Readable Shards

Many don't read shards for many reasons: they stand in the way of loot or they take time to read. But to be fair, they're also not very pleasant or easy to read. Some of that might be by design - shards are probably closer to raw data dumps than a clean chat UI but it also doesn't mean the software in V's head can't format it better.

This mod restyles the shard reader to make them a little bit more readable while respecting the format itself.

What it does

Archived conversations now read like proper dialogue: speaker names get their own column, each speaker gets a distinct color, and messages are spaced so a rapid back-and-forth reads like one instead of a raw text dump. The message lines themselves are also slightly tinted to better differentiate.

Typography control - adjust font size, line height, text width, and paragraph spacing. Names can be left-aligned/right-aligned IRC style so the colons stack neatly, or left at their natural width.

Adjustable background opacity to cut down on the glow through and eye strain, and the reader panel itself can be resized to fit more text on screen at once.

Plain/generic shards get some love too - multi-paragraph entries and stories get proper paragraph spacing instead of a single undifferentiated block.

Some before vs after examples:

The shard viewer in the Journal/Codex menu is also formatted:

Configure through Mod Settings