Element

Add Steam games in one click. Element installs any game as a clean .lua plus its depot .manifest files — the lua lands in config\stplug-in, manifests in depotcache, straight from Hubcap or Ryuu.

Download

Grab the latest release from GitHub Releases:

• Element-Setup-vX-win-x64.exe — per-user setup installer, no admin rights (requires .NET 8 Desktop Runtime)
• Element-vX-win-x64.exe — single-file portable exe, run it anywhere

Features

• Per-app lua + manifest downloads — each download pulls the game's .lua and only that app's manifest bundle (Hubcap /api/v1/manifest, Ryuu file_type=manifest), installed straight into depotcache. Never a bulk fetch, never Steam's job.
• Two sources — Hubcap (default, quota-based) and Ryuu (key-based, incl. non-public branch zips). Switch anytime in settings.
• Depot downloads — raw depot content with keys from your lua, per-depot progress, resume with validation, free-space checks up front.
• SteamStub removal — strip DRM from game executables via built-in Steamless integration.
• "Add with Element" store button — the ManifestDeXCore plugin injects a button into Steam store pages so you can install without leaving Steam.
• Library management — visual grid with covers, search and filters, per-game launch option editor, manifest pinning per build, optional blocking of Steam auto-updates.
• Quiet feedback — real download queue with history, per-item progress, non-blocking toasts. UI in English, Spanish, Polish and Turkish.

Requirements

• Windows 10/11 x64
• .NET 8 Desktop Runtime
• Steam installed

Build from source

API keys are intentionally not in this repo. Bake your own at compile time (once per machine):

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('ELEMENT_HUBCAP_KEY', '<your-hubcap-key>', 'User')
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('ELEMENT_RYUU_KEY', '<your-ryuu-key>', 'User')

Then publish and package (paths to ISCC.exe vary by install):

dotnet publish src\ElementGui\Element.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained false -p:PublishSingleFile=true -o publish-single
& "<path-to>\ISCC.exe" /DAppVersion=1.4.1 installer.iss

Without keys the app still builds and runs — downloads just report their sources as locked until you add keys (env vars at build time, or your own Hubcap key in settings).

Translations

UI strings live in src/ElementGui/Resources/Strings.*.resx (the .Designer.cs is hand-maintained, so keep it in sync when adding keys). Spanish, Polish and Turkish are fully translated; remaining English strings are proper nouns only (Steam, Metacritic, DLL names, App ID, DLC).