Skills Preview

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Note: This plugin is currently under active development. Bugs may occur and features may change in future versions.

Skills Preview is a Valheim mod that adds compact HUD widgets for your chosen skills. It gives you a quick glance at each skill's level and progress without ever opening the character window.

Each widget shows:

• the skill icon,
• current level (e.g. Lv.45),
• percentage progress to the next level (e.g. 72.00%),
• a thin progress bar at the bottom that fills with the current XP %,
• a flash animation when you level up.

On top of the widgets, the mod also pops a Valheim-style level-up banner in the centre-top area of the screen whenever one of your favourited skills gains a level — position, duration, font size, and colour are all configurable.

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Table of Contents

1. Requirements
2. Installation
3. How to Use
4. Configuration
5. Troubleshooting

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Requirements

• Valheim — (current Steam version)
• BepInEx — Valheim modding framework (version 5.x required)

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Installation

Manual

1. Download the latest release from the Releases tab.
2. Make sure BepInEx is installed. If it isn't, grab it from the project page and follow the setup instructions there.
3. Copy SkillsPreview.dll into:

   <game_directory>/BepInEx/plugins/
   

4. Launch the game — the plugin loads automatically.
5. You can confirm it loaded by checking the BepInEx console.

Via mod manager (e.g. Thunderstore Mod Manager)

Search for Skills Preview in the manager and click "Install".

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How to Use

1. Open the skills window (L by default).
2. A star icon appears next to each skill — click a skill to mark it as a favourite. Skills are tracked in the order you select them.
3. Your favourited skills show up as HUD widgets during gameplay.
4. Widgets can be repositioned and resized through the settings panel (see Configuration).

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Configuration

In-game settings panel

The plugin includes a built-in settings panel accessible directly from the skills window. You can change the following without leaving the game:

• Theme presets — one-click apply of a complete colour + size scheme: Valheim (default warm gold/brown), Dark, Minimal, High contrast,
• HUD panel position — where the widgets appear on screen (default: bottom-left corner near the player stats),
• HUD scale — uniform scale of the entire widget panel (50–150 %, default 100 %), without changing individual size values,
• Widget element colours — background, border, level text, progress text, "MAX" colour, level-up flash colour, progress bar track,
• Star colours — active (favourited) and inactive star colours,
• Widget size and appearance — width, height, icon size, font sizes, corner rounding, border thickness, spacing between widgets, progress bar visibility and height,
• Level-up banner — toggle the centre-top banner on/off, distance from the top of the screen (% of screen height), how long it stays visible, font size, and text colour.

Numeric settings (sizes, font sizes, spacing, scale, etc.) are adjusted with sliders directly in the panel; position X/Y still use text input fields.

Every option has a ↺ button to reset it individually, or you can hit Reset all to restore all defaults at once.

Config file

Settings are saved automatically to:

<game_directory>/BepInEx/config/godzki.skills_preview.cfg

You can edit this file in any text editor. Each option has a comment explaining what it does. Changes made manually take effect after restarting the game.

All configuration options

[1 - General]

Key	Description
DebugMode	Enables verbose logging in the BepInEx console
HudWidgetsVisible	Shows or hides the HUD widgets (does not affect the skills panel)

[2 - Skill Panel]

Key	Description
FavoriteStarColor	Star colour for a favourited skill
UnfavoriteStarColor	Star colour for a non-favourited skill

[3 - HUD Position]

Key	Default	Description
PositionX	150	Horizontal position of the widget panel (px from the left edge of the screen)
PositionY	200	Vertical position of the widget panel (px from the bottom edge of the screen)
Scale	100	50–150

[4 - HUD Widget]

Key	Default	Range	Description
Width	60	30–200	Width of each widget in pixels
Height	86	30–200	Height of each widget in pixels
IconSize	40	10–100	Skill icon size inside the widget (px)
FontSizeLevel	13	6–30	Font size for the level text (e.g. Lv.45)
FontSizeProgress	11	6–24	Font size for the progress text (e.g. 72.00% or MAX)
Spacing	6	0–30	Gap between widgets in the horizontal panel (px)
BorderSize	2	0–10	Border thickness for each widget (px)
CornerRadius	6	0–20	Corner rounding radius (px); 0 disables rounding
LevelUpDuration	1.5	0–5	Duration of the level-up flash effect (seconds)
ProgressBarVisible	true		Shows the thin progress bar at the bottom of each widget
ProgressBarHeight	4	0–12	Height of the progress bar in pixels
BorderColor			Widget border colour
BackgroundColor			Widget background colour (RGBA)
LevelColor			Skill level text colour
ProgressColor			Progress percentage text colour (also fills the progress bar)
ProgressMaxColor			Text colour for MAX when a skill reaches level 100
LevelUpColor			Border flash colour on level-up
ProgressBarBgColor			Track (background) colour of the progress bar

[5 - Level-up Toast]

Key	Default	Range	Description
Enabled	true		Toggles the centre-top level-up banner on/off
PositionTopPercent	20	0–50	Vertical position of the banner as a percentage of screen height measured from the top
Duration	3	1–10	How long (seconds) the banner stays visible, including fade-in/out
FontSize	28	14–50	Font size of the banner text
Color			Banner text colour (RGBA); default is a warm Valheim gold

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Troubleshooting

Plugin doesn't load / no widgets visible

1. Delete the config file — a corrupted or incompatible config can prevent the plugin from loading. The file is located at:

   <game_directory>/BepInEx/config/godzki.skills_preview.cfg
   

   Delete it and start the game again — it will be recreated with default values.

2. Check your BepInEx version — this plugin requires BepInEx 5.x. Version 6.x is not currently supported.

3. Make sure the .dll is in the right folder — the path should be BepInEx/plugins/, not BepInEx/ directly.

Diagnosing issues with debug mode

1. Open godzki.skills_preview.cfg in a text editor.
2. Under [1 - General], set:

   DebugMode = true
   

3. Launch the game and check the BepInEx console (or BepInEx/LogOutput.log). The detailed logs should point you to the root cause.
4. Once the issue is resolved, turn debug mode off by setting DebugMode = false.

Plugin conflicts with another mod

Check BepInEx/LogOutput.log for errors. If it looks like a conflict with a specific mod, please open a report in the Issues tab — include your mod list and the relevant error from the log.

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AI Assistance

AI-powered tools were used during development to assist with problem analysis and code refactoring.