If I had to guess, most of you probably haven’t even taken the time to think of all the amazing capabilities of SkyUI lately and that’s understandable. I mean the mod is really old at this point and almost all of us have used it in the past and so many other mods require the MCM menu for complete functionality that we just automatically install it without giving it a second thought. Most of us also can’t live without the PC inventory layout that it provides too but that’s all most of us think about actively. In a way, these two features of SkyUI are so useful that they eclipse all the other awesome features that are included.
Since we all already know what the MCM or Mod Configuration Menu does, in case you’ve been under a rock somewhere it’s essentially a settings menu for mods to utilize, let’s go ahead and begin with the inventory and all the little gems it brings to the table. The first feature is of course the search bar. I’d like to ask you when the last time you actually used that to locate an item rather than scrolling down the menu manually hunting down the loot you’re looking for? If you’re like me probably never but it really is a huge time save so there’s no reason not to use it.
Next to that is a settings gear where you can enable sorting categories for filters such as a weapon’s class, weight, value, and most importantly value per weight, which for some reason is off by default. Keep in mind that the magic menu and some submenus also have their own unique categories. Now that we set up categories let’s sort the inventory with those categories by clicking on them. A green arrow will appear in the up or down direction denoting which direction the list is sorted. Want to sort alphabetically? Done. Find the heaviest thing you’re holding? Easy. The highest value per weight? Please. You don’t even need to break a sweat.
By clicking on the name category you can also cycle sorting your inventory by equipped items, stolen goods, and enchantments as well. That way you can locate specific items in the blink of an eye. Enchanted items are also denoted by a blue lightning bolt and stolen items can be identified by their red hand. Books and notes that you’ve read will also have an eye icon next to them to show you that you’ve been through them.
Another thing that exists in the inventory is a little grey diamond that denotes whether a specific armor or weapon has the most damage or armor in your inventory. I believe this was actually a feature that existed in the vanilla inventory but it’s pretty cool that the SkyUI devs left it in. Menu keybinds have also been added. Left Alt lets you switch between the magic menu and inventory and space lets you quickly access the search bar. Speaking of searching, the map menu received a search feature as well. Pretty awesome for when you can’t find a specific place.
Finally in the inventory let’s not forget about the item icons that denote the type of item you have From light armor, to healing potion, to fire spell; so many icons have been created that you can basically see what kind of item you’re looking at even if you don’t want to do a small bit of reading.
Now let’s move on to the ingame hud. Perhaps the smallest but most useful feature here is the effects hud in your top right. This lets you see what kind of short term positive and negative effects are on your character at any given time. From poisons to burning and bleeding you can see it all without having to open the magic menu now. The much more elaborate feature here however is the favorites menu which has been completely revamped to include categories like gear, aid and magic–another time saver. Be sure to favorite an item first in your inventory by pressing F otherwise the favorites menu will not open through Q.
From here you can of course hotkey items to your 1-8 number keys for easy access or you can alternatively create groups which allow you to hotkey entire sets of gear to any of the F1 through F4 keys. These can also be accessed through the favorites menu by pressing space. Once here you can equip the group with R, save the state of objects in your hand with T to ensure that spells and weapons are in the correct hands and change the icon of the group with Left Alt. Very powerful stuff!
Now if you thought that all this wasn’t enough for some reason. Everything here can be customized via the SkyUI Configuration menu. Change inventory menu font sizes, icon themes and active effect icon sizes. Quantity menu min sizes allows you to set when the slider shows up for dropping or bartering away stacked items, a really convenient setting. Each favorites group can also be set individually to unequip armor and/or hands so that previous items aren’t left equipped. You can also rebind every key for skyui and reposition many things to your liking too. Thanks to SkyUI mod authors can create Configuration Menus like this for their mods too to include any combination of settings they see fit. Of course you probably already know that.
Well guys this has been it for SkyUI, hopefully this video encourages you to use it’s powerful search and filter features. Let me know if there’s anything new you learned in the comments or if this was all repeat for you. Remember to like this video if you haven’t already, and check out some of this other awesome content! Catch you in the next one!