According to the latest news, in its latest beta release, Valve’s SteamVR software can add floating desktop windows inside VR games. With this, users will be able to keep an eye on other apps without leaving VR. For gamers, this is a wonderful opportunity as they will be able to keep an eye on anything.
However, the ability to interact with the rest of your desktop from within SteamVR’s dashboard is not a new brand feature. It is to be noted that recently Valve is trying to make its system more flexible.
For example, earlier this year, Valve added the option to view individual application windows in the dashboard and to be virtually attached to VR controllers. This made apps viewable at a glance. However, it has a few drawbacks and one of the most prominent drawbacks is still now it lacks the ability to float windows persistently during a game.
With the latest beta, you can still opt to have a window attached to your controller or pull it off to have it float in virtual space. When you are actually playing a game, the windows are view only but you can open up the SteamVR menu to interact with them using a VR controller as a mouse pointer. Floating windows are available with version 1.19.6 of SteamVR. This version of the software is currently in the beta but it is relatively easy to opt in via SteamVR’s properties window.
It is to be noted that despite the addition of all these new features and a new beta version, there is no sign of SteamVR version 2.0 which the company teased early last year.
