value to display in the notification to depict the look and feel of various achievement styles as accurately as possible. If preferred, this option will display the actual achievement unlock percentage instead
• Automatic Process Tracking:
• Due to integrating Steamworks, the way that games are detected as running/not running has changed in V1.9. This is no longer an automatic process as it was when using the Steam Web API. As Steamworks does not include any way to check whether a game is currently open or closed, another solution is needed.
• When initialising Steamworks via an application that is not the actual game - such as Steam Achievement Notifier - Steam will also see this external application as "Playing" the current game until it is also closed. This causes Steam Achievement Notifier to "hold" the current AppID of the game until it (or the process within it that initialised Steamworks) is closed - i.e. "releasing" the game.
• As Steam Achievement Notifier is intended to be a constantly-running background application, closing it every time a game closes is not an ideal solution.
• Additionally, if it does not track the current status of the game process - and the game then continues to be "held" by Steam Achievement Notifier - Steam will never report the game as being closed, which causes the game to remain in the "Playing" state in the Steam client.
• To resolve this issue, V1.9 implements automatic process tracking - a series of methods and fallbacks to locate the current game's executable file, and to continuously check whether this file is currently running on the user's system. Once this exectuable is no longer found to be running, it is assumed that the game has closed - Steam Achievement Notifier then automatically "releases" the game, allowing the app to start checking for new games, while also allowing Steam to reset the game's "Playing" state.
• Additionally, there are several in-app options to control various aspects of automatic process tracking:
• Release Game: If Steam still reports the user as "Playing" the game as after closing the game window, or if Steam Achievement Notifier still displays the previously closed game in the Game Display box/system tray menu, the game can be manually "released" via System Tray > Right-click > Options > Release Game option.
• Release Delay: If Steam Achievement Notifier shows the Now Tracking notification for a game that has been recently closed, try increasing the value of the Settings > Advanced > Release Delay option to a higher value.
• Max Process Retries: If the current game takes a long time to start (and subsquently misses the initial window to locate the running exectuable - default: 10 retries at 1 retry per second), try increasing the Settings > Advanced > Max Process Retries option to a higher value.