is this like the mod https://mods.factorio.com/mod/there-is-my-ghost ? or the picker mod's "blueprint last item used when you run out" setting?

"There is my ghost" seems to be about how you interact with the ghosts in the world. My mod is all about what item you have in your cursor. Have a look at this thread: https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=68557

Could you please point me towards the picker mod? A link or an exact name would be helpful.

looks like the Picker Extended mod had this same feature in 0.16 but was removed in 0.17 for some reason. Thanks for posting this mod. I prefer the behavior intended by this mod to vanilla as well.

No problem, I am glad it came useful for someone :)

AFAIK, the picker mod didn't have this feature in 0.16. What it did was automatically put the right item in your hand if you hit 'q' over a ghost. The author removed the feature because that's the default vanilla behavior in 0.17 and so the Picker mod was redundant.

This "Ghost in Hand" mod only really makes sense in 0.17. IMHO, the devs should change things so this is either the default behavior, or selectable in the 'Game Settings' UI. It's pretty irritating to suddenly have your hand empty just because you ran out of real items to place.

This feature was planned two years ago. Never got implemented. Devs don't want to talk about it. Have a look at these two threads:

https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=68557
https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=68662