What is your feature request?

Hello Shedaniel!

I've been really enjoying using REI in a new modpack I have been working on. I want to express how grateful I am for someone working on such a large project and including so many quality of life upgrades from similar style mods.

I have some questions and potential feature request/feedback for you. Most of my feedback is designed to enhance the UX of the Category/Grouping feature:

1. Background

With how the current system is presented to a player's perspective, it seems as category groups exist to take items sharing similarities and grouping them under a single icon/entry initially to save space. E.g. grouping together Spawn Eggs as those have no value to take up 40-50+ item slots in REI for most players. It's a welcomed convenience to see fewer items appear when all of the groups are collapsed.

However, through observation, when attempting to approach grouping from a different angle it isn't as strong or intuitive. I'm proposing a more functional alternative to simply hiding items because players don't need to see 80 of something they'll never need to craft or even view the entirety of.

Proposal

I would like to use a combination of creating groups to hide items based on different factors such as "Decorative Blocks", "Lantern or Torch Variations", or even full mods that don't necessarily need to have every item always show in the full list. Ideally, on first load of a modpack, there would be many groups overall limiting the total pages of a large modpack from 50-100 to less than 5 or 10. I would expect the player to discover and open these categories when they need to interact with them and find a recipe without sacrificing UX. It's worth mentioning, and I believe this is currently achievable, but I would consider adding specific items/blocks to multiple groups depending on context.

2. Background

Drawing from the previous point, is there a method that could be used to draw more attention to the Category icons? I've watched many players completely skip over or not notice the categories in the full item list either because they don't stand out well or, due to the assumption that grouping lowers the value of those items, because it's not important enough to display every item in the group. I believe this perception of lowering item/block value when in a group is a missed opportunity to better the UX for the player by providing a different style of organization.

Proposal

Allowing custom icons rather than the standard collapsed icon or using a resource location to use an image of, for example, a folder to better communicate intention to players.

I've tried increasing the overall item size in the config so item detail is more apparent but I'm not convinced groups stand out enough in this context either. Even if custom images or icons can't be set, what about allowing the color of the collapsed box shown here:

Possibly allowing a hex or other color code to alter the white box might be helpful?

3. Background

The keybinding to expand a group in the item list is not immediately intuitive to players. This is, overall, a minor concern as the tooltip does give instructions on how to expand the categories and could potentially be a non-issue if methods to draw more attention to categories were implemented.

Proposal

This one might be a bigger pain point from a dev standpoint, but is there a possibility of allowing the Expand Group key bind to be configurable instead of using only Alt-Click? I realize that it will probably interfere with other features if it was only a click and that wouldn't be ideal, but I think there is value in further simplifying the group expansion.

One compromise I can think of is allowing this to be a mode option that is disabled when debugging or developing and enabling for players.

4. Background

I've been trying to alter the order of items, blocks, and groups in the REI list but am unable to determine if I'm able to specifically move groups to a custom placement in the order.

Proposal

Is it currently possible to, for example, move all groups to be the first entries in the list rather than appearing in the typical name or registry order? This would further increase organization for modpack developers.

5. Background

Something I've also come across is the tooltip of groups always defaults to the Minecraft style.

Proposal

Is there a possibility of providing integration and allowing customization of tooltips to match modpack customized themes:

Conclusion

A lot of my feedback comes from desiring a system borrowing more ideas from the vanilla recipe book or creative menu GUI. That system is obviously not very ideal for many items and modpacks, but the ability to effectively organize sets of items into intuitive categories and not overwhelm the player with 10,000+ items on first inspection. Many times, full mods or items go ignored because they are lost in a sea of items and I think this could slightly improved from REI by presenting the items differently. I really appreciate you for taking time out of your day to read through this long feature request and hope some of it can be valuable to you. If not, then no worries and I thank you for all the work you've done so far!

Have a great rest of your day and take care!
Darkosto

Relevant Game and Mod Versions:
Minecraft: 1.20.1
NeoForge: 47.1.106
REI: 12.1.740
REI Plugin Capabilities: 12.0.93

What do you think this change is of?

• Visual
• Recipe Lookup
• Cheat Mode
• Plugin Integration / JEI Plugin Compatibility
• Others

[Edited for slightly better formatting]

After posting this issue, I realized I could potentially do a workaround by creating custom "Folder" icons and those could be the icon showing when a group is collapsed. What I didn't realize until after setting it all up was that I can't force the folder to be the first item that appears because I don't have control of the item list order. This could be a potential solution if there was an easy way to customize the order: