Me and several other UI mod makers have been working on ways to better list items in fallout 4.
The first method is to edit the strings file for the game to include the context for the item in front of its name so it is alphabetically organised into a more user friendly order.
An example of an item changed would be: "Stimpack" to "[Medical] Stimpack". All "Medical" items are given that prefex to more easily find them alongside other items with the same prefix.
There are several problems with this method.
- This method needs to be repeated for every supported language to work reliably.
- Mods that change string files will not be compatible with mods like "Full Dialogue Interface".
- Some item names in-game are already very long and this is just cutting off useful text or making text smaller for mods that have removed the dotdotdot on the end of long item names like mine.
The second method is to write an ESP file that changes the actual item names, this allows for compatibility with dialog menu mods but this causes its own myriad of problems.
- No localization / multi language support.
- Same problem in method one in point 3 concerning longer item names.
The third method - The potential solution
Internally fallout 4 categorizes items in groups like "keys", "books" and "weapons".
My hope is that i can somehow access this value items are categorized by and order them by that number which should make this work in any language and remove the need for additional text in front of each item name.
My issue so far has been even though i can find this data using a program like "FO4Edit" but i cannot find a way to make it return these details all the way back through to the .SWF interface files.
What i attempted was to copy an items "class" and put it in its name with a special character set after it like "_:|:_" that should occur no where else in fallout 4, which would end up looking like:
"[Medical]_:|:_Stimpack"
Then in code i would find the special character set and remove it and any characters before it.
This method also did not work because not every interface like would allow me to edit what appeared in the text field, for example the top heading for the item name when in a crafting menu.
So all in all its pretty much been a huge waist of time trying to find a proper 100% fool proof way to get more organised lists.
I'm sure in the future when more mod making tools are released someone may find a solution to this or there may be one now i am unaware of, for now i have to have language constraints in my mod because im going with method two mentioned above for the time being.
Thanks for reading if you did, basically just a mod maker rant about an annoying feature to implement.
Bye bye, have a good day =P.
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