Elementslink

Elements are the building blocks of your custom layouts in FancyMenu. You can add them to any layout to display information, add interactivity, or create stunning visual effects.

Adding Elements to a Layoutlink

You can add a new element to your layout from within the Layout Editor.

1. Right-click on the editor's background to open the context menu.
2. Hover over New Element.
3. A list of all available element types will appear. Click on the one you want to add.

Once an element is added, you can move, resize, and customize it by right-clicking on it to open its specific context menu. To learn more about how to arrange elements, see Positioning Elements and Element Identifiers.

Elements in Detaillink

This section lists FancyMenu's built-in elements. Use Layers and Groups to organize their render order.

Buttonlink

A clickable button that can perform a wide variety of actions. This is one of the most powerful and versatile elements for creating interactive menus.

• Use Cases:
  • Creating a "Join Discord" or "Visit Website" button.
  • Adding a quick-join button for a specific server.
  • Building custom navigation between different menus.
  • Creating buttons that toggle other layouts on or off.
• Key Features:
  • Actions: Can execute a sequence of actions, such as opening a URL, joining a server, sending a chat command, mimicking another button's function, or controlling variables.
  • Custom Appearance: Fully customizable textures for normal, hovered, and inactive states. Supports transparent backgrounds, nine-slicing, custom label colors, hover label colors, label scale, label shadow toggles and button icon textures.
  • Sounds: Custom click, hover and unhover sounds.
  • Template Mode: Can apply its appearance and properties to other Vanilla or modded buttons in the menu. See Button & Slider Templates.
  • Automated Vanilla/Mod Widget Clicks: Existing Vanilla and mod widgets have an Automated Clicks property that can invoke their original click behavior a chosen number of times when the screen loads. See Vanilla Elements for details.

Sliderlink

A slider that users can drag to select a value from a list or a range. It can execute actions whenever its value changes.

• Use Cases:
  • Creating a custom volume control.
  • A slider to switch between different themes or background images (using the "List" type).
  • Adjusting a specific Minecraft option, like brightness or render distance.
• Key Features:
  • Types: Can be a Value List (e.g., "Easy", "Normal", "Hard"), an Integer Range (e.g., 1-100), or a Decimal Range (e.g., 0.0-1.0).
  • Dynamic Actions: Executes actions when its value changes. The current value can be used with Variables.
  • Customization: The slider's label can dynamically display its current value. The handle and background textures are fully customizable, including transparent backgrounds, label color/scale options, text shadow toggles and custom click/unhover sounds.

Checkboxlink

A standard checkbox that can be toggled on or off. It can execute actions upon being toggled.

• Use Cases:
  • An "I agree to the rules" checkbox.
  • A setting to enable or disable a specific feature in your custom menu.
  • Toggling a layout or variable on/off.
• Key Features:
  • Actions on Toggle: Executes Action Scripts when its state changes. The current state (true or false) is available to its actions.
  • Variable Mode: Can be linked directly to a FancyMenu variable, making the checkbox state read from and write to that variable.
  • Persistent State: When Variable Mode is disabled, the checkbox automatically saves its state by element identifier and restores it after restarting the game. These states are stored in <game-directory>/checkbox_states.json. In Variable Mode, the linked FancyMenu variable is the checkbox's state source instead.
  • Custom Appearance: Supports custom textures for the background (in normal, hover, and inactive states) and the checkmark itself.

Text Input Fieldlink

A field where users can type text. Its content can be linked to a FancyMenu variable, allowing you to capture and use user input.

• Use Cases:
  • A "Server IP" input field that works with a "Join Server" button.
  • A field to enter a player's name for a custom skin preview.
  • Creating a basic login-like interface.
• Key Features:
  • Variable Linking: Stores the entered text in a specified variable.
  • Input Validation: Can be configured to only accept specific character types, such as numbers, URLs, or plain text.
  • Max Length: You can set a maximum character limit for the input.
  • Appearance and Sounds: Supports custom background color, border colors, border rounding, text color, hint/placeholder text, hint color, hover sounds, unhover sounds and click sounds.

Tooltiplink

A text box that can appear at a fixed position or follow the mouse cursor. Its visibility is normally controlled with Loading Requirements.

• Use Cases:
  • Displaying detailed information when a user hovers over a button or image.
  • Creating context-sensitive help tips that appear under certain conditions.
  • Showing dynamic information (like server status) next to the cursor.
• Key Features:
  • Mouse Following: Can be set to follow the mouse pointer.
  • Markdown Support: The tooltip content supports full Markdown formatting.
  • Custom Background: The background can be a solid color or a custom nine-sliced texture for a fully themed look.

Itemlink

Displays a single Minecraft item, either from vanilla or a mod.

• Use Cases:
  • Using items as icons for buttons or menu selections.
  • Creating a shop or kit selection GUI.
  • Displaying a player's held item or armor.
• Key Features:
  • Custom Data: Supports a custom name, lore, count, enchantment glint, and NBT data. See the NBT Data Placeholder.
  • Tooltip Display: Can be configured to show the item's standard tooltip on hover.

Block/Item JSON Modellink

Renders a block or item JSON model from Minecraft resources or external sources.

• Use Cases:
  • Displaying a 3D resource-pack model in a menu.
  • Showing item/block previews with custom textures.
  • Building model-based decorative UI elements.
• Key Features:
  • Model Source: Can load model JSON from Minecraft resources or external sources.
  • Texture Overrides: Supports setting a custom texture.
  • Rendering Controls: Model offset, scale, three-axis rotation, translucent rendering, and the model GUI transform.
  • Lighting: Two configurable lights with independent hue and rotation controls.

Imagelink

Displays a static image from a local file, a web URL, or a Minecraft resource location.

• Use Cases:
  • Adding a server logo or modpack brand.
  • Creating decorative borders or UI frames.
  • Using images as part of a more complex UI design.
• Key Features:
  • Nine-Slicing: Scales borders or panels without distorting their corners. See Nine-Slicing & Tiling.
  • Texture Repeating: The image can be tiled to fill the element's area.
  • Tinting: You can apply a color tint to the image.
  • Rounded Corners: Non-nine-sliced and non-repeated images can have rounded corners.
  • Parallax Effect: Moves with the mouse to create visual depth. See Parallax Effect.

Textlink

A highly versatile element for displaying text. It can be used for anything from single-line labels to multi-page, scrollable documents.

• Use Cases:
  • Displaying server rules, patch notes, or welcome messages.
  • Creating dynamic info panels using placeholders, for example Welcome, {"placeholder":"playername"}!.
  • Adding labels and descriptions to your UI.
• Key Features:
  • Content Sources: Text can be entered directly, loaded from a local file, or fetched from a web URL.
  • Markdown Support: Supports headers, lists, code blocks, tables, and other Markdown formatting. See Text Formatting.
  • Scrolling: Automatically becomes scrollable if the content is larger than the element's area. Scrollbars can be customized or disabled.
  • Styling: Full control over text color, scale, alignment, shadow, and line spacing.

Videolink

Plays a video file. This is perfect for cinematic intros or decorative looping backgrounds.

• Use Cases:
  • An animated modpack or server trailer.
  • A looping, ambient video to add life to your menu.
  • An in-game tutorial video.
• Key Features:
  • Sources: Supports local video files and web URLs. See Videos.
  • Playback Control: Can be set to loop automatically. Its volume, sound channel and aspect-ratio preserving behavior are adjustable.
  • Interactive Control: The video's playback, seek time and volume can be controlled via button actions.

GLSL Shaderlink

Renders a custom GLSL shader inside an element.

• Use Cases:
  • Animated shader panels.
  • Procedural visual effects.
  • Shadertoy-style menu effects clipped to an element rectangle.
• Key Features:
  • Shader Runtime: Supports single-pass and multipass shaders.
  • Shadertoy Support: Can use Shadertoy-style mainImage shaders.
  • Uniforms: Exposes FancyMenu and input uniforms. See the GLSL Shader API.

Slideshowlink

Displays a sequence of images. Its images and properties.txt configuration file live in the slideshow's own subdirectory under <game-directory>/config/fancymenu/slideshows/.

• Use Cases:
  • A rotating gallery of in-game screenshots.
  • Showcasing key features of a modpack.
  • A dynamic background that cycles through different scenes.
• Key Features:
  • Loads preconfigured slideshows.
  • Can be set to maintain the aspect ratio of the images.

Rectangle Shapelink

A simple, solid-colored rectangle.

• Use Cases:
  • Creating a semi-transparent background behind text to improve readability.
  • Designing simple UI panels and dividers.
  • As a colored placeholder during layout design.
• Key Features:
  • Supports HEX RGBA colors, rounded corners and optional blur, allowing the shape to work as a simple panel, tint or blur background.

Circle Shapelink

A simple, solid-colored circle/ellipse shape.

• Use Cases:
  • Creating circular accents, indicators or soft UI areas.
  • Building themed UI decorations without a texture file.
• Key Features:
  • Supports color, blur, and a configurable roundness/exponent value.

Splash Textlink

A recreation of Minecraft's iconic yellow, bouncing splash text from the title screen.

• Use Cases:
  • Replacing the vanilla splash text with your own custom messages.
  • Adding an eye-catching, animated message to any menu.
• Key Features:
  • Content Sources: Can use the default vanilla splashes, a list of custom text entered directly, or text from a local file.
  • Customization: You can toggle the bouncing effect and customize the text's color, scale, rotation, and shadow.

Player Entitylink

Renders a player model in the menu.

• Use Cases:
  • Displaying the current player's character on the main menu.
  • Creating a team selection or class preview screen.
  • A "profile" section showing the player's skin and name.
• Key Features:
  • Dynamic Appearance: Can copy the current player's skin, cape, and name. See Player Heads.
  • Custom Poses: Offers fine-grained control over the rotation of the head, body, arms, and legs. The head and body can also be set to follow the mouse cursor.
  • Attributes: Can be set to be a baby, crouching, or have a slim model.

Browserlink

An element that renders a live web page inside the game.

This element requires the MCEF (Minecraft Chromium Embedded Framework) mod to be installed and working!

You can download MCEF from the official project pages on CurseForge and Modrinth.

For newer Minecraft versions (1.21.5+), the official MCEF projects do not provide builds, but there is a fork with builds for latest Minecraft versions, which can be found here (CurseForge) and here (Modrinth). This fork is maintained by Keksuccino, to get builds for latest Minecraft versions out as fast as possible.

• Use Cases:
  • Displaying a server's live Dynmap.
  • Embedding a YouTube video player.
  • Showing a wiki or documentation page directly in-game.
• Key Features:
  • Interactivity: Can be made fully interactable, allowing users to click links, scroll, and type.
  • Media Control: Offers options to mute media, loop videos, and hide video controls on the loaded page.

Loading Local HTML Fileslink

The Browser element can load local HTML documents from <game-directory>/config/fancymenu/assets/.

To load a local HTML file, start your URL with file:///, followed by the SHORT file path, for example /config/fancymenu/assets/cool_changelog.html, which makes it look like this: file:///config/fancymenu/assets/cool_changelog.html.

On Linux, use the Absolute File/Folder Path placeholder instead of hardcoding an instance-specific absolute path: file:///{"placeholder":"absolute_path","values":{"short_path":"/config/fancymenu/assets/cool_changelog.html"}}.

The Linux short path must begin with /, as shown in the example.

Element Animatorlink

A powerful tool for creating complex, keyframe-based animations. It can animate the position, size, and anchor point of one or multiple other elements.

• Use Cases:
  • Sliding elements into or out of view.
  • Resizing panels or notifications.
  • Animating position offsets and anchor transitions.
• Key Features:
  • Keyframe Editor: A dedicated editor for adding, editing, and sequencing keyframes on a timeline.
  • Multi-Target: A single Animator can control multiple "target" elements at once.
  • Control: Animations can be set to loop. You can also choose to animate only position or size.
  • Timing Offsets: Target elements can use individual or randomized start timing offsets.
  • See Element Animator for setup and keyframe editing.

Tickerlink

An invisible element that executes a list of actions at a regular interval (every "tick").

• Use Cases:
  • Periodically checking a server's online status and updating a text element.
  • Creating a countdown timer that updates a text label.
  • Running a script repeatedly to create custom behaviors.
• Key Features:
  • Timing Control: You can set the delay between ticks in milliseconds.
  • Tick Modes: Can be set to tick continuously, only once per game session, or once every time the menu is loaded.
  • Asynchronous: Can run its actions separately, although some actions cannot run while this option is enabled.

Audiolink

An invisible element that plays audio files. It can manage a playlist of tracks and offers various playback controls.

• Use Cases:
  • Adding custom background music to a menu.
  • Creating a music player with buttons to control playback (next/previous track, volume).
  • Playing ambient soundscapes.
• Key Features:
  • Playlist: Can manage multiple audio tracks.
  • Playback Modes: Can play tracks in order or shuffle them (with support for track weighting to make some tracks more common than others).
  • Control: Supports looping, volume adjustment, and sound-channel selection. See Menu Background Music.

Music Controllerlink

An invisible element used to control Minecraft's default music playback within a specific menu.

• Use Cases:
  • Disabling the default menu music on a screen where you want to play your own custom music via an Audio element.
  • Stopping in-world music from continuing to play when a menu is opened in-game.
• Key Features:
  • Separate toggles to control vanilla "Menu Music" and "World Music."

Progress Barlink

A customizable bar that visually represents a numerical value.

• Use Cases:
  • A loading bar that tracks world loading progress using {"placeholder":"world_load_progress"}.
  • Visual health, hunger, or experience bars for an in-game HUD.
  • A volume indicator that is controlled by a Slider element.
• Key Features:
  • Dynamic Value: The progress value (0-100 or 0.0-1.0) is set via a text field that supports placeholders.
  • Appearance: The bar's direction (up, down, left, right), colors, textures and nine-slicing for bar/background textures are all customizable.
  • Animation: Features a smooth filling animation to make progress changes look less jarring.
  • Progress-Based Element Anchor: When another element uses the progress bar as its Element anchor, enable Use Progress for Element Anchor to move that anchor to the current edge of the filled area. Anchored elements then travel with the bar's progress instead of staying attached to the progress bar's static bounds.

Draggerlink

An invisible element that the user can click and drag to move around. Other elements can be anchored to it to create movable widgets.

• Use Cases:
  • Creating a draggable clock or information panel.
  • Allowing users to customize the position of UI elements to their preference.
• Key Features:
  • Optional Persistence: Enable Save User Drag Offset to keep the user's dragged position across screen openings and game restarts. Disable it to reset the offset.
  • Anchor Point: Acts as a movable anchor for other elements, which is a key part of Positioning Elements.

Cursorlink

An invisible element that replaces the default system cursor with a custom image when a layout is active.

• Use Cases:
  • Creating a fully themed UI that matches your modpack's aesthetic.
• Key Features:
  • Custom Texture: Use any image for your cursor.
  • Hotspot: Sets the exact image pixel used as the click point. See Custom Cursor.