Possible way to keep the Spellbook always opened

I don't know if it has been posted already (a search didn't seem to find anything ;P), but I found a simple, even silly way to keep the spellbook always open, regardless wether you have enough mana or not to cast any of the spells there.

Well, the solution is to (dun-dun-duuuuun!) put an icon-less spell there that doesn't require mana (eg. the waygate ability, there should be better options though), as the last item in the list (putting it before holds an icon slot for itself :?). And there you have it.

It seems to work well with abilities added to the spellbook as well, just in case you were wondering.

I have not done much testing yet, so there might be some issues I have not thought of.

Hopefully this is not common knowledge already.

EDIT: Ok, there seems to be a mention of such thing at Vex's spellbook experiment's thread, right at the second fucking post. I suck hard. Ugh.

Orrrrr you can untick the little box that keeps if closed if theres not enough mana for the lowest requirement. Dont remember the exact feild right now.

I can't seem to find anything similar to what you describe. Care to elaborate?

Turn off "shared spell cooldown" and you can open it anytime. (Or at least in many cases, if there are oddball cases where it doesn't work is beyond my memory)

Good that you actually got my idea. Use a passive skill (preferably torando slow auro with targets 'none') for every spellbook you want to keep open, even when got down to zer0.

@karukef+Mystic-Ssj5Goku: The same thing was told me by Vex, but it simply was wrong. The option has only to do with the cd of the spells in a book, nothing else

Great minds think alike, huh? I tried to use an existant unmodified spell for the sake of loading times, because usually a spellbook is synonym of loads of custom spells.


Yeah, "Shared spell cooldown" default behaviour is to kick you out of the book when you cast a spell, until the cooldown time is ellapsed. Disabling it just means you keep the book open as long as you have enough mana to cast any of the spells inside.

My solution (err, which is also bert's solution , yet he didn't claim it within a self-contained thread, hurhurhur,j/k) is intended to keep it open even if you have 0 mana (as long as you disable the shared cooldown as well). You might think it is pointless to have it open when you can't cast any spell inside, but if your entire spell system is contained within spellbooks, it might be handy for the player to check it any time he wants.

I cleared that question 'long time ago' at the allready mentioned thread from Vexorian. So I owned you before you knew that I owned you. ;D

That's it, this shall be a duel to death, my dear sir. *slap*

Hmm... Blizzard did that with the spell book, but they wouldn't let abilities share cooldowns with eachother? What were they thinking... I know that items can share cooldowns, but why not abilities...?

aah the spellbook... i like that item ability... something blizzard created and actually never used :D

hm, ability-group-cooldown... would be great... like when you use 3 spellbooks on one hero, and you want that he does not fire off all of his ultimates at once...

another good ability-spellbook-door-open-holder (yea, i'm crazy, who cares) would be "Attribut-Bonus"... convert it to a non-hero ability and put it in a spellbook... that ability is passive and you can just set the bonuses to ZERO... you might think this ability is visible but HAH its not... in a spellbook it is allways invisible, no matter if you check that one box that should make it invisible... i hope i'm right... havnt checked that in a while...

but mind if i ask a question about spellbooks?? what is the best way so that 4 different heroes can use 5 spellbooks as their hero or unit abilities??? ya know, you need to change the OrderID of each spellbook, or they are mixed... for example, if i would set a orderID to "stormbolt" would that destroy a real stormbolt ability??? and does i have to use a different OrderID for all spellbooks in the game, nomatter if another hero??? or can just all heroes could have the same 5 OrderIDs for their spellbooks?

i hope everyone gets what i mean, its only about 7am and i dont had much practice with english

Indeed, such a shame, as it open so many doors to so many crazy ideas. Too bad some stuff doesn't work right there (or at least I haven't got to work properly autocats and turn on/off abilities).


You can fake it somehow by forcing to cast them all at the same time, and restore the mana. This is assuming the spells are all triggered and there is no delay casting each. But it would be messy in the end.


If this works (can't check right now), it seems a great ability choice, much more fitting.


If each hero just have one spellbook, all of them can share the same orderid. For every additional spellbook per hero, you need a separate orderid. It wouldn't really "destroy" another ability, but they might conflict if said ability with that orderid is used by the same hero (eg, your Archmage has a spellbook using "stormbolt", and another ability using "stormbolt" too).

or just put them all in a spellbook and use shared cooldown


i guess you mean when using trigger or JASS spells, that graps the OrderID... or the WEU advanced spellsystem... but most abilities can be triggered by "unit starts the effect of an ability"...

well, trigger and/or JASS spells, script custom spells in general, are most of the time pretty cool, but if you just want to give a unit a fireball-ability, the stormbolt ability fits the best... i think... it would be great if that ability would be more like in WoW (initial damage + damage over time), but i cant think of an "easy" way to do that with triggers or scripts... maybe with a dummy unit using a ranged attack and a customized Slow Poison or Bash ability, with the locust ability and no model... but this way the caster would not be the source of the effect/damage... the wardens dagger would work, but it shows initial damage and overtime damage above the target, and that sucks... no other spell is doing that...

but to come back to the spellbook... hm... i "yet" had no problems with autocast abilites, with the exception that only one could be active at any time, which isnt that bad... the most problems i got when transforming a unit by RoboGoblin or alike... but using chaos will maybe lead to the successful transformation, cuz the actual ability to transform is just a dummyspell in that case...
hm... and the on/off thingie... hm... lets say that ability has 3 levels.... make 6 levels and level 4-6 are the "off"-abilities and just add 3 to the abilitylevel when "on"ing and subtract 3 from the abilitylevel when "off"ing this way the state of the On/Off ability could even be active over mapchange... cuz this ability cant be a heroability, when it goes in a spellbook, you only can change the level by trigger, so no accidently "bonus" level... this way people could even create WoW-like talents for their non-hero abilities... just add a bunch of levels that has different stats...

Yeah, but I was addressing the issue of doing something like that without having to rely on a spellbook mentioned a few posts ago. It doesn't mean a spellbook isn't an overall better solution :P


I didn't mean that at all. I meant that having an unit with two abilities using the same orderid, only one of them will be cast.


The actual problem I encounter with soem autocast and on/off abilities is taht when activated, rather than just overlapping the original icon, a new icon shows up.

That is, I have Inmolation. When I activate it, rather than subsitute the "turned off" icon for the new "turned on", it will put the "turned on" icon on a new slot. I really can't explain this without screenshots, I might post one later.

Might have something to do with the turn-off-button having it's own button coordinates.

When working with them dont try and force them in differant slots if at all possible, Unless they dont spazz out if you do of course.