Bookshelves

This release I realized for the first time how painful it is to look at every book one by one on a bookshelf.

My suggestion would be to change the way bookshelves work, and allow for a list inventory box to pop up showing all the books on a particular bookshelf in a single location.

Bonus points if you can link near by bookshelves to the same inventory list! This would allow someone to click on one bookshelf and review all the books available by Title, Author, and perhaps even Subject and Fiction vs. Non-Fiction.

I think this might come in handy over time as the world evolves.

 

All my likes to this, specially given that most of the books are horizontal and can't be turned around!

The only issue I can see is that sometimes a shelf can have other items that are not books (I'm thinking vials in an alchemist's lab) and sometimes even both of them.

What do you think of this? Shelves continue working as they do now, but we can now craft "book bunchs" (mostly, like all those non-interactive books there are in NPC libraries) that you can place in the shelves and act as the containers (with, if possible, the ability to link them as you said). Then we could retain the decoration flexibility of a shelf and not considering seppukku when wanting to have a nice looking (or even useful!) library

 

I think allowing bookshelves to work just as they do - but adding additional functionality that allows them to list the number of book (and ignore other items) seems like it would be feasible.

 

Great suggestion.

A little tweak: All shelves work like cabinets/trunks, except their contents are out in the open. So you can hover-over, grab (or hopefully examine) items one by one or double-click the shelf to bring up the inventory for the whole shelf (books or otherwise).

 

From the perspective of someone who intends to run a bookstore, I would like customers to have to option of reading the first n pages of a book they see standing on a bookshelf, and if they like what they see, selecting it for purchase. Without having to grant them kindred permissions.

 

That's a great idea, Womby. A "check out" option might be good too - for libraries. If not returned a tax might be levied.