You can open desktop mode inside of gamemode, just like any other game or application. I find it easier to use most desktop apps this way instead of adding them individually to steam.
To do this, download this script. Save it as a script and make the script executable. Finally right click the file and “add to steam”.
Some important notes with this: You can’t exit steam while running the desktop this way, so apps that require closing steam (like steam rom manager) won’t work. There are also a few apps that do weird things, like cryoutilities shows up super tiny this way. But generally most everything works.
I’ve finally got round to actually running this and I don’t seem to have any control other than the touchscreen. It’s there some trick to getting the touchpads and buttons to control the desktop?
It runs just like any other steam game, so you’ll need to set a desktop friendly control scheme from steam input.
I’d recommend doing the default web browser one. It has both mouse control, scroll wheel control, and several other useful keybinds.
Right you are, I think I managed to just not apply the layout correctly, cheers!