Quick Menu

Quick Menu

The Quick Menu is how you drive SteamShell from the couch. It is controller-first — no keyboard, no pointer needed — and it is the same menu in both products.

Opening it

• Hold L3 + R3 for about half a second, or
• Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Q, or
• the notification-area icon

Hold the sticks again, or press B, to close.

The hold is deliberate. Firing on the press edge meant a stray grip during a game could throw the menu over what you were playing.

Driving it

Input	Does
D-pad up/down	Move between rows
D-pad left/right	Change the selected row's value
A	Activate the row
B	Back, or close from the main page
X	Close the selected window (Tasks page)
Right stick	Pointer, when you want one

Rows that only display something are inert — they skip rather than sitting there doing nothing when you press A.

Pages

Main — the things you reach for: display mode, HDR, audio output, frame cap, and whatever you have put there. The layout is yours; see below.

Tasks — every open window, paginated. Select one to switch to it, X to close it, or hold X to force-close something that has stopped responding.

Settings — the settings worth changing from the sofa, without opening the full editor: controller mouse speed, cursor hide delay, accent colour, and similar.

Game Detection — what the focus scorer currently thinks is running and why. Useful when it picks the wrong window; see Focus & scoring.

Rearranging it

Settings → Quick Menu → Layout Manager lets you reorder the main page and hide rows you never use. Move rows with the D-pad, toggle them on and off, and there is a restore button if you want the defaults back.

Notes

• The menu cannot make controller APIs exclusive. A game or background app can still read the same input while the menu is open.
• On a very large or high-DPI display the menu measures the real window rather than trusting logical sizes, which is why it may take a frame to settle when it first opens.
• The status line at the bottom is the momentary message surface. The log is the permanent one.