I loved the old Oblivion inventory screen where you could see your character's portrait, equip and manage inventory in the same screen. If such a mod exists and I didn't find it, my apologies. I don't have time to page through 250+ pages of posts. Thanks for any leads.

When Oblivion came out: "Oblivion's inventory menu svcks, bring Morrowind's back"

Skyrim: "inventory svcks, bring back Oblivion's!"

TES 6: "everything svcks, Skyrim is the BEST EVER THX 4 RUINING IT BETHSADA"

*ahem*

Anyway... yeah, when Oblivion came out, someone eventually made menu mods that actually made Oblivion's inventory exactly like Morrowind's.

Have you tried SkyUI?

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=3863

It ain't exactly like Oblivion's, but it is an improvement over vanilla.

I don't think it's nostalgia, I think it's more that Oblivion's inventory system was really convenient (With Darnified, ofc).

The ability to see how your character looked in different armors without having to exit and enter the menu was really good (more like, obvious, but whatever) I haven't played morrowind, so I have no idea how the morrowind ui was built up, maybe it was better, maybe not.

Rephrasing the question, so that this won't turn into and skyrim
Is there a mod that lets you see your character in the inventory screen, so you won't have to exit the inventory to see how your new armor fits the character? (like in Oblivion)

I checked out that link. Thanks. It's a start, I suppose.

No mod like that exists. I'd sure like one though.

You actually think that there will be someone nostalgic over Skyrim's abysmal PC UI?!? The problem with Oblivion's UI, as well as Fallout 3, New Vegas, and now especially Skyrim, is that they are made for controllers and TV screens, not PC peripherals.

If you're in 3rd person view when you enter the inventory screen, you'll see changes to equipped items reflected on your character in the background. Maybe not ideal, but... it's something.

A lot of Skyrim's failings in interface design are pretty universal I'd argue. It's improved in some areas (the inventory no longer only displays six items!) but is pretty much the same in others (lots and lots and lots of tabs.) But you've also got things like going from the 8 hotkey limitation of Oblivion (since the consoles bound them to the d-pad) to a favorites menu that pauses the game in all systems. Then you've got the level up menu. Pretty much no matter how you go about it it's not displaying enough information at once. It's spread over dozens of screens worth of space; you only see a small portion of it at any one time.

I don't know if I'd argue Oblivion did it better, but Skyrim's approach doesn't seem particularly well tuned for anyone.

I bought Morrowind a few weeks ago and loving it, and while I can appreciate the UI, I have a number of problems with it. Seeing your items laid out in a grid sounds great in theory, but you need to mouse over each one to see their properties; you can't sort by value, weight, item type, et cetera. And the spells menu is just a flat, alphabetically sorted list, though it does show casting cost and chance next to each spell. I do like how the entire menu system is consolidated in four windows that can be moved and resized however you please. Oblivion's UI showed far too little on the screen, and was too visually busy for my tastes. And then there's Skyrim's default UI, which is just terrible on any platform.

For me, SkyUI offers something that is better than each of the three games.

For me SkyUI with SKSE is pretty much "perfect".
You get a nice big grid-view that you can sort and play around with, plus you get a "look at item" view as well as the ability to see your character in the background if you go to 3rd-person view.
If you use the keyboard shortcuts J, M and I then the only time you need to use the much-hated 4-directional-console-nav thing is when you level up.

Then if you add the "Categorized Favorites" mod all your UI worries go away

SkyUI is your best but poor fitting option atm.
Actually Morrowind was superior and also featured a portrait within the menu but perhaps the OP never played Morrowind

I thought Morrowind's menu system was pure genius. One click and you are presented with all of your menu pages at once. These pages can then be moved and resized. You can make some of them not show up at all. You can see as much or as little information as you'd like, and you can change it instantly anytime you want. To this day I grieve that Bethesda abandoned that UI.

I don't have this paperdoll problem myself. I play in 3rd person so I see my character when my menu is open.

I did play--and love--Morrowwind (and Daggerfall, BattleSpire and Oblivion), that's why I'm dumbstruck by Bethesda's decisions in inventory design.

(@ Thingy Person: love your name! Cracks me up every time I see it.)

I've played all three games extensively, and I admit I liked Oblivion's UI more than the others. I'd love a mod that let you see the character portrait in the menu -- that's one of my biggest disappointments with Skyrim. In Oblivion I used tons of hair, face, clothing, armor mods... in Skyrim there's very little point because I play in 1st person and thus I never see my character.

I'm not going to bother making her look nice or even changing her clothing; why should I? I play for hours and hours and never once look at her. The only way to see her at all is to deliberately stop playing, switch to 3rd person, and admire her for a moment, then switch back and resume playing. Even then, I can't get a close-up view and I can't have her face the camera directly (not without further interrupting my game to open the console), so there is absolutely no point in changing her appearance or even giving a damn what she looks like.

I truly don't understand WHY Bethesda did that, considering how insanely popular appearance mods were and are in Oblivion. What was the thought process there? "Let's see, far and away the most popular mods for Oblivion are clothing and appearance mods. Hmm, okay, that means that the thing people love the best is looking at their characters and dressing them up and making them look perfect. So in Skyrim, let's make it so that you never see what your character looks like, period. Yes, people will love that!" I mean, seriously, a mentally challenged chimpanzee could have told you that viewing the character is one of the most popular pasttimes of the entire game. WHY would Beth remove it?!

My guess is that Skyrim's inventory screen is designed with a PS3 controller in mind. As said, SkyUI does give you an Oblivion-style inventory screen, with category tabs of items. And you can actually see most everything at once. QD inventory does the same, but I haven't tried that one.