Every function, and where to find it

The app has five screens: Catalog, Items, Workshop, My mods and Presets, with Settings behind them. This page walks through them in that order and says where each function lives and what to press.

Checked 7 November 2026

Before the first tool

Installing mods from the catalog needs nothing but the app. The tools that build mods from your game files need one or two helpers, and the tool's window offers them the first time you open it:

• ValveResourceFormat. Reads the game's compressed files. One click in the window, about 50 MB, and it keeps itself up to date.
• Dota 2 Workshop Tools. Valve's free DLC in Steam, with the compiler that sounds, the HUD and the rank tool need. Its state is in Settings, under the resource compiler.

Catalog

The catalog holds 1,659 mods sorted the way their authors sorted them. The rail on the left lists the sections: heroes, item effects, terrains, sounds, cursors and the rest.

1. Find a modType a name, a hero or an author into the search box, or open a section and filter it with the tags at the top.
2. Look at itClick the card. The mod's window shows its pictures or clip, its styles and who made it.
3. Install itPress Install. The app downloads the mod, picks a free pak slot and puts it in place. Dota picks it up on its next start.

• Several at once. Press Install on more cards while the first one downloads. They queue up.
• Favourites. The star on a card keeps the mod in the Favourites section.
• Mods for adults. Hidden until you switch them on in Settings.
• Sets from the site. Pick mods in the web catalog and send them to the app as one link.

Items: the item builder

The Items tab lists every hero. Open one to get a row for each slot, with every item the game holds for that slot: sets, arcanas, personas, styles and effects. Pick a set to fill its slots at once, open a slot to choose its effect and style, and turn on the 3D preview to see the hero in what you picked. My looks keeps a look to come back to. The item builder guide covers it in full.

Workshop

The Workshop tab holds the tools that build a mod from your own game files, grouped by what they change. Whatever a tool builds lands in My mods, where you switch it off or delete it like any other mod. Each tile shows in green what is on right now.

Hero recolour

Where: open a hero in Items and press Recolour, the button beside the hero’s name. Pick a colour for all the parts, or for one layer each: body, weapon, abilities, attacks, items, icon and portrait.

A colour takes hold where the game stores it as a number. Part of the effects paint with textures, and the preview shows which parts took the colour.

Item colours

Where: Workshop, Your own item colour. Pick an arcana, then one of the game's prismatic gems or a colour of your own. It paints the model and the effects. For Terrorblade, Techies and Razor you can install the whole item, or the colour alone if you own the arcana already.

Your own sound on an ability

1. Open itWorkshop, Hero, Your own sound on an ability.
2. Pick the abilityChoose a hero and a sound of theirs.
3. Pick your fileMP3, WAV or OGG. Choose whether it replaces the game's sound or plays on top, and set the volume.
4. InstallThe compiler from Workshop Tools builds it.

Effect editor

1. Open itWorkshop, Effects, Effect editor.
2. Find the effectPick a hero and an ability on the left, or search by file name. The game has about 82,000 of them.
3. Change itMove the sliders for size, count, lifetime and speed, and set a colour. The preview plays each edit.
4. InstallYour edits build into one mod. Already edited shows what you changed.

The preview is close, not exact. Sprite shapes and trails show properly only in the game, and effects built from models or light do not draw there at all.

Towers

Where: Workshop, Map, Towers from the game. Choose towers from any event, one kind for Radiant and another for Dire, then press Build. The models and their rubble come from the game's items.

Trees

Where: Workshop, Map, Trees from the game. Choose a season for each side and press Build. The trees you can cut down change. The decoration trees at the map's edge stay as they are.

Map without decor

Where: Workshop, Map, Map without decor. Take off plants, animals and birds, rocks and litter, or both groups. Trees, buildings, water and the ground stay. It reads the list from the map each time, and rebuilds itself after a Dota update.

Menu background

Where: Workshop, Interface, Your own menu background. Choose a picture, a GIF or a video up to 30 seconds, then set the dimming and the blur. A clip plays on a loop.

HUD editor

1. Open itWorkshop, Interface, HUD editor.
2. Move the panelsEleven panels sit on a plan of your screen. Drag one with the mouse, and use the arrow keys for a single pixel.
3. Change a panelClick it to set its size, tint and opacity, or hide it.
4. InstallThe compiler builds the style. With a HUD mod on, your layout goes on top of that mod.

Rank and hero levels

Where: Workshop, Interface, Rank and hero levels. Choose a medal, up to the top one with Top 5000, Top 100 or Top 10 on it, and set Dota Plus levels for each hero or for all of them at once. This changes your screen alone: other players see your real rank and levels.

Hero grids

Where: Workshop, Interface, Hero grids. Puts grids in the game's hero picker: by win rate, by attribute and by pick rate in this patch. Settings holds which grids you want.

Your own mods

• Install your own VPK. Workshop, under your own mods. Give it a file, an archive or a folder. The app works out the hero and the items by itself.
• Author's desk. Build your mod into an archive by the catalog's rules: name, category, styles, cover and description. Drafts stay on your computer.
• A mod with AI. Describe the mod in words and an AI assistant builds it from the game files. Step by step.

My mods

Everything you installed or built sits here, whichever tool it came from.

• Switch on and off. The toggle on a row. The mod stays in your library, the game folder stays clean.
• Load order. Drag a row. When two mods carry the same file, the higher one wins, and the app shows who overrules whom.
• Master switch. Bottom right. Off, and the game starts with no mods at all. Handy before a tournament or to rule mods out.
• Packs. Tick several mods and press Combine into pack. The game loads about 99 separate paks at most, and a pack takes one slot.
• Import. Import VPK takes a file, Import folder takes every .vpk in a folder.
• Link to the catalog. A mod you installed by hand gets its picture and its updates once you link it.
• Updates. A banner on top says when a new version of a mod is out, and one press takes it.
• Remove. Tick and delete, or right-click a row for the rest of the actions.

Presets

1. SaveName the preset and press Save current state. It remembers your mods and your looks.
2. ApplyOne press switches on exactly what is in the preset and everything else off.
3. ShareShare gives you a link. Whoever opens it gets the same setup, with any missing mods downloaded. A .d2mm file does the same offline.

Ready presets at the top of the screen are sets other people put together.

Settings

• Language and scale. The interface language and the size of the window's contents.
• Path to Dota 2. Found automatically. Point to it by hand if you keep the game somewhere unusual.
• Download cache. Archives kept so you do not download them twice. Clearing it touches nothing installed.
• Download proxy. For networks that block the download addresses.
• Game files and the item table. See what the app changed in the game's own files, and put them back to Valve's with one press.
• Beta versions. Test builds for accounts on the testers' list.

When something breaks

• Repair the app. In Settings. It restores the game patch, finds lost mod files and clears what got stuck.
• After a Dota update. The app notices the patch and puts its work back by itself. It waits until Dota closes.
• Export report. In Settings, under Diagnostics. A zip with the game path, the mod list and the recent log, for the support channel.