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Quick Overview

In InvUI, there are four main concepts that you need to understand in order to create your own menus:

  • Window: A window is what you may think of as an "inventory", "menu", or "screen". It is the opened menu that a player sees. Windows always encompass both the upper and lower (player) inventory. The actual slots of the window are defined by Guis.
  • Gui: A Gui is a rectangular arrangement of slots that can contain Items.
  • Item: An item is a single UI element that is visually represented by an ItemProvider. Items handle the click actions and can change their appearance (the ItemProvider by which they are presented) dynamically.
  • ItemProvider: An item provider is basically just an ItemStack, except that they support localization into the viewing player's language. You can use InvUI's built-in ItemBuilder as an item provider, or just wrap any ItemStack using ItemWrapper.

To create a menu, you need to combine all of these concepts:

// item: a (clickable) ui element
val helloWorldItem: Item = Item.builder()
    .setItemProvider(ItemBuilder(Material.DIAMOND)) // the item is represented by a diamond (ItemBuilder acts as ItemProvider)
    .addClickHandler { println("Hello World!") } // "Hello World" is printed to the console on click
    .build()

// gui: a rectangular arrangement of ui elements
val gui: Gui = Gui.builder()
    .setStructure("x x x x x x x x x") // the gui is of dimensions 9x1 and uses the item 'x' everywhere
    .addIngredient('x', helloWorldItem) // by item 'x', we mean helloWorldItem
    .build()

// window: the menu that is shown to the player, containing the gui(s), which contain the item(s)
val window: Window = Window.builder()
    .setTitle("Hello World!")
    .setUpperGui(gui)
    .setViewer(player)
    .build()

window.open()

// item: a (clickable) ui element
Item helloWorldItem = Item.builder()
    .setItemProvider(new ItemBuilder(Material.DIAMOND)) // the item is represented by a diamond (ItemBuilder acts as ItemProvider)
    .addClickHandler(click -> System.out.println("Hello World!")) // "Hello World" is printed to the console on click
    .build();

// gui: a rectangular arrangement of ui elements
Gui gui = Gui.builder()
    .setStructure("x x x x x x x x x") // the gui is of dimensions 9x1 and uses the item 'x' everywhere
    .addIngredient('x', helloWorldItem) // by item 'x', we mean helloWorldItem
    .build();

// window: the menu that is shown to the player, containing the gui(s), which contain the item(s)
Window window = Window.builder()
    .setTitle("Hello World!")
    .setUpperGui(gui)
    .setViewer(player)
    .build();

window.open();

The following pages will take a deeper look at items, guis, windows, and also additional concepts like inventories and localization.