Config Menus
Config menus can be accessed from the mod list. It is recommended you use Catalogue in addition to this mod, as it provides a better interface for the mod list.
The mod list can be accessed from the main menu, under the Mods button.
Additionally, Simple Config adds a button to the pause menu to access the mod list in-game.
This can be disabled in case other mod already does it.
The pause menu button looks like an anvil, the recognizable icon of Minecraft Forge, and you can configure where it appears on the menu.
The config menus consist of a single screen with a main list of entries spanning most of the window, save for a top and bottom bars, and a status bar that appears in different contexts.
In order to fit everything in a single screen, the menu makes use of tabs to switch between config types and their categories (Navigation bar). Using a single screen has some benefits, like global undo history for the whole menu, until you save or discard those changes.
- Toolbars
- Search Bar
- Action Toolbar
- Navigation toolbar and about config types
- Preset Toolbar
- Editing Entries
- Config Hotkeys
- External/Remote Change Detection
- Confirmation Dialogs
- Tips
- Read More
Another benefit of having a single screen menu is being able to search in all categories at once by using the search bar.
The search bar can be opened by pressing Ctrl + F, as you probably expect, and also using the button found at the top left corner of the menu.
To the right of the search button is the file edit button, which will let you open the local config file in your preferred editor. If you're the kind of person who prefers editing a text file rather than using a menu, you may be interested in the config commands instead.
The undo/redo buttons work as you'd expect, but you may also use Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y (customizable) instead. In fact, most of the actions have associated keyboard shortcuts you can conveniently find in the Controls dialog found at the bottom right corner of the menu.
The navigation toolbar lets you switch between the 3 types of config files (if available for the mod) (client/server/common).
These types are described in the Config Types section.
Additionally, some config menus may have several categories, which are displayed as tabs in the second row of the navigation toolbar.
By default, you can switch between categories by using Ctrl+PgDown/Ctrl+PgUp, and between config types with Alt+PgDown/Alt+PgUp, but this can be changed.
Simple Config menus let every player edit their own client and common configuration at any moment. Additionally, if authorized, certain players can also edit the server and common configuration of a server when logged in said server (see Config Permissions).
In singleplayer worlds you can also edit the server configuration, unless you specifically unauthorize yourself, which doesn't mean much, considering you will still be able to edit the config file directly. Singleplayer worlds use the same common configuration as your client.
The common configuration is where Simple Config allows you to configure which mods it should provide (or replace) config menus and commands. For server config commands to work for mods not using the Simple Config API, they must be enabled in Simple Config's common config for the server.
By default, Simple Config will provide config menus to all mods lacking one. You should only need to change this if a certain mod appears to be incompatible with Simple Config. If you find any mod incompatibilities, please report them at the issue tracker.
Main section: Config Presets
Simple Config supports a powerful preset system. You may save your current configuration for a given mod and config type as a config preset, and apply it later. To save a config preset, simply type its name in the preset bar and press the save button. To load a saved preset, select it from the dropdown and press the load button. If you have trouble finding your preset in the dropdown, try clearing its query, as it'll filter the shown results to match what you type.
A good thing about loading presets is you can undo the loading step in a single undo action, which lets you review exactly which entries were affected and how.
Each preset is saved as a single YAML file under the config/presets folder, but additionally, when playing on a modded server, if given enough privileges, players can save config presets in the server! This is great, since it allows authorized players to share their config presets with others.
Presets saved in the server will appear besides local presets in the dropdown, using a distinct icon.
A great feature of config menus is selecting config entries, by using the checkboxes that appear in the left margin as you hover them.
Once you have selected at least one entry, the top bar of the menu changes, and the selection toolbar appears. In exchange, you'll lose the ability to switch config types while selecting entries, since selections cannot span across config types. They can span across categories within the same type, though.
Using the selection toolbar, you may apply certain actions to all selected entries at once, but there's more! If you save a config preset while a selection is active, the preset will only include those entries! This means, loading the preset will only alter the entries that were selected when it was saved.
If a selection is active when loading a preset, the affected entries are further restricted to the currently selected ones, which may result in no entry being updated (an event of which a friendly dialog will inform you).
Pro tip: In order to select adjacent entries faster, you can actually drag the mouse across their checkboxes to mass select/deselect them. You can even scroll while you do so. This feature is inspired in Blender's UI, so if you've used Blender before you'll find it quite natural.
This also applies to expanding and collapsing groups, just drag the mouse to expand/collapse others. Holding Shift while you expand/collapse a group will do so recursively.
Selecting or deselecting a group of entries will select/deselect all of its children. In other words, a group of entries is considered selected when all its children are.
As you edit some entries, you'll notice that edited entries and their parents have their names highlighted and displayed in cursive. This can help you find changes you've made.
Additionally, some entries can report errors if you introduce invalid values. What is an invalid value for an entry is up to the mods themselves, but often the error report will include some helpful message to explain why the value is not valid.
You cannot save your changes as long as you have any unsolved error. To clearly state this fact, the menu will disable the save button and display the status bar right on top of it, in bright glowing red to prompt you to fix them.
While annoying, this status bar is there to help you locate the pending errors in your config. Clicking it will quickly navigate to the next error (or previous if holding shift) (there are also keyboard shortcuts). Additionally, the ellipsis button at the right of the bar will let you open a dialog containing the list of all errors in the menu, which you can click to navigate to them.
If you can't find a way to fix a specific error, usually pressing the reset button at the right of the entry will most likely fix the error (if it doesn't it's a bug of the mod you're editing). Don't worry about resetting the value, since you can easily undo this, just as any action.
Alternatively, another way to probably get back onto a non error state for the entry is holding the Alt key, which will turn the reset button into a restore button, to discard all changes made to that entry, which is similar to undoing everything, but just for that entry.
Main section: Config Hotkeys
Besides config presets, Simple Config supports an even faster way to apply changes to your configuration, without even opening any menu.
By holding the Ctrl key, the reset buttons to the right of all entries will turn into hotkey buttons.
Clicking any of them will create a new config hotkey, and enter the hotkey edit mode.
While editing a config hotkey, the top and bottom bars of the menu will turn blueish. Additionally, the preset button will be replaced by a hotkey button to assign the edited hotkey, and the screen title will become editable, holding the hotkey name.
The save button will be replaced with a button to save the hotkey. If you cancel instead, the hotkey won't be saved, and you'll return to the normal editing mode.
While editing a hotkey, you'll be able to assign hotkey actions to any number of entries. All these actions will take place when the hotkey is triggered.
By hotkey actions we refer to assigning values to the entries, at least most of the time. Some entry types support advanced hotkey actions, such as adding a number to the value, toggling a switch or cycling through available options using a given step.
You may have also noticed that once you save a hotkey, the entries it affects aren't displayed any different, and you will be able to assign more hotkeys to them. In general, you can have any amount of hotkeys affecting a single config entry, and a single hotkey may affect any amount of config entries.
While this is a great benefit, it means you can't just have a dedicated button beside each entry to edit its hotkey. Instead, to edit existing hotkeys, you can use the much more powerful Hotkey menu, which is opened using the top right corner button.
Within the hotkey menu, config hotkeys can be organized into a tree. The top left controls let you create and remove hotkeys and hotkey groups without leaving the menu.
Hotkey groups are great! Not only do they let you organize your hotkeys better, perhaps labeling them by mod (because yes, config hotkeys can affect more than one mod, so they are all accessible from the same menu), but they also can be easily enabled and disabled. You may even assign a hotkey to toggle a hotkey group!
To organize your hotkeys within the tree, just drag and drop them. You may even select multiple hotkeys and groups with Shift/Ctrl + Click/Up/Down/Space (as you would in the file explorer), and drag them all together, or delete them all.
Within the tree you may also edit the names of hotkeys and groups, as well as their actions. Just expand a hotkey and pick the mod for which you want to edit the hotkey actions of.
Finally, remember to save any changes you make in the menu. This is cool, because you can just discard everything you've made if you mess up big time, like deleting a group.
Speaking of accidentally deleting stuff, remember that shiny config preset system? Well, guess what is the top right control within the hotkey menu. That's right, you can save and load hotkey groups, works just like presets do. You can save them on modded servers as well.
You may have noticed the weird-looking and very saturated buttons besides hotkey buttons. Those buttons let you open the advanced settings for their hotkey, while also allowing you to quickly observe all the settings at a glance, if you ever train your eye to recognize all the tiny icons.
These options are related to how is the hotkey detected, and let you create complex key mappings, for example having hotkeys trigger on release of their keys, but only if no other hotkeys were triggered by the whole combination.
These features were inspired on the great MaLiLib's hotkey system, for Fabric. If you've ever used MiniHUD, Litematica, or similar mods using MaLiLib, you'll probably be already used to this kind of hotkeys.
Also, just as in MaLiLib hotkeys, you can use any sequence of keys as hotkeys, even mixing in mouse buttons, scrolls and keys in the same combo. Essentially, you can use any key as modifier, so you're not just limited to the classic Ctrl/Alt/Shift world. Combine this with toggleable hotkey groups and you can already imagine the possibilities!
Another interesting feature for players using non-QWERTY layouts is matching hotkeys by text rather than the position in the keyboard. This may be convenient if you want to have mnemonic key combinations that work across keyboard layouts. It's mostly intended for sharing them with other players who may use other layouts (those pesky QWERTY users).
Since Simple Config allows authorized players to edit server configuration, what would happen if a player saved changes on the same config another player is currently editing? Or what if you manually modify the config file of your local config while the menu is open?
The solution to this problems was remote and external change detection. Config menus can detect when the configuration they are editing has been updated by other means (either another player in the same server, a modification of the config files, or even mods themselves tweaking their own config entries (which is a bad practice, but hey, it has its use cases).
Once external changes have been detected, the status bar will notify you of that fact, helping you find the affected entries, just as it can help you find errors. Additionally, entries with conflicting external changes will be marked with an orange merge icon on their right margin.
Pressing that orange icon will let you quickly preview the external changes, and accept them if you wish. Accepted external changes still display a merge icon in the margin, but now a green one. If you don't accept external changes, you'll overwrite them. The main logic of the menu doesn't change. Once you click the save button, everything that is displayed will be saved as you see it. Being able to accept external changes is just a nice feature to avoid stepping on other player's or your own changes.
All irreversible actions (and some reversible ones) will prompt you with a confirmation dialog so you don't have to experience sour surprises. However, if you're an experienced user and the confirmations get in your way, it's possible to disable each of them individually.
If you want to reenable a dialog you disabled with its own checkbox, you may find the actual setting for it in the client config of the Simple Config mod, which also may contain other settings of interest for you.
Some dialogs, such as the confirmation dialogs for saving/overwriting/deleting presets can only be disabled for the current session.
Simple Config has many small useful features hidden in its menus. Some controls let you drag the mouse over multiple rows to broadcast actions. Lists and maps let you sort entries by dragging them with Middle Click (or Alt + Left Click). Holding modifier keys or using the right and middle clicks can affect the behavior of some buttons, such as cycling backwards in option buttons.
Dropdown boxes let you search by typing just the initials of the item you're looking for (if it has multiple words), text controls let you drag your mouse to select text (yes, you're still playing Minecraft, don't be afraid!), and the word selecting rules are actually useful (basically the same as in IntelliJ). There's also syntax highlighting and basic typing assistance (insert/skip/delete paired delimiters) for RegExp and SNBT text controls.
There are many hidden shortcuts for common actions (or not really hidden, just check the Controls dialog, you'll thank me). For example, did you know you can save colors in the color picker palette by using Right Click? Or sort list and map entries with Ctrl + Alt + Up/Down?
The entire UI is completely accessible with the keyboard. If there's any single action that requires you to use your mouse, please report it as an accessibility bug at the issue tracker.
Many UI components display useful tooltips if you hover them, sometimes hinting at key shortcuts and related features, so a great idea is moving your mouse everywhere to see the tips you find. However, as some tips may get in the way once you know of them, you can hide some by unchecking the Show UI tips in the Controls dialog, which only affects tooltips for common controls that get in the way of UI visibility.
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