Hotbar Layouts

[Zunar]

Out of curiosity, what is everyone's hotbar layouts? (The hotbar is the thing at the bottom where all your items are).

Personally, I tend to switch up my layout semi-frequently, especially if I have been watching Mindcrack stuff lately.

Currently, here's my preferred layout -
1: Sword
2: Bow
3: Blocks (usually cobblestone)
4: Water Bucket
5: Food
6: Misc
7: Shovel
8: Pickaxe
9: Torches

When in the nether, I may have a cauldron on my bar so if I get set on fire I can drop it down, dump water in, and put myself out, especially if I'm doing UHC.

Sometimes I like playing with a controller. I have a special program I use to do it, it's called Pinnacle Game Profiler. It works very well and I definitely recommend it. If you're curious, here's my layout. It's radically different from the console controls and it may not make sense to you, but it's actually quite functional, especially for me personally.

Controller: show

To save myself some typing, here's a handy dandy image taken straight from PGP:

Do you guys have a particular hotbar layout like this or do you just put stuff on your hotbar randomly? Personally I can't stand having a random hotbar, I always take time to organize mine.

[*Emelia K. Fletcher]

1-4 are usually where tools go, in the order "sword, pickaxe, shovel, axe, hoe".
I put foods on the other end, with the lowest stack on the right.
Torches come right before food on the hotbar.
In the middle I have blocks to build with or whatever I'm using.

[nin10mode]

I have several setups.

Exploration/Caving-
1:Sword
2:Bow
3:Pickaxe
4:Tool*
5:Torches
6:Blocks
7:Blocks
8:Bucket
9:Food

Battle/pvp-
1:Sword
2:Bow
3:Tool
4:Flint&steel
5:Water Bucket
6:Blocks
7:Enderpearls/blocks
8:Arrows
9:Food

Building-
1:Sword
2:Pick
3:Shovel/Axe/Pick*
4:Shovel/Axe/Pick*
5:Blocks
6:Blocks
7:Blocks
8:Torches
9:Food

It changes depending on the situation of course.

*Might have multiple picks on the hotbar because of enchants

[Raz]

no lava bucket?
flint & tinder is nowhere near as useful as a lava bucket

[ChaosYoshi]

I usually use this most of the time. If I don't have said item, I usually have a block or some other placeable item in its place (because why would I want to have coal in my hotbar?).

1. Sword: When you log onto a server, your selected item is set for the first item (or at least it used to be. Is that true anymore?) It's mainly for if I get rushed by a mob or player whenever I rejoin.
2: Axe/Shovel: Other than having it to cut down trees with, the axe acts as a fail-safe in case I scroll past my sword since it does pretty decent damage itself. I also have a shovel here, too, if I am underground. Allows for quick switches between picks and shovels while tunneling.
3: Iron Pick: Mainly so I can quickly switch from battle-ready to mining just in case. Also, iron can mine almost every block.
4: Torches: Mainly for tunneling since I mostly use picks and it's in-between the two I use.
5: Iron Pick: I usually have 2 in my hotbar so I can easily check the durability of both iron picks and tell when I need to combine the two.
6: Water Bucket: In case I run into any lava while tunneling. It's also next to my diamond pick so I can go through the obsidian it creates.
7: Diamond Pick: Mainly used to get through Obsidian and collect extra drops from whatever ore I need (mostly diamonds). Usually enchanted, preferably Efficiency for getting through obsidian faster and/or Fortune to get those extra drops.
8: Food: Placed here mainly because mining and battling can take a bit of energy. Rotten Flesh only goes here if it's all I have/necessary.
9: Bow: Allows for a quick switch to/from the sword in battle.

[nin10mode]

no lava bucket?
flint & tinder is nowhere near as useful as a lava bucket

I find that lava buckets require too much stealth and precision. I prefer quick stabs rather than one chance hit or miss.

[Venexis]

Welp sure let's do this:

1) Sword (durr, who hasn't had a weapon here so far)
2) Bow (typically with infinity at least)
3) Fortune/generic pickaxe
4) Silk Touch pickaxe (if missing, slots 5-9 move into slots 4-7 and 9 respectively)
5) Food (steeeeaaaaaak)
6) Torches
7) Potions (Usually Fire Resist Extended, but lately I've been carrying a Night Vision Extended too)
8) Dirt/Cobblestone stack (for whenever you need random miscellaneous blocks)
9) Compass

If I only have one pick, I only take one. This means Food becomes slot 4, Torches move to 5, Potions to 6, random blocks to 7, the Compass stays at 9 (it's always 9) And typically 8 is filled by whatever random object I pick up that I deem most important (generally diamonds, so that I can see the count increase. :p)

My actual inventory usually contains spares of most items stacked directly above their hotbar counterparts, swords are stacks above swords, arrows above bows, potions above potions (Fire Resist in the hotbar, with Night Vision right above, the the final two slots being Fire and Vision in alternating order), and so on. In the top right corner and moving down I always carry a boat, stack of logs, and 6-8 chests, which can be placed, waypointed, and filled with ores and stuff to recover later. Once I find it, I tend to keep about a stack of coal in my inventory as well. Furnaces/Crafting Tables typically become redundant with diamond gear, but I carry one of each with me to recraft iron pickaxes before I upgrade to diamonds.

Usually leaves me with 16-20 free slots for whatever I want to pick up, plus 3-4 double chests worth of storage capacity without having to go home and deposit stuff. It's a lengthy recovery process, but worth it when you're pulling in ~40 diamonds each time.

[KevinOC]

1. Sword.
2. Shubel.
3. UIII EIV diamond pick.
4. Torches.
5. PIII FI Bow.
6. Food.
7 - 9. Whatevs

[Oranjui]

Usually I use shift clicking so it's backwards most of the time, 9-1

mining/caving
9) shovel cause i don't use it too much
8) sword because it's not in the first slot and i want it to be close to my pick but not getting in the way of other commonly used things like torches
7) iron pick or enchanted diamond pick (fortune for ores, efficiency for obsidian mining and stuff) if i have one
6) torches, or iron pick
5) food, or torches
4) water bucket, or food
3) blocks, or water
2) blocks
1) bow (don't use them much though), or whatever the hell. compass, map, things like that sometimes
and then my inventory is neatly sorted with the ores i have so they don't go flying all over and i can put them in chests efficiently, and extra iron picks, swords, shovels, torches, or whatever. Sometimes i throw a clock in with the rest too.

logging
9) stone axe (I tend to put the less used or weaker things in this slot)
8) iron axe
7) dirt
6) food
5) torches if I end up needing them
4) saplings
3) logs
2) logs
1) secondary log type sometimes (usually secondary saplings so i can replant and leave the logs in my inv)
and then if i'm logging a ♥♥♥♥ ton my inventory fills up with the rest of the logs and saplings and whatever. Also extra stone axes and sometimes if I really need lots a spare iron axe.

exploring
9) sword
8) shovel
7) pick
6) food
5) boat
4) torches
3) usually nothing, sometimes blocks
2) nothing
1) workbench if i need it

whatever else
9-1) stuff

the end

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[Zunar]

Cool, I'm kinda new to Minecraft so it's nice getting to read what experienced players go with.

By the way, I edited my hotbar layout and added some more information on the first post.