First Steps with REI: Config, Cheat Mode, and Search Bar Basics

guide

Roughly Enough Items (REI) puts item and recipe lookup directly into your inventory screens, and the first things worth learning are how to open its config, how cheat mode works, and how the search bar behaves.

Opening the Config Screen

The Roughly Enough Items Config screen is the central place for adjusting the mod. You can reach it by shift-clicking the Open Config Screen control. From there, the config is divided into sections covering interface theming and tooltips, keybindings and input methods, widgets and boundaries, categories and entry filtering, and list order, zoom, and collapsible groups.

A few useful settings live here:

Search Field Location controls where the search bar sits. By default it is at the bottom center and shifts to the side when a tall container screen needs the room.
Config Button Location places the config button next to the search field by default, or on the top side of the screen in the legacy style.
Cheat Mode settings cover how cheating works, how many items are cheated, and which command is used when REI is not on the server.

If you ever want to undo your changes, the config includes a reset to factory state. Note that this is destructive and cannot be reversed.

Cheat Mode

Cheat mode lets you pull items from the side panel. Shift-click the Open Config Screen control to toggle cheat mode on or off. Using it requires operator permission; if REI is not present on the server, the /give command is used as a fallback.

Grab mode places the cheated item at your cursor.
Give mode places the cheated item directly into your inventory.
By default, one item is cheated per action, and a full stack when you shift-click.

The config also lets you change the command used to cheat items, which helps on servers that replaced the default /give. You can also set how many items are cheated at once.

Search Bar Basics

The search bar filters the entry list as you type. Two toggles are worth knowing right away:

Double-click the search bar to toggle Craftable Filter, which shows only stacks you can currently craft from the ingredients in your inventory. This pairs well with Ctrl-click quick crafting.
Double-click the search bar to toggle Inventory Search, which searches the items already in your inventory.

While a filter is active, slots that do not match are grayed out. You can adjust the Dim Overlay Opacity for non-matching items and the green overlay opacity for matching ones in the config.

REI supports several search filters, each shown in a different color when Syntax Highlighting is on:

Filter by the mod an entry belongs to.
Filter by tooltip contents, useful for things like enchantments.
Filter by the tags an entry is contained in.
Filter by an entry's identifier.

Alternative input methods are available for some languages, including Pinyin, Double Pinyin, Bopomofo, and Jyutping. If one applies to you, a hint appears suggesting it, and you can reconfigure it later through the Search Filter Button.

Favorites and Recipe Arrows

Two more basics make the panel much more usable:

Press the favorite hotkey (set it in the controls menu) while hovering an entry to add or remove it from favorites. You can also drag entries up to add them. Favorites persist across reloads.
Click the recipe arrows to view every recipe in the target category.

The first search after a reload is slower while results are cached, so a brief delay is normal.