Hey Kadajah, thanks for the follow-up. Congratulations on the recent plugin releases by the way.
Regarding the HUD replacement, I think you're spot on. Replacing the native Attack/Guard/Item commands with a shortcut line would make the UI feel much more modern.
I was looking more into an old MV plugin called VCM_SkillBar for inspiration on the 'Equip/Swap' logic. A few things it did that would be amazing in your MZ version:
1. On-the-fly Swapping: It had a "Swap Bar" that appeared when you right-clicked a slot, allowing you to quickly change skills without a deep menu. Having a "Change Skills" toggle to enable or disable this mid-game would be a great way to control player progression.
2. Map vs. Battle: It allowed for different bars on the Map (for healing/utility) and in Battle (for combat). Keeping these as separated entities is huge for flexibility.
3. Dynamic Loadouts (Max Slots): VCM allowed you to limit the number of slots available. It would be incredible if we could set a "Max Skills" parameter—perhaps even via Notetags so a Level 1 hero has 3 slots while a Level 50 hero has 8.
4. Item & Skill Integration: A major feature was allowing Items and Skills to coexist on the same bar. If a player puts a "Potion" on the bar, it shows the item count; if they put a "Fire" skill, it shows the MP cost.
5. Smart Slot Management: * Automatic Placing: An option to automatically add newly learned skills to the first empty slot to save the player time.
- Duplicate Prevention: A check to ensure skills aren't repeated; if you move a skill to a new slot, it clears the old one automatically.
- Occasion Filtering: Only showing skills on the bar if their "Occasion" (Battle/Always/Menu) matches the current scene.
6. Compatibility: Since many of us use VisuStella Battle Core, it would be incredible if your bar could sit "on top" of the battle scene or optionally hide the VisuStella actor command window entirely.
These are just some "food for thought" items that could be introduced in later updates that would make this the definitive skill bar for MZ battle scenes in a way that differentiates it from similar plugins, such as Hendrix's Hotbar Creator that is exclusively for the map scene.
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply and for being so open to these ideas. I'm always looking forward to whatever you decide to do next for the RPG Maker community!