Two years ago, I came up with the idea for a mod that allowed one to have a practically infinite amount of saved hotbars. I called it Hotbars+, and although it was initially a private mod for a few friends, I eventually released it to the public so that others could use it too. The mod was a smash hit with many both on TF and in outside communities, especially with those involved in the item ecosystem.
While I was at work last night, I thought of an idea for a mod that would serve a similar purpose to Hotbars+, but would be implemented in a completely different manner. For now, let's call it Durango. A lot of mechanics in regards to saved hotbars would be essentially replaced or changed to use a new system instead of extending the existing vanilla system. Differences in functionality would include:
- The way Durango would store items would be through an SQL database (most likely using SQLite) instead of an NBT file.
This would bring a much-needed performance boost where instead of loading everything at once like the current vanilla saved hotbar system does all at once, it queries a database instead. Obviously, the item's actual NBT would be stored as a string so that no actual metadata is lost. - Instead of saving items in sets of rows, items would instead be saved individually in their own dedicated rows instead.
While this does make organization slightly difficult, it would allow for a truly infinite amount of saved items. Using the SQLite idea noted above, one could also search for items much more easily by searching through everything by distinctive features like item type, item name, and item lore. Such data would also be stored as dedicated columns to make such a thing possible.
Although Durango and Hotbars+ would achieve the same goal, they would both be still supported because they have differing implementations and use cases. For example, some would prefer the pure vanilla compatibility that the latter offers over advanced features that the former would have, while others may prefer more flexibility in their item storage over vanilla compatibility, which is what the former would be all about.
I'd love to hear your feedback on this idea, so please let me know what you think.