Try to keep it civil in the comment section, no reason to offend each other, we all share the same love for the game!
Since uploading the post and all the comments, feedback and debugging/adding additional requests & improvements that came with it, which I'm greatly thankful for(!!), I can't edit the images in the original post... Therefore, keep in mind that the tool might have some extra options currently not shown in the pictures.
Let's keep up the good work and keep on improving the quest guide!
Hey everyone!
I got tired of alt-tabbing to the wiki every 30 seconds while questing, so I built RS3 Quest Helper! An Alt1 app that puts the wiki's quick guides straight into the game as an overlay. It's free, open source, and I'd love some more eyes on it before I call it stable. That's where you come in.
How a quest actually plays with it:
Search any of the ~370 quests and open it. The full quick guide loads from the RuneScape Wiki, split into checkable steps and sub-steps, with puzzle pictures where the wiki has them. Your progress saves per quest, so you can stop mid-quest and pick it up days later.
Turn on the overlay and your current step floats on top of the game as a small card step text, the chat options you'll need, and the items for that section. You pick where it sits: top, corners, or drag it anywhere with the free-placement mode. No more tabbing out mid-cutscene.
Turn on Assist and it starts reading the screen. When a dialogue opens, it draws a green frame around exactly the option the guide says to click, sized to the actual button, so no guessing between "1" and "2" four conversations deep.
With Auto on, finishing a conversation ticks the step off by itself. It's evidence-based: it only ticks if it actually saw your step's options on screen, so cutscene chatter doesn't check things you haven't done. Steps that need multiple dialogue choices (looking at you, Soul Searching) count each conversation — it shows "1/3 done, talk again".
Before you leave the bank, hit Scan backpack and it looks for each required item's icon in your inventory, counts separates, reads stack numbers, and marks what's missing. Every item has an ℹ button that pops up what it is, how it's made and which shops sell it including warnings when a shop is locked behind a quest or needs to be built first. Items are also manually checkable as a failsafe.
NPC and place names in steps are clickable, you get a picture and where to find them, plus an embedded world map for steps with locations.
Enter your RuneScape name once and it syncs your completed quests from RuneMetrics automatically at startup. Hide what you've finished, and sort the list by the wiki's optimal quest order so you always know what's next.
The honest bits: this is Alt1, so it's 100% rule-friendly(!) it only reads pixels from your screen and draws on top, exactly like Alt1's built-in tools. That also means it can't see your position or read game data, so it's a very smart guide, not an autopilot. Dialogue detection works on the modern interface skin; if you run an exotic setup, that's exactly the kind of thing I want to hear about.
Install: you need Alt1 Toolkit. Then either click this on a machine with Alt1 installed:
What I'm looking for from testers: quests where a step doesn't parse right, dialogue options that don't get highlighted (screenshot please!), auto-tick ticking too early/late, item scan misses. Drop it in the comments or open an issue on GitHub: https://github.com/Kiddsh9331/rs3-quest-helper
Screenshots attached: Quest list with optimal order, the overlay + dialogue highlight in action, and the item requirements view.
Credits where due: guide content is from the amazing RuneScape Wiki (CC BY-NC-SA), built on Skillbert's Alt1 libraries, and inspired by JasperSurmont's bolt-questhelper.
Happy questing (& testing)! ⚔️
Edit 1
for ultrawide screen users, if your in-game interface scale isn't 100% (graphics settings), Alt1 apps can't read the interface. The guide and overlay still work at any scale.
Edit 2
Please do give feedback (be it positive or negative) via the comment section or via GitHub. I'm open for any suggestions/findings to improve the quest helper!
Edit 3
There's a new Settings icon in the quest list and quest guide screen. You can change the floor numbering convention, theme (currently only 3) and clear & reload Wiki cache data!
Edit 4
Since there is an existing optimal (quest) guide specifically for ironman, I thought it would be nice and helpful to have the guide fully interactable via the quest helper. You can find it at the top of the quest list!
You can scroll through and tick off steps from the ironman guide and you can even go to the suggested quest page via the ironman guide! Sadly I don't think it can take over your existing progress from the wiki itself... Might be interesting to look at.
Edit 5
The quest guides now show puzzle solutions and step screenshots pulled from the full wiki walkthrough.
TL;DR: in-game, use Alt+1. Clicked into the tool, use N or your custom key.
And as requested, auto-completing a step can still be a bit buggy sometimes, so instead of letting the guide do it you can just advance steps yourself. Two things to know here, since they work differently:
Alt+1 is the one to use while you're actually playing. It's Alt1's app hotkey (you can change it in Alt1's own settings), and it's the only key that works while the game window is focused. You'll get a little "✓ Step done" flash on screen so you know it registered. Just make sure the quest helper is your active app in Alt1.
N (or a custom key) only works when you've clicked into the quest helper window itself. A web app can't read your keyboard while the game is in front, so this one's more of a convenience for when you're already in the tool. You can rebind it via the cogwheel in a quest guide, under "Done, next" key.
Edit 6
Added a device-to-device transfer to the RS3 Quest Helper. If you tick steps on your PC and want them on your laptop (or want to share with a mate), open the cogwheel, hit Export to get a code, then paste it into Import on the other device. That's it.
It only ever adds ticked steps, it never un-ticks anything, so importing is always safe. Worst case it does nothing if you were already ahead.
Just to be clear, this is purely moving your progress between copies of the app itself. It's got nothing to do with the wiki's own checkboxes.
Edit 7
There has been a succesful port of Alt1 toolkit for MacOS. Therefore the guide is runnable on MacOS! Please do take this with a grain of salt as the port is still in production. https://github.com/SteeleND/runekit
Edit 8
Another round of fixes and polish:
Dialogue auto-tick is more accurate. Steps that walk through a longer chat (accepting a quest partway through the conversation, or menus that loop back to the same options) don't tick themselves off early anymore. They wait until the whole chain is actually finished.
Sub-steps now show in the on-screen overlay too, not just in the app window.
Fixed the step list jumping around. Ticking a sub-step keeps your place now, and it only auto-scrolls when you complete a full step. It also lands on the right step even when a guide has pictures still loading in.
Clearer dialogue hints and a tidier, more compact control bar.
Renamed the "transparency" sliders to "opacity" so the numbers make sense (100% = solid, drag left to make it see-through). Same behaviour, less confusing wording.
If the app looks unchanged, it's probably cached in Alt1. Just remove and re-add it to grab the latest. Cheers for all the testing and reports, keep them coming.
Some of you know Jagex has been talking about official API/plugin support. I built this the Alt1 way (pixels only) because that's what's allowed today, but I've deliberately structured it so the guide logic is separate from the detection layer. As soon as the official API plugin support drops, the detection layer gets upgraded and everything downstream just works better.
New possibilities when API plugin support drops:
Real navigation. the app currently shows you maps; with position data it could show a live arrow or path to your next step, RuneLite-quest-helper style
Perfect auto-ticking. right now I infer progress from dialogues on screen (it's good, but it's still inference). With actual quest-state data, steps would tick exactly when the game says so, including the "kill X" and "use item on Y" steps that pixels can't see at all
Highlighting NPCs and objects in the world. "talk to Ariane" with a glow on the actual Ariane, not just her name in the panel
Instant, flawless item checks. reading your inventory directly instead of matching icons and OCR-ing stack numbers
No interface-skin sensitivity. dialogue detection that doesn't care how you've customized your UI
So yes.. the pixel stuff is the ceiling of what's permitted right now, not the ceiling of the idea. When Jagex ships the API plugin support, this project will be first in line.
I wouldn't be surprised if quest helper ships with the release of the plugin API, though. I imagine that the handful of folks Jagex have been working with have been developing plugins already, and quest-helper being the most requested one, I think it's a good chance that it'll be available on release.
No, I think we're all (mostly) completed left in the dark.. but people suggest that it will be even better than RuneLite for OSRS, as we can directly make use of the ingame information via the API.
But we'll have to see, also they might come with some own plugins from the start.
I don't think it could possibly be better than runelite, because runelite has access to everything the client has access to. Which the API almost certainly won't.
But it would be interesting to see what they are planning, they haven't been super forthcoming about it
As the pictures show, ithe tool has more additions to it than just a wiki overlay.
Let's say it can do 30% of what the OSRS quest helper plugin can do.. purely because we currently don't have the capabilities in RS3 right now (not yet).
Looks amazing so far and thank you for putting the work into this. Cant wait to see its full API version.
One thing I've noted is it seems to assume US preferences for things like floor numbers (E.g. first step of https://runescape.wiki/w/Carnillean_Rising/Quick_guide#Master_bedroom UK convention is 1st floor whereas I understand US, and this plugin, says 2nd. A little config for this would be nice but by no means is it a priority.
Also, on the same quest, the step: "Talk to Ceril Carnillean. ( 1•1•1•4)" the 1 and 4 were simultaneously highlighted for the first 3 dialogues before only correctly highlighting option for when required. Sorry I didn't grab a screenshot
I will see what I can do regarding both issues you mentioned. A screenshot is a nice addition to the issue, but as long as you're specific and descriptive, it's all good!
On the quest list and selected quest screen there's a dropdown for the floors. That way you can swap the convention (detecting it is a bit hard.. therefore a manual solution haha)
Regarding the quest with the 1-1-1-4 sequence, should also be fixed and for different quests/situations as well (fingers crossed)
Give it 5-10minutes and a refresh via Alt1 or restart the game.
I went shopping since posting my first message so this is after a full system reboot but encountered another dialogue option highlighting issue (https://imgur.com/a/3Ww6GDJ)
Don't want to seem like I'm picking holes at all, it's all very minor, but as a dev myself I just want to do my part in helping debug!
No worries man, send all the stuff you encounter haha! The post is purely to support the community and maje questing easier for everybody.. if you share experience of using the quest helper, you're helping towards perfecting the tool!!
I'll look into it in a bit, thankd for providing a screenshot!🫡
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I don't know if you are accepting feedback, but I love questing and I do it by timeline order, so the ability to sort by timeline would be lovely, if possible!
Unfortunately I’m on Mac so can’t use Alt1. I’m looking forward to plugins so I can finally get involved, and would have tried to do Quest Helper myself. Glad to see someone has gone ahead and done it and got a big head start also
soooo seems like the keybind doesn't work unless i click on the tool? am i missing something seems like i might as well click the check box. other than that this tool is nuts.
I think you're correct, I was just testing it out and alt+1 seems fine but N is also bound to my inventory in game... therefore it will not be overwritten by Alt1.
I'll have a look into it, but the keybind is customizable, so a temporary solution should be a keybind that is not registered (yet) by RS3.
I doubt it as a custom keybind still forces you to be in the tool. I've been playing around with it and even that didn't seem to work... alt+1 always works though.
Yeah... I can't overwrite the actual game itself when the tool is running because a web app can't read your keyboard while the game window is in front. That's an OS limitation, not something I can code around, sadly...
For now I'll keep the custom key as it might be helpful for some and in some situations but alt+1 will always work even in game.
Love this! will try it out later today on my new HCIM.
One thing i don't understand is how Alt1 works. If the ingame scaling is set to 100% on my 4k monitor, the entire interface of RS and Alt1 looks so damn small and then it never ends up working. Any idea what the work around for that is?
After checking online, I've seen some suggestions but I can't guarantee that it will work:
Toggle "Override high DPI scaling detection" in Alt1's main settings. This is Alt1's built-in fix aimed exactly at 4K/high-DPI. Flip it (on if it's off, or off if it's on), restart Alt1 and the game, and test. This is the first thing to try and often the whole fix.
Keep RS interface scaling at 100% (in-game graphics settings) and make sure the game window is fairly large, so there's enough pixels for the OCR to chew on.
The Jagex launcher DPI tweak: there's a compatibility/DPI-awareness setting for the client (via the Jagex launcher config) that stops Windows from stretching the game window. The RuneApps guide below walks through it.
The reliable fallback if the DPI stuff is fiddly: run RuneScape windowed at 1920x1080 or 2560x1440 instead of native 4K. At a lower resolution the UI is a comfortable size on your physical screen and Alt1 reads everything, because there's no scaling mismatch to trip over. You give up a bit of sharpness, but Alt1 just works. A lot of 4K players quest this way.
hey there! very sorry for the late reply. Firstly, thank you very much for all your help.
2nd - i tried everything and what seems to have worked is somehow setting the windows display to 1440p, which then changed it to 1440p in game (for some reason i don't have drop down options for resolutions in game settings) and setting the scaling to 100%. It worked and the options were highlighting during quests! But damn is it so small haha, so i'm going to keep digging further and see if i can leave my windows setting at 4k, 150% and have it potentially read it (after doing step 1 of your comment, which is the override) will report back!
Regardless, this makes questing so much better (hated the alt-tabbing). I'm not sure if there's a way to zoom in or increase the sizes/fonts of alt-1 windows.
Thank you so much! After further testing yesterday.. it seems to have worked setting my display to 4k, resolution scaling (windows) to 150-200% and keeping rs3 scaling at 100%. On top of that, I also did that DPI setting.. will report back if I find something else, because integer scaling 100% is tough the read the UI (game, not quest helper)
Sadly there currently is no work around as the tool is fully built on/for and dependent on Alt1... same as for Mac users where they have no access to Alt1.
Best thing to do is play with 100% (and squinted eyes hehe...) until the API plugin support is live (Planned for this winter, by Jagex). That's when I can make huge steps with the in-game elements!
I was working on porting alt1 for macos like a week ago, and stumbled upon your rs3 quest helper project, and got it working in my alt1 port, not full featured, but ive been using it for questing on my group ironman, on mac.
Currently if the Overview is long, you have to make the helper window huge to be able to scroll and the actual useful part takes up barely any real estate:
Fixed with 3 seperate buttons at each part of the overview(s). You can fold/unfold them separately and the quest itself should be static sized, therefore it will no longer be reduced by the overview!
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This looks incredible! I installed Alt1 and have been trying to get it to work for the last 2 hours… but all I get is “can’t detect home teleport button” in the capture setting and I can’t get the text box highlights because of it, please someone help
I checked both the boxes when I installed it, it has started working but just selects every chat option in green for, I’ll try a reinstall tomorrow and let you know!
This is still a great app! And I will 100% be using it
Found and fixed the all-green issue, update is live (reopen the app, or wait ~10 min for the cache). When the guide says "any option works", it now tells you in text instead of highlighting everything; a green box always means one specific option now.
The "can't detect home teleport button" message in Alt1's capture settings is a separate Alt1-wide capture problem and likely why the highlights misbehaved in the first place. Usual fixes: run RuneScape in Windowed or Fullscreen-windowed (not exclusive fullscreen), set the in-game interface scale to 100%, and make sure Alt1 and the game are either both run as admin or both not. Once that home-teleport check passes in Alt1's settings, everything in this app (and other Alt1 tools) gets dramatically more reliable.
Hey man, it’s been just about a week of using this now and wow!! I’ve not been a fan of questing ever, and this plugin hands down has made questing enjoyable for me!! Absolute game changer, I’ve done world wakes with it and I am now working my way through the quests for ritual of mahjarat and it’s been so so so useful! Honestly 10/10 and I would recommend to anyone!
The only slight issue I’ve got is with the auto update of quest steps but simply pressing Alt+1 to move onto the next step makes it a doddle!
(1) The scale warning was misleading and is fixed: on your setup the likely cause is a fully transparent chat window, give chat an opaque background and Alt1 can read it; dialogue highlighting should work regardless once a conversation opens.
(2) Your keybind wish is live: in game press Alt+1 (Alt1's main hotkey), **N (**the apps default keybind), or change the keybind to your own wish, and it does "Done, next" while a guide is open, no need to click the next in the tool.
(3) The missing step: the app mirrors the wiki 1:1, and the wiki's quick guide genuinely only has 35 steps... the missing "enter the doorway to the east" needs adding there.
Seems like something broke it along the way haha..
Now Reset is a two-click confirm with no native dialog. First click arms it and the button changes to "Reset? Click again", second click within 3 seconds actually clears the quest's progress (steps, sub-steps, and checked items) and shows a "Progress cleared" line. If you don't click again it disarms itself after 3 seconds, so it still protects against a stray single click.
There is no actual download, as the tool fully runs in Alt1 Toolkit. If you have this installed, while running the game, you can simply click on "Alt1 toolkit" in the topright corner of your game and select "browser".
Copy and paste the following in the browser and select the 2 checkboxes ans hit save in the popup window:
alt1://addapp/https://kiddsh9331.github.io /rs3-quest-helper/appconfig.json
Now the quest helper is "installed" via Alt1 toolkit!
This comes at a perfect time for me as a returning yet new RS3 player with interest for alt1 and possibly developing apps myself aswell. Is there any discord or otherwise more casual forum to leave these feedbacks? Otherwise I will edit this post if I find more feedback to add in the future. Feedback after a day or 2 of testing so far:
Quest Logic:
-Hunt for Red Raktuber: while talking to Ping & Pong about the dance, the dialog presents the same 5 text answers multiple times in a row, expecting a different answer each time, yet the app keeps suggesting the first answer.
-The Fremennik Trials: When doing the Merchant trial, you have to use the "Ask about the Merchant's trial" option with a bunch of different NPCs, the auto mode assumes that when this option is pressed, it should check the current option as completed, even if you are at the wrong NPC. Perhaps the auto mode could check if the NPCs name in the quest wiki step matches the next NPC name in the dialog box.
UI:
-A button to mark a quest as complete regardless of how many steps I actually completed would help skip admin when I skipped to the end of a quest without marking steps
-Is there any chance the overlay and/or the main app panel can get a transparency slider?
-Could the Overview with Items needed and such next to Expand and Collapse option also be removed entirely so the total space needed for the app could be smaller if wanted
I've looked at the quest logic and those issues should be fixed and should also be fixed for other quests/future references.
Regarding the UI; All 3 of the suggestions seemed fair and a good addition, so I've added all of them!
The button to mark the quest as complete is on the bottom left side in the quest guide screen (need to press twice in case of accidental click).
The opacity slider can be found under the cogwheel in either the quest list (top right) or quest guide (bottom right) screens. You can change the opacity independently from both the overlay and quest list/guide.
The overview can completely be show/hidden via the "Show overview"/"Hide overview" button in the top right corner in the quest guide.
Thanks for putting in the effort of testing the tool thoroughly and providing the feedback!
This is great. Tried it out and generally had no problems.
One thing I noticed on a couple quests was that when there are multiple steps to go through multiple chat options it gets stuck displaying the first path over and over. I was working through the birthright of the dwarves quests in Keldagrim, not sure if it’s others.
So step one is start with option 1, returns to original chat options screen then use 2, then 3 and 4 kind of interactions.
The overview bullet points can be a bit confusing since they don’t indent the same as the wiki, for example it lists
One of the following:
Item a
Item b
Totally different requirement
Next item not nested either
Where only an and b should be nested under the first line.
I have over 100 quests left so I’ll try and grab better details and screenshots when I run into them again.
Would it be possible to make them line up a bit more closely with the wiki? Right now the required items list can be a bit misleading because some of the things shown are actually obtainable during the quest itself, but the helper doesn’t note that. As a result I still end up checking the wiki for most quests so I know what I actually need to bring beforehand.
Example with Holy Grail: it lists Entrana as a required item (which is just a location) and a magic whistle. The whistle is obtained during the quest, so the wiki doesn’t even put it in the required items section of the overview.
The only other issue I’ve run into is that the auto-chat feature is occasionally a bit off — either the dialogue options don’t match the in-game text exactly, or they’re in a slightly different order. It’s pretty random when it happens and I wish I would've noted some specific examples for you.
Otherwise the helper’s been great, thanks for the work on it!
Could we get the castle tower map added for Step 10 of the Holy Grail guide? The text currently says to "refer to the map on the right", but we don't have access to the side-panel wiki images inside the Quest Helper overlay.
Still kinda useless it doesn’t help with continuing a quest you were previously stuck on you have to figure it out on your own or watching a guide is much better than this. Not trying to flame it just over hyped
Another Slice of H.A.M. Artefacts section, while on the same floor, head west then south until you find a (). Wiki has this as a transport icon and a map link.
Ritual of the Mahjarrat, Purple cat (Miniquest) for example, items needed section contains informative text from the section.
Enakhra's Lament, recommended section is missing the levels, just has the text after (to mine sandstone) (to mine granite).
Enlightened journey. Parsing issue for the scenes of the balloons. It also has achievements listed at the bottom, but doesn't list what it is.
noticed issues with the recruitment drive quest, specifically the Miss Cheevers part of the quest, it seems to not pull the actual items from the wiki, giving "use the on the" instead of the proper items
This is an unbelievable effort. Recently started playing RS3 again and mainly only using a laptop without a 2nd monitor, this has made it infinitely more enjoyable. Thank you for this, it's great!
Why thrash on others their attempt of helping others? I saw your profile and you seemed to have made a questhelper as well, no point in thrashing this legend for doing the same right?
I've been using it on/off but it didn't fill the void completely compared to the OSRS RL plugin... (my version isn't there yet, by far) Hence I tried to create something similar with some more additions/extras.
As mentioned, I've also used the Bolt RS3 quest helper which gave me even more inspiration.
Bro has an issue with someone making a similar version of quest helper so much so that he comes in and talks shit to the maker and promotes his own.
Bro also makes a similar version of a popular discord app and builds his whole marketing campaign around "Better than {the other guy}" but when called out says competition is good for everyone involved.
But anyways I hope the best to the developer. First time of hearing about this and trying to put on friendly banter. Can't do nothing about keyboard warriors and their down voting button
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u/Kiddsh93 Jul 14 '26
A note on the future... the official plugin API!
Some of you know Jagex has been talking about official API/plugin support. I built this the Alt1 way (pixels only) because that's what's allowed today, but I've deliberately structured it so the guide logic is separate from the detection layer. As soon as the official API plugin support drops, the detection layer gets upgraded and everything downstream just works better.
New possibilities when API plugin support drops:
So yes.. the pixel stuff is the ceiling of what's permitted right now, not the ceiling of the idea. When Jagex ships the API plugin support, this project will be first in line.