ZenHoverItem

v1.3.0·Updated 2026-09-13

Show hover icons on the cursor. Quickly identify things via the inventory item icon. The human brain recognizes images much faster than it recognizes text.

Screenshots 8 screenshots

About this mod Author’s original text

ZenHoverItem

Show item icons on the cursor because the human brain recognizes images much faster than it recognizes words. Quickly identify things via the inventory item icon.

NOTE: Fireplaces and torches show remaining fuel as the number of days left instead of hours, minutes, and seconds because the game uses days as a unit of time, not clocks.

  • Containers
  • Smelters
  • Dropped Items & Pickables
  • Armor and Item Stands
  • Beehives
  • Fermenters
  • Sap Collectors
  • Ovens
  • Cooking Stations
  • Fireplaces
  • Etc.

Attention Mod Devs

If you would like to display icons from your own mod please visit the wiki for instructions on how to display your own custom icon data as hover icons. Easy to integrate: no hard dependency, no API, no reflection required.

Containers (With Item Counts)

Fuel Remaining In Days

Smelters Queue

Dropped Items (and Pickables)

Beehive Honey

Armor Stands

Item Stands

Fermenters

ModDevs: Invoking Icons

If you are a mod dev you can show your own icons from your own mods:

Inside your GetHoverText patch or Update loop use Unity's SendMessage function with a list of prefab names or icon sprites that you want to display as HoverIcons. This is not a hard dependency, it will not error if ZenHoverItem is not installed. It simply sends a message and ZenHoverItem listens for it if it's installed, otherwise nothing happens.

// yourData can be an array of:

// - Icons: Sprite

// - ItemPrefabNames: string

// - Tuples Style 1: (Sprite Icon, string Label)

// - Tuples Style 2: (string ItemPrefabName, string Label)

// NOTE: you can put null in an array Icon or ItemPrefabName to skip a position.

// You can not put null for the entire tuple.

// Anything beyond 5 elements will be ignored, it will not error if you go beyond the limit.

SendMessage("ZenDragon.ZenHoverItem::UpdateIcons", yourData, SendMessageOptions.DontRequireReceiver);

NOTE: It will only display 5 icons max. Anymore than that and horizontal width is ugly. 4 is the ideal soft max. Best if you keep it 4 or under. However, 5 is there just in case. Generally a good idea to not clutter the UI.

Client / Server Requirements

NOTE: Technically it is not required on the server. However, if it is installed on the server then it will force all clients to have it installed as well. This is to enable two modes of usage:

  • Dedicated server admins can put the mod on the server to enforce all clients to have the mod installed and sync admin configs.
  • Trusted friends can agree to run the same mods and connect through a vanilla dedicated server with no enforcement but with locked admin configs.

Client Only

This mod operates entirely client side. That means you can connect to any vanilla server with this mod installed. Other players do not need to have the mod installed.

NOTE: If you host a game session with this mod installed then it will be considered to be installed on the server since your session is the server. Therefor, all clients will be required to have it. If you don't want to require all players to have this mod then you will need to host your game in a dedicated server. You can easily download and run the Valheim Dedicated Server from Steam or host one in the cloud.

Improve Your Experience

CORE MODS

The full collection of all Zen MODS:

  • Radically improved QoL
  • Incredible performance
  • Pre-configured
  • 100% Gamepad support
  • Spectacularly immersive

Enjoy!

Sample Config File

Settings file was created by plugin ZenHoverItem v1.2.0

Plugin GUID: ZenDragon.ZenHoverItem

[Armor Stand]

[Admin] Display the hover icons for armor stands

Setting type: Boolean

Default value: false

Show Hover Icons = false

[Admin] Display the hover text for armor stands

Setting type: Boolean

Default value: true

Show Hover Text = true

[Containers]

[Admin] How many icons to display on containers?

Setting type: Int32

Default value: 4

Acceptable value range: From 0 to 5

Max Icons = 4

[Admin] Show the summary text for containers

Setting type: Boolean

Default value: true

Show Summary

Install & use Install: BepInEx plugin

  1. The archive from playbuff is the mod itself — usually a BepInEx plugin (a .dll or a plugin folder once unzipped).
  2. Recommended: use a community mod manager (such as r2modman) — pick this game, import the mod, and the manager sets up BepInEx and its dependencies for you.
  3. Manual route: install the BepInEx loader in the game folder, then drop the unzipped .dll or plugin folder into BepInEx/plugins/.
  4. Launch the game — the BepInEx console logs every plugin it loads; seeing this mod in the log means it is installed.

Mods with listed dependencies need those installed too, or they will not load. Options are usually changed in-game or in the plugin's config file. In multiplayer, the host and every client need the same mods installed.

Dependencies

Install these first, or the mod will not work:

ZenDragon-Zen_ModLib

File & checksum

Filename
ZenHoverItem-1.3.0.zip
File size
46.5 KiB