Inventory slots "remember" what item was last in it

TL;DR: When an item is dropped out of your inventory, be it on death or on purpose, the slot/your inventory remembers what kind of item was in it. This behaviour should apply to hotbar, offhand and armor slots.

It has happened to everyone. You die, come back to get your items, but instead of placing your sword in the hotbar, you suddenly only have carrots and sticks or something equally useless in it. But here's the solution: After you die or drop an item from hotbar, offhand or armor slots, your inventory "remembers" what slot to put that kind of item (e.g. diamond sword, torch, green wool, ...) in.

A transparent icon of that item could shown in that slot to indicate the remembered behaviour (this preview can be disabled in the settings).

If you place anything else in that slot, the preference will be "forgotten". Also, other items that you pick up can fill that slot if they need to (e.g. the rest of the inventory is full).

While the preference is still there, transferring an item by shift-clicking should also prioritize the remembered slots. That'd be useful in case you want to quickly equip backup gear.

Exact Behaviour:

When to create a preference:

On death/dropping any item
On trident thrown (maybe it'd only be created when the trident has layalty? But that's open for debate)

When to remove a preference:

When any item is placed in that slot
When the player clicks (exact action is open for debate) on the preference. That allows players to remove unwanted preferences.

When to apply a preference:

On item pickup
On trident pickup/return
When shift-clicking to transfer items from any inventory
Therefore if there's a preference for some kind of armor, any armor that fits the preference will be equipped automatically.

When to ignore a preference:

When there's no other space to put it in the inventory
When the player specifically placed an item in a specified slot

What do you think about this? Questions? Feedback? Comment below! ;)

I also made a post on the subreddit for minecraft suggestions: https://www.reddit.com/r/minecraftsuggestions/comments/bldd7r/inventory_slots_remember_what_item_was_last_in_it/

Registered User commented

June 22, 2019 01:10
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Really good idea. This would be super useful if you died in a really hot location with a lot of hostile mobs or obstacles in survival, and when you revisit that area all your items are picked up and put in random locations in your inventory. Lots of time your weapons don't collect in your hotbar, and maybe the time it takes to find it and switch it is too long when you have 6 or 7 mobs chasing you. Would be really useful.

Heres a situation to consider though: pretend you have recollected every item from your last death and it all went into the selected places for it in your inventory. Maybe one item is missing from its appropriate slot and that slot is the only open slot in your inventory. When you go to pick up another item that doesn't fit into that slot that you pre-adjusted, how could you pick it up? Maybe a hotkey you can press while the crosshair is on the item entity on the ground that pretty much means "override the slot preference, I want to pick up this item on the ground"

October 11, 2019 12:35
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Thanks for your comment!

I meant for you to ALWAYS automatically pick up items. If there's no empty slot without a preference, and the item that you're attempting to pick up does not fit the slot, the preference should be ignored and overridden. Picking up items is prioritized if there's a conflict.

( I meant to say that in the first point of When to ignore a preference but I didn't mention that it was about picking up an item)

April 17, 2020 23:36
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Great idea! Have you ever tried killing 10 zombies with a block of dirt?

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Inventory slots "remember" what item was last in it

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