How to add a custom GUI to your Minecraft server

How drawn menus work

The game draws a menu title as text. A resource pack can turn any text character into a picture through its font file. So the pack maps an unused character, for example \uE12C, to a picture of the whole menu. A few more characters are spaces with a negative width that move the picture left, so it lines up with the chest.

Put those characters in the menu title and the player sees your art instead of the grey chest. The slots still work as normal, so DeluxeMenus places items on top of the drawn buttons.

{
  "providers": [
    { "type": "bitmap", "file": "mypack:font/menu_main.png", "ascent": 13, "height": 256, "chars": ["\uE12C"] },
    { "type": "space", "advances": { "\uF801": -1, "\uF802": -2, "\uF805": -16, "\uF806": -32, "\uF807": -64 } }
  ]
}

That is the shape of assets/minecraft/font/default.json. The numbers for ascent and height depend on your picture, and getting them right takes some trial and error.

Step by step

1. Install the plugins

   Put DeluxeMenus and PlaceholderAPI in plugins and restart. Both are free. DeluxeMenus will not start without PlaceholderAPI.

2. Send the resource pack

   The menu art lives in a resource pack, so every player needs it. Follow our guide to make a resource pack required. Players who decline it see boxes in the menu titles.

3. Add a menu file

   Make a file in plugins/DeluxeMenus/gui_menus/, for example main.yml. This is a shortened copy of a menu we tested:

   menu_title: "&f\uF805\uE12C\uF807\uF806\uF805\uF802"
   open_command:
     - menu
   register_command: true
   size: 36
   items:
     'shop':
       material: EMERALD
       slot: 12
       tooltip_style: mypack:menu
       display_name: "&6Shop"
       lore:
         - "&7Buy and sell items"
       left_click_commands:
         - "[sound] UI_BUTTON_CLICK"
         - "[openguimenu] shop"
     'close':
       material: PAPER
       item_model: mypack:button_close
       slot: 31
       display_name: "&6Close"
       left_click_commands:
         - "[close]"

   Keep &f in front of the glyphs. Glyphs take the text colour, and white keeps the picture's real colours.

4. Register it in config.yml

   In plugins/DeluxeMenus/config.yml, add the menu under gui_menus::

   gui_menus:
     main:
       file: main.yml

5. Reload and open

   Run /dm reload. Open the menu with /menu or /dm open main. If the picture sits a few pixels off, change the space characters in the title and reload.

Drawn buttons and tooltips

• item_model (Minecraft 1.21.4 and newer) shows an item with a model from your pack, so a PAPER item can look like a drawn close button. An invisible model over a drawn button gives you a click area that shows nothing.
• tooltip_style (1.21.2 and newer) gives the hover box your own frame and background.
• Older clients ignore both and show the plain item and the normal tooltip.

If it does not work

• Boxes or squares in the title: the player does not have the resource pack, or another pack uses the same characters.
• The art is shifted: the negative space before the picture is wrong. Change it a pixel at a time.
• The title text is cut off or tinted: remove bold or italic codes and keep &f in front of the glyphs.
• Bedrock players see plain menus: players joining through Geyser do not get Java resource packs.

Questions