Visual Impairment Support

I made this mod for a friend of mine who plays Valheim and has significant vision impairment due to the loss of part of his optic nerve.

Features

Important Item Highlight

The mod adds a red outline to inventory slots containing weapons, armor, or tools. Shields, utility items, and ammunition are highlighted as well. Other items are left unoutlined. This is a visual change only; it does not affect item behavior or properties. The outlines make it easier to spot which items in his inventory are important and worth keeping.

Item type and quantity announcer

Click the middle mouse button (M3) over an item in the player inventory or a container to hear its localized name and stack count using Windows text-to-speech. Click M3 over a recipe at a crafting station to hear the product name and its required materials and quantities. The ConfigurationManager settings put voice activation, spoken text, speed, volume, and a dropdown of installed speech voices under Voice. The outline's red, green, and blue channels are configurable separately under Important Item Highlight, each from 0 to 255, with a live color preview.

The voice feature uses Windows PowerShell 5.1 and Windows Speech. No custom executable is bundled; the mod starts the PowerShell installation included with Windows and uses voices installed in the operating system.

Inventory

If you also have a visual impairment and would like additional accessibility features, I am open to hearing your ideas and considering new features for the mod.

Credits

Thank you Shadow for the the code for the item announcer.

Changelog

1.2.0 - 2026-10-10

Added

• Announce crafting recipe names and required materials when middle-clicking a recipe at a workbench.
• Announce upgrade materials at upgrade stations without mixing them into crafting requirements.
• Configure the important-item outline color with RGB controls and a live preview.
• Select an installed Windows speech voice and configure voice announcements, spoken text, speed, and volume.

The existing middle-click item announcements and important-item highlights remain available.

1.1.2 - 2026-10-09

Removed

• Removed the bundled ItemAnnouncer.Speaker.exe; voice announcements now use the Windows PowerShell 5.1 host.

1.1.1 - 2026-10-09

Added

• Added voice announcements for items under the cursor when pressing the middle mouse button (M3).
• Integrated item announcements with the inventory accessibility mod.
• Added the bundled Windows text-to-speech helper.

Improved

• Organized source code by feature under src/.
• Kept inventory item highlights for weapons, armor, tools, shields, utility items, and ammunition.