Point of Interest System

Point of Interest System (POIS)
Mark it once. Find it forever.
Current version: v1.3​

Point of Interest System lets you drop a point anywhere in Shroud of the Avatar, organize it by color, find it later from any scene, and share it with your guild as a single line of text — or pull in a whole curated library of points someone else already built. What started as a command-line-only addon has grown into a full graphical interface, while keeping every original chat command available for anyone who prefers typing.



What's New
If you used POIS back when it was command-line only, the biggest change is simple: you don't need to memorize commands anymore. Everything below is a click away from a small tray icon that sits on your screen.

• A full graphical interface — Add, Settings, Find, Export, and Import windows, plus a scrollable, filterable, searchable list of every point in your current scene.
• Color filters and live search — narrow down a long list without touching what's actually visible in the game world.
• One-click bulk visibility — an All On/All Off toggle that respects whatever you're currently filtered/searched down to.
• Export/Import via the UI — select exactly which points to share, generate a string, and hand it off. Importing is safe to repeat; POIS won't create duplicates.
• Point libraries, properly integrated — library points now show up right alongside your own in the list, with their own visual tag, and you can toggle their visibility, change their color, and include them in your own exports.
• Live distance display — a Distance column in the main list, always on, plus an optional Settings toggle to show it on in-world labels too.
• Track Points — pin any points to a small standalone window showing live distance, compass direction, and up/down — no need to keep the main list open.
• A shared font-size control across every window, for anyone who wants things bigger or smaller.
• Every original chat command still works — !pois help for the full list.

The Tray Icon
Once enabled, a small icon appears on your screen — this is home base for the whole addon. Click it to open or close the main window. Drag it anywhere, minimize it down to just the icon, and both its position and state are remembered across sessions. Two more shortcuts live right on its title bar: one toggles every point in your current scene on or off at once, and a + jumps straight to adding a new point.



Getting Started
To get started you will need to install the POIS addon through the Commmunity Addons UI in-game and then check the run/enabled checkbox.

Adding a Point
Click Add, type a name, and pick a starting color from the swatch row. Clicking Add Point drops a point at your current location, in whatever scene you're standing in right now. A point is scene-locked — it only ever shows up in the scene where it was created.



Settings
Reachable from the main window's Settings button: view distance (0 for unlimited), point label scale, height offset, default color for new points, and a toggle to show live distance on in-world labels too (off by default — the main list's own Distance column is always on regardless of this setting).



Find
Search across every scene you've saved points in, not just your current one — handy when you remember a point's name but not what scene you put it in.



Export & Import
Export brings up a selection screen listing every point in your current scene, checkboxes defaulting to checked — Select All/None, or uncheck what you don't want, then Export Selected generates a shareable string.





Import is the reverse — paste a string, click Import. Safe to import the same string twice; POIS checks each point's exact location and won't create duplicates.



Point Libraries
A point library is a small companion addon that automatically populates a curated set of points into your list once it's loaded — think "every resource node in this zone," maintained by the community and shared as its own drop-in file. Library points behave like any other point (toggle, recolor, export) with one difference: you can't delete or rename them locally, since they belong to the library itself rather than to you. Building your own library to share is straightforward — full walkthrough in the documentation below.

Track Points
Click Track to open a selection screen, check off whichever points you want, then Track Selected — this replaces whatever was previously tracked, a fresh pick every time. A small standalone window appears showing just color, name, and live distance/direction (16-point compass, plus an up/down indicator) for each one, no need to keep the main list open. It's scoped to your current scene and closes automatically when you change scenes, since distance and direction stop meaning anything outside the scene you tracked in.



Full Documentation
This post is deliberately just an overview. For the complete feature walkthrough, every chat command, and details on building your own point library, see pois-documentation.html included in the download, or view it here:

https://shroudoftheavatar.tools/lua/pois-documentation.html

A Note on Dungeons & Basements
Historically there hasn't been a reliable way to tell one player's dungeon or basement apart from another's with the same layout, so POIS has worked best in adventure scenes, towns, and POTs — points added inside a dungeon/basement could collide with or show up for a different player's copy of that same dungeon. New engine support for uniquely identifying a player's dungeon/basement is planned for the game's next major update, and POIS will be updated to take advantage of it once that lands — dungeon/basement support is on the roadmap, not abandoned.

Feedback
This addon is actively maintained. If you run into anything odd or have a feature you'd like to see, please post here or reach out directly — constructive feedback is always welcome.

Credits: built on the SotA Event System (SES) and SWS window library, both by the same author.

 

Updates List

2026-08-01 v1.3 - Realtime distance to points and new tracking window with direction support.

2026-07-27 v1.2 - Small update focused on a couple of scrollbar fixes.

2026-07-25 v1.0 - Fixed issue of scrolled list not remembering where it was at when an FX was toggled.

2026-07-24 v0.09 - UI overhaul going from CLI-only to having a UI.

2022-11-04 v0.08 - fixed incorrect help text for rename-point command. fixed issues causing commands to not be locked to local and to the player. fixed issue where library point keys could conflict with points added by the player.

2022-08-20 v0.07 - implemented a point library system. created a point library template. created export-points command to export points for the point library.

2022-08-11 v0.04 - implemented searching. if you search all scenes there may be an error if you dont revisit all the scenes you have points in. i added functionality to save the pretty scene name and your save file may not have it yet until you visit the scene again.

2022-08-11 v0.03 - many new commands implemented. see the list above.

2022-08-09 v0.02 - fixed bug where if it is the first time added to a scene then the point would not show until a lua restart was performed.

 

@Tirrag hi guy
Testing this new lua addition of yours, the Point of Interest System.
I've installed it and it is active in lua.

I've added a POI to a scene, and see nothing....
Could you pls post a ss so I can see what I should be looking for ?

 

thank you for giving it a whirl there is a bug that i havent tracked down yet where the first time a scene has a location marked it doesnt show. try doing a /lua reload in chat. also, do a !pois list to ensure the point was added. i added a screenshot to the first post.

 

. @Tirrag
Here's a ss that shows nothing in front of me (a added it to the other side of the path in front of me).

 

@FrostII i have fixed the bug and a new link is up. if you can please overwrite and try again. the point should still be in your user.ini file. note you will need to perform a /lua reload, toggle the on/off in the lua addons manager, click the reload button in the manager, or restart client for it to take effect.

 

@Tirrag
Good work ! It works !
**Suggestion: Since we have to add a new spot manually in chat, could you shorten "!pois add Test Point" to maybe "!pois add Point"

Here's a ss now:

 

@Tirrag is there a way to remove all current points added ?

 

there isnt yet. i had it in but took it out since it was really dangerous. when i get the management UI in and have a confirmation dialog i plan on adding it back.

"Test Point" can be anything you want. Anything after the "add" becomes the description of the point. So if for example you were marking a tomb entrance you could use:

!pois add Tomb Entrance

so you can make the description as long or as short as you like!

 

thank you and thank you for taking the time to test it out!

 

Ok, can't wait for the UI addition !

 

I'm hoping to try this out over the weekend. Is there someway to share POIs? An import/export mechanism or something?

 

wonderful! will be excited to hear how that goes and get your feedback

currently there is not, but i have thought about it. my current idea is to have a tool on my website where you select your user file and the second user file and hit merge. it will perform the merge and send you a merged user.ini file.

i also have planned a separate locations "database" file system that will be distributed with the addon. this way i can provide locations files that many people would want like trainers, etc. it will allow multiple files so trainers could be its own file. would be more than happy to collaborate with folks on that database of points for example, if someone goes around marking points of the trainers and sends me the user.ini file i can then use that to populate the distributed file.

here is my immediate TODO list:

- show/hide based on color. this will allow you to show all the "greens" for example and hide all the other colors allowing for better organization.

- command to enable only seeing the point labels when you get within a certain distance.

- command to change the default scale of the text

- command to change the hex color of the available colors

- command to search for points based on description. i have already identified an issue with the current version for this as i will need to store the pretty name of a location too in order to have this work right. currently i store just the raw name. this will be the only thing i have planned that will possibly "break" what is currently out there. will do my best to make it so it doesnt.

- points database file mechanism (described above). like colors there will be a way to show/hide the points from a particular database file. there is logic i built for the quest system addon that allowed quests to be added without modifying the base addon that i might leverage that for this system. if that works people can create point database "addons" that they can distribute on their own.

- a reveal system for the provided locations so you wont be able to see them until you are within a certain distance. this is optional.

- indicators on the nav compass that will come into view as you pan. they will scale based on distance and will be circles with the color of the point color. for the reveal system they will be question marks with that color.

- help command to dump the list of commands

- informational output on addon initialization


all of this will happen before the management UI so these things should be released over the next couple of weeks.

 

Have you thought about a copy/paste method? Something in the UI where I can copy or paste POIs for scene. I'm thinking of something that can give/take base64 encoded (or something else to make it shorter) strings and could optionally save it to the users's files.

I got the idea while thinking of house useful this could be for player quests. Anyone could share the string in the forums, or maybe even in an in-game book.

 

i hadnt but it is interesting. i did some preliminary research and may have found the modules needed to help with this. i will knock off a few of my quick TODO and then investigate further. just initial thoughts i am thinking:

- export all points in a scene. data is compressed and base64'd and string is output in console/chatlog. depending on paste length limitations in chat UI (for import) this command may not happen yet.

!pois export-scene-points <scene key>

- export a single point in a scene. compressed/base64 of a single point should paste into chat (i hope).

!pois export-point <point key>

- import points from an export text. unbase64+decompress and then merges the points into your own points. testing needed as this may be limited by paste length in the chat UI. would only be needed until i get the graphical UI done which wouldnt have paste limits.

!pois import-points <export-string>

 

good progress tonight. implemented the following TODO items but no new release yet. tomorrow i will work with the import/export idea.

---

- show/hide based on color. this will allow you to show all the "greens" for example and hide all the other colors allowing for better organization.

- command to enable only seeing the point labels when you get within a certain distance.

- command to change the default scale of the text

- command to change the hex color of the available colors

 

@that_shawn_guy the export/import went well. i was able to get it mostly done this morning as i suspected the chat text limit comes into play so it currently only supports one point at a time. it also has some safety mechanisms in there to prevent duplicates. i have a little cleaning up to do and some extra messaging but pretty much complete. the export command is:

!pois export-point <point key>

that will output into the chatlog a message like this:

Code:

[8/11/2022 7:32:35 AM]  (Lua): ---------------------------------------------
[8/11/2022 7:32:35 AM]  (Lua): Point of Interest Docks (S4_C1) has been exported to your ChatLog file.  Open your ChatLog and copy the text between the --- to use for import.
[8/11/2022 7:32:35 AM]  (Lua): ---------------------------------------------
[8/11/2022 7:32:35 AM]  (Lua): 7TLiZnwzUv2CI0vp7TLitrJiD1Jiq9evFz2BYv2C09vBLrNCVb3BSL2CFbJmFrxzTbhBHrxzV0uyPrwzUDYCGieB1nhAI0hlBjYu0isx9S3wImumI0vpIq0BJT2CI0hlBjYu081qXisx9S3wIW2BJfgDP9MBI0vpIednW4In5GZmWmJmYiJn1ydFZGJlYato5KtoWGdn0CJm3WxlXetnUudo5GZm2eJmWydm1iclBjYCO92DI0vpIeJiSSLi2L2CPrxzKjsx9ismIWYwIm2BS9MCI0vpIChAPrxzI0xF
[8/11/2022 7:32:35 AM]  (Lua): ---------------------------------------------

and then you import it with the command:

!pois import-point <export-string>

Code:

!pois import-point 7TLiZnwzUv2CI0vp7TLitrJiD1Jiq9evFz2BYv2C09vBLrNCVb3BSL2CFbJmFrxzTbhBHrxzV0uyPrwzUDYCGieB1nhAI0hlBjYu0isx9S3wImumI0vpIq0BJT2CI0hlBjYu081qXisx9S3wIW2BJfgDP9MBI0vpIednW4In5GZmWmJmYiJn1ydFZGJlYato5KtoWGdn0CJm3WxlXetnUudo5GZm2eJmWydm1iclBjYCO92DI0vpIeJiSSLi2L2CPrxzKjsx9ismIWYwIm2BS9MCI0vpIChAPrxzI0xF

will continue working on the TODO list but will put out a new release probably this evening.

 

v0.03 has been released! my remaining TODO list is:

- indicators on the nav compass that will come into view as you pan. they will scale based on distance and will be circles with the color of the point color. for the reveal system they will be question marks with that color.

NOTE: poopy. i didnt know the compass was movable. without knowing where it is i cannot do the indicators

- command to search for points based on description. i have already identified an issue with the current version for this as i will need to store the pretty name of a location too in order to have this work right. currently i store just the raw name. this will be the only thing i have planned that will possibly "break" what is currently out there. will do my best to make it so it doesnt.

- points database file mechanism (described above). like colors there will be a way to show/hide the points from a particular database file. there is logic i built for the quest system addon that allowed quests to be added without modifying the base addon that i might leverage that for this system. if that works people can create point database "addons" that they can distribute on their own.

- a reveal system for the provided locations so you wont be able to see them until you are within a certain distance. this is optional.

 

v0.04 is released you can now search points in the current scene or all scenes. this will be the last update for a bit. dont hesitate to give it a whirl!

 

Just tried this v0.04, the first thing I noticed, upon entering Castle Atos, all of the areas the "Rabbit" can be found are automatically added. And the Atos Training Buff and Atos Combat Buff are also automatically added.

Is this the intended purpose of this LUA mod? I was not sure.