Skills Preview

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 flash animation when you level up.

Table of Contents

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

Requirements

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

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".

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).

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:

• HUD panel position — where the widgets appear on screen (default: bottom-left corner near the player stats),
• Widget element colours — background, border, level text, progress text, "MAX" colour, level-up flash colour,
• 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.

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]

[2 - Skill Panel]

[3 - HUD Position]

[4 - HUD Widget]

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.

AI Assistance

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

Changelog

0.5.2

• New: each HUD widget now has a slim progress bar at the bottom that fills as you gain XP and turns gold once the skill reaches level 100.
• New: theme presets in the settings panel — pick Valheim, Dark, Minimal, or High contrast to restyle every widget colour and size with a single click.
• New settings to show or hide the progress bar, adjust its height, and choose its track colour — all available in the in-game settings panel.
• Smoother HUD: widgets only redraw when something visible actually changes, so the panel stays light even with many favourite skills.

0.5.0

• New: Valheim-style level-up banner shown in the centre-top area of the screen when a favourited skill levels up.
• Fully configurable: enable/disable, distance from the top of the screen (%), display duration, font size, and text colour.
• All toast settings exposed in the in-game settings panel and translated into every supported language.

0.4.3

• Add new languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian.

0.4.2

• Fix language switching.
• Add new languages: German, French, Ukrainian.

0.4.0

• Displaying skill information on the character selection screen at the start of the game.

0.3.5

• New mod icon
• Update README.md

0.3.4

• Sliders in the settings for easier use

0.3.3

• Widget interface scaling

0.3.0

• Initial release