Mod that lets you know you've already read a book?

[YungZaphod]

Is there one?

 

It's especially frustrating when I've run into the trader right before sundown and I have to frantically check my list of books to see if the ones they're selling are new to me or not.

 

It's just plain annoying, though, when the only way to see if I've learned a schematic is to visit a crafting station.

[Survager]

1 hour ago, YungZaphod said:

Is there one?

 

It's especially frustrating when I've run into the trader right before sundown and I have to frantically check my list of books to see if the ones they're selling are new to me or not.

 

It's just plain annoying, though, when the only way to see if I've learned a schematic is to visit a crafting station.

Books and schematic you have read have an open book icon in the corner )

Edited May 11, 2021 by Survager (see edit history)

[Gazz]

Yeah, that's the Vanilla mod.  Look whether the book icon is open or closed.

[bdubyah]

It amazes me how many people don't notice this.

[meganoth]

I said it a few times to TFP: Make the open and closed book have a different color.

 

But they seem to think it is impossible to miss this, contrary to the evidence of people asking about it from time to time. Maybe they forget that some people play this game on tiny laptop-displays or have problems with eye-sight.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Gamida]

Some mods may affect books. I know of one backpack mod that does. The book icons in corner doesn't show in the backpack.

Probably not really related to OP's problem but thought I would throw it out there.

[YungZaphod]

On 5/12/2021 at 10:26 AM, Gamida said:

Some mods may affect books. I know of one backpack mod that does. The book icons in corner doesn't show in the backpack.

Probably not really related to OP's problem but thought I would throw it out there.

No, I can see them--now--but they're so small that I didn't even realize there was a difference.

 

And now that I know, I still have to lean close to the monitor to see what's what when I see books at a trader.

 

Yes, different colors would be great, especially for someone shopping in haste.

[Crater Creator]

On 5/12/2021 at 5:50 AM, meganoth said:

I said it a few times to TFP: Make the open and closed book have a different color.

 

But they seem to think it is impossible to miss this, contrary to the evidence of people asking about it from time to time. Maybe they forget that some people play this game on tiny laptop-displays or have problems with eye-sight.

 

Can confirm.  Players on the Steam forum for instance regularly don't pick up on this bit of UI.  I'm still in favor of switching to ❓and ✔️ icons in different colors.

[khzmusik]

I don't know how much this helps, but I'm pretty sure those icons can be modded. You can't supply your own icon, but you can swap it out with one of the other icons in the game.

 

You can kind of see how to do this by looking in controls.xml. Here is the relevant entry in the item_stack node:

<sprite depth="8" name="itemtypeicon" width="24" height="24" sprite="ui_game_symbol_{itemtypeicon}" pos="2,-2" foregroundlayer="true" visible="{hasitemtypeicon}" color="{itemtypeicontint}" />

 

Now match it up with these properties in the "schematicMaster" item in items.xml:

<property name="ItemTypeIcon" value="book"/>
<property name="AltItemTypeIcon" value="book_read"/>

 

Putting it all together, you'd need to find one of the "ui_game_symbol_{x}" TGA files that is appropriate, strip out the "ui_game_symbol_" prefix, and use it as the value of whichever property you'd like to change.

 

There's a list of those TGA files in the XML.txt file. You can also look at the values used by other items, those will probably work too.

 

I haven't tried it myself, so this is all theoretical, but maybe it will help one of you figure it out.

 

EDIT: The XML.txt file lists something called ui_game_symbol_add.tga. So, maybe if you use "add" for the "ItemTypeIcon" value, that would make it obvious that you haven't read it? Just a thought.

 

EDIT 2: One other thing I just discovered by looking in the code. There is apparently a property with the name "AltItemTypeIconColor" that can accept an RGB color, and this color will be used for the icon tint. It's not currently used in any items, but you could also try adding that property and see what happens.

Edited May 18, 2021 by khzmusik (see edit history)

[khzmusik]

So, I said "screw it" and just made the modlet myself. Use it if you like, it's really simple and completely server-friendly.

 

 

[doughphunghus]

1 hour ago, khzmusik said:

So, I said "screw it" and just made the modlet myself. Use it if you like, it's really simple and completely server-friendly.

 

 

this may turn out to be one of the most used and linked to mods of all time.  i'm kinda not kidding

[xyth]

Sad but true 🙂

 

[Jegethy]

On 5/18/2021 at 2:59 AM, khzmusik said:

I don't know how much this helps, but I'm pretty sure those icons can be modded. You can't supply your own icon, but you can swap it out with one of the other icons in the game.

 

You can kind of see how to do this by looking in controls.xml. Here is the relevant entry in the item_stack node:

<sprite depth="8" name="itemtypeicon" width="24" height="24" sprite="ui_game_symbol_{itemtypeicon}" pos="2,-2" foregroundlayer="true" visible="{hasitemtypeicon}" color="{itemtypeicontint}" />

 

Now match it up with these properties in the "schematicMaster" item in items.xml:

<property name="ItemTypeIcon" value="book"/>
<property name="AltItemTypeIcon" value="book_read"/>

 

Putting it all together, you'd need to find one of the "ui_game_symbol_{x}" TGA files that is appropriate, strip out the "ui_game_symbol_" prefix, and use it as the value of whichever property you'd like to change.

 

There's a list of those TGA files in the XML.txt file. You can also look at the values used by other items, those will probably work too.

 

I haven't tried it myself, so this is all theoretical, but maybe it will help one of you figure it out.

 

EDIT: The XML.txt file lists something called ui_game_symbol_add.tga. So, maybe if you use "add" for the "ItemTypeIcon" value, that would make it obvious that you haven't read it? Just a thought.

 

EDIT 2: One other thing I just discovered by looking in the code. There is apparently a property with the name "AltItemTypeIconColor" that can accept an RGB color, and this color will be used for the icon tint. It's not currently used in any items, but you could also try adding that property and see what happens.

I've been interested in this for a while, but couldn't figure out how to change the colour.

 

I've been poking around and realised it is possible to add custom icon sprites. I'm still fine tuning it, but you can add something like this to controls.xml

 

<insertAfter xpath="/controls/item_stack/rect[@controller='ItemStack']/sprite[@name='itemtypeicon']">
	<sprite depth="8" name="knownbookicon" width="24" height="24" sprite="knownbook" pos="2,-2" foregroundlayer="true" visible="{hasitemtypeicon}" color="{itemtypeicontint}" />
</insertAfter>

 

Add the "knownbook" image to the UIAtlas folder and then apply that sprite to the item using this

 

<set xpath="/items/item[@name='schematicMaster']/property[@name='AltItemTypeIcon']/@value">knownbookicon</set>

 

At the moment I'm trying to figure out how to only apply it to skill books as right now it's being applied to everything with an item type icon.

 

EDIT:

 

After an hour of tinkering I realised that it's far easier than all of that. Pop the images in the UIAtlas folder and give them the "ui_game_symbol_" prefix. I used "ui_game_symbol_readbook" and "ui_game_symbol_unreadbook"

 

Set the value, dropping the prefix, as such:

 

    <set xpath="/items/item[@name='schematicMaster']/property[@name='ItemTypeIcon']/@value">unreadbook</set>
    <set xpath="/items/item[@name='schematicMaster']/property[@name='AltItemTypeIcon']/@value">readbook</set>

 

 

I've uploaded it as a modlet

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Jegethy (see edit history)