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The Publish tab is Crowbar’s all-in-one interface for submitting addon content to the Steam Workshop. It connects to Steam through the Steamworks SDK via an internal helper process called CrowbarSteamPipe, which handles the connection and upload in the background while Crowbar’s UI stays responsive. You can create brand-new Workshop items, update metadata and content for existing ones, manage visibility, and search your published items — all without leaving Crowbar.
Steam must be running and you must own the game you are publishing to before Crowbar can connect to the Workshop. Attempting to publish without an active Steam session or without owning the target game will cause the connection to fail.

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Supported Games

Crowbar provides per-game tag panels for the following titles. Each game’s panel shows only the tags that game’s Workshop actually supports.

Garry's Mod

Left 4 Dead 2

Team Fortress 2

Black Mesa

Source Filmmaker

Contagion

Entropy Zero 2

Estranged: Act I

Firefight Reloaded

Wilson Chronicles

Zombie Panic! Source

JBMod

Hunt Down The Freeman

Military Conflict: Vietnam

Codename CURE

Anarchy Arcade

Each game shows its own tag panel in the item detail area. Switching the game dropdown swaps the tag panel automatically, so the available tag checkboxes always match what the selected game’s Workshop accepts.

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Workshop Item Fields

When you select or create an item, the detail panel exposes the following fields drawn directly from the WorkshopItem data model.
FieldDescription
App IDThe Steam application ID for the target game. Set automatically when you pick a game from the dropdown.
Item IDThe Workshop item’s unique numeric identifier. New items show <draft> until they are first created on Steam.
TitleThe display name shown on the Workshop page.
DescriptionThe long-form description text for the item’s Workshop page. Supports plain text and basic Steam markup.
Change NoteA brief note describing what changed in this update (shown in the item’s update history).
Content Folder or FileLocal path to the folder or file that contains the addon’s content. The label adjusts per game: some games accept only a folder, others only a file, and some accept either.
Preview ImageLocal path to the .jpg or .png image shown as the item’s thumbnail on the Workshop.
VisibilityControls who can see the item: Public, Friends-Only, Hidden, or Unlisted. New items default to Hidden so you can review them before making them public.
TagsGame-specific tags selected from the per-game tag panel (see above).

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Searching Your Published Items

The item list at the top of the Publish tab can be filtered using the search toolbar. Use the field selector to choose which property to search against.
Search FieldWhat It Matches
IDThe exact Workshop item ID
OwnerThe Steam display name of the item’s owner
TitleThe item’s title text
DescriptionThe item’s description text
[All fields]ID, Owner, Title, and Description simultaneously

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Publishing a New Item

1

Select your game

Open the Publish tab and choose your target game from the game dropdown at the top. The item list refreshes and the tag panel updates to match.
2

Add a draft item

Click the Add button in the item list toolbar. Crowbar creates a new local draft entry with the Item ID shown as <draft>. No Steam connection is made at this point — the item is reserved on Steam only when you click Publish.
3

Fill in the metadata

Enter a Title, Description, and optional Change Note in the detail panel. These fields map directly to what Workshop visitors will see on the item’s page.
4

Set the content folder and preview image

Browse to the local Content Folder that contains your addon files. Browse to a Preview Image (.jpg or .png) for the Workshop thumbnail.
5

Choose visibility and tags

Select a Visibility setting — leave it as Hidden until you are ready to go live, then switch to Public. Check the appropriate tags in the per-game tag panel.
6

Click Publish

Click the Publish button. Crowbar opens a SteamPipe connection, uploads the content and preview image, and submits the item update. Progress is shown in the log area.

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Updating an Existing Item

1

Find the item

Use the search bar above the item list to locate the item by ID, title, or other field. Select the matching row to load it into the detail panel.
2

Edit the fields you want to change

Update the Title, Description, Content Folder, Preview Image, Visibility, or Tags as needed. Changed fields are marked with an asterisk (*) in the item list.
3

Add a change note

Enter a brief description of what changed in the Change Note field. This text appears in the item’s update history on the Workshop page.
4

Click Publish

Click Publish again to push the changes to Steam. Only the fields you actually modified are sent in the update request.

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SteamPipe Integration

Crowbar communicates with the Steamworks SDK through an internal helper process called CrowbarSteamPipe. When you click Publish (or perform any Workshop action), Crowbar launches this background process, establishes a named-pipe connection to it, and streams commands and data back and forth. Once the operation finishes the pipe is closed and the helper process exits. This design means Steam stops showing the game’s overlay status as soon as a publish operation completes, and it allows the active App ID to be changed between operations without restarting Crowbar. If the connection fails at startup, Crowbar logs the message: 
Connection to Steam Workshop failed. This most likely means you need to login to Steam or you do not own the app or game to which this item belongs.
If a published item requires you to accept an updated Steam Subscriber Agreement, Crowbar displays a warning and shows an Open Steam Subscriber Agreement button that opens the acceptance page in your browser.

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