Improve Immersive Mouse Mode (and other thoughts on item transfer and inventory UI)

[MKMoose]

1. The main issue

The Immersive Mouse Mode is a cool idea, but it causes a massive problem from a UX standpoint: the player is forced to hold down a key to unlock the cursor to move items in/out of hotbar, inventory or crafting grid, which happens very often. It largely conflicts with the whole aim of IMM and just gets tiring, plus it's an accessibility issue.

One way to largely address this issue is to allow to toggle cursor lock/unlock instead of having to hold down the key, which has been first requested in threads like this one a long time ago and I'm genuinely baffled that it's still not in the game, not that I've seen at least. And yes, there's the roundabout solution using macros, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it a good solution. And even with a toggle, the player would still likely have to press it once when opening the inventory window and then once again when closing it, which is not great either - you can easily imagine pressing it a dozen times in a couple seconds when sorting loot or whatnot into a bunch of containers.

With that, I see two possible short-term solutions for the issue, neither particularly complicated:
- unlock the cursor when opening the inventory, just like with IMM disabled - since in most situations it's necessary to unlock the cursor when opening the inventory, then I see no reason not just consolidate them into one, even if it somewhat goes against the idea of IMM (admittedly this solution could be disruptive for some people who are used to the current state of IMM),
- add a key to toggle cursor lock/unlock (or a switch similar to "toggle sprint" in accessibility settings) and remember it separately for when inventory is open and closed, which would also greatly improve accessibility for those who need it and generally allow for more detailed customization of mouse control without having to open the settings menu.

2. The hotbar and quick transfer

Notice that though the above could be greatly beneficial, it doesn't address the issue with transferring items between the hotbar and containers, unless the inventory is open. When playing with IMM I have actually found myself instinctively trying to use RMB (or crouch/sprint + RMB) to put items into containers while having them selected in the hotbar, without holding them in the cursor. And if someone's trying to do something intuitively and it doesn't work, then simply making it work can be a good course of action to reduce friction: while not holding any items in the cursor, use the same or similar functionality for transferring items between hotbar and container slots as for ground storage, to allow easily putting items away using RMB. Crouch + RMB could take items from the targeted container slot, while modifying it with sprint would transfer full or partial stacks. In order to make it work better, it may be useful to also allow switching hotbar slots with the mouse wheel while hovering over a container's UI, as it doesn't work at the moment for some reason.

The current functionality would likely remain as is while the inventory is open, though there's still things to consider as it could cause inconcistencies between the two states. At the very least, placing items into empty container slots could be implemented without conflicts, and then the the remaining issue would be how to transfer items from the cursor into a hotbar slot without unlocking the cursor (or vice versa while at it), which could be done with a hotkey (maybe X, the same as swapping items between hands).

I'm pretty sure that this whole feature could also work with IMM disabled with no issues. Granted, it could make item transfer faster and less "hands-on" in certain cases, but I think it's fine if it allows IMM to be massively better and not reliant on unlocking the cursor constantly.

I've also had thoughts to potentially completely remove the cursor with IMM enabled (at least while inventory is closed), so that LMB on a container slot would automatically swap it with the active hotbar slot. It might be a step too far and end up unintuitive and confusing, though, even if it could also be convenient and fast for those who take a moment to get used to it.

3. Inventory/crafting UI

A secondary point about Immersive Mouse Mode, though somewhat tangential to the main topic, is that the default position of the inventory/crafting window is highly impractical, with the crafting grid specifically being extremely far off to the side. Just moving it doesn't help all that much just because there's very limited space on the screen to put it once the center is no-go. There's two things to consider here:
- separate out individual inventory and crafting windows to allow more detailed customization of the layout,
- allow resizing the inventory window (or resize it permanently) to let it fit neatly above the hotbar but under the cursor, where it is much more convenient and arguably kind of immersive as well (think like you open the backpack and hold it in front of yourself or put it on the ground).

4. Placeable inventory?

Now that I've mentioned "opening the backpack and putting it on the ground" in the above section, why not implement that for the ultimate Immersive Mouse Mode? When the player opens their inventory, a special block is placed on a flat surface under the cursor, which works like any other container. There are a couple considerations with this:
- we don't want players using these special blocks like large chests - the bags should still normally occupy their bag slots when the inventory is opened; they are also automatically returned to the player if they close their inventory, walk away or if something destroys the special block (water, falling sand or gravel, maybe another player),
- should other players be able to access the special container? - it would be pretty cool and convenient, but it should be possible to disable it to prevent stealing,
- should the player only be able to open their inventory while aiming at a suitable surface? - otherwise the game would have to find the nearest surface or something, but the player would still have to point at wherever it gets spawned to access the items (at least with IMM enabled),
- should it be possible to place the special container on anything other than a flat surface? - hanging it on a wall might make sense as well,
- the visual appearance of the special block would have to depend on the bags the player is using,
- should this special container also include the crafting grid? - the block could visually include something like a crafting surface on a piece of cloth or a small workbench (potentially upgradeable in some way), which could also be used to perform crafting in a more immersive way, though it would also massively increase the complexity of the whole thing,
- items like Skeps likely wouldn't be affected by this change in any way.

 

Feel free to let me know if I had missed something that addresses some of the issues or if you've managed to make IMM work for you, as I simply wasn't able to get used to it even though I really like some of what it does.

[Nikita Vovchenko]

> with IMM I have actually found myself instinctively trying to use RMB (or crouch/sprint + RMB) to put items into containers while having them selected in the hotbar

Same. I wanted to put water into a cooking pot while holding a plate with water, quite disturbing that you have to enable cursor, then left click on it to attach to cursor. Is there may be a setting I could attach to a macro to "attach current item to cursor"?

> Placeable inventory?
Was thinking about the same. I don't really care if an inventory-backpack-item will be put down on the ground, but flying inventory window probably with flying hotbar line below it would be great. They "fly" for all other containers, why make inventory interaction unique?

Also, in games like core keeper they make it so a hotbar is just a reference to the inventory line, and you can scroll through inventory lines and it changes active hotbar. It feels like it would work great in Immersive mode if point 1 will be resolved. It also allows to make hotbar presets for hunting, building and etc

[Nikita Vovchenko]

> Is there may be a setting I could attach to a macro to "attach current item to cursor"?
This client side mod https://mods.vintagestory.at/swapmouseslot does this (works on current 1.21 release), very helpful.

In combination with this mod https://mods.vintagestory.at/nohands (adds a hotkey to remove item from hotbar to inventory) it really reduces the amount of needed cursor based inventory interactions, but honestly doesn't really help when you need to drop your new loot at home in IMM mode.

If anyone knows a mod that allows to interact with inventory (not hotbar) comfortably in IMM (by moving items to hotbar via hotkeys? idk) please ping me. Until then I can't really comfortably play in IMM.

But in any case I would like to thank devs for working on IMM, I really like where it's going, it's just not yet there for me. Thank you for your work

Edit: This mod https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/22330 enables cursor in IMM when inventory is open, looks like best solution atm

Edited November 19, 2025 by Nikita Vovchenko