Slate

A configurable and concise inventory GUI framework for Bukkit.

Overview

Slate is a comprehensive GUI menu framework that uses a front-end YAML configuration file backed by code to define functionality.

The API is designed around:

• Separation of appearance and functionality
• Full configurability on the individual servers your plugin runs on
• Rapid building and iteration to save development time
• Writing the least amount of code needed to implement functionality

Features

Configuration Language

These features are natively supported through Slate's YAML-based configuration language:

• Full item meta support
• MiniMessage formatting
• PlaceholderAPI support
• Click actions to execute commands
• Customizing the title and size of the menu
• Full protection of items so they cannot be taken out of menus

API Features

The API is designed to be declarative and hierarchical. Code is structured using lambdas and builders to match the layout of the configuration file. API features include:

• Running code when an item is clicked, including for specific mouse buttons
• Placeholder system for inserting player-dependent data into menus at runtime
• Page system
• Templates for defining multiple instances of a similar item
• Components for reusing pieces of lore across items
• Custom configuration options with automatic updating for user configs

Documentation

Documentation can be found on the wiki (under construction).

Compatibility

Slate requires at least Java 17, and has been tested on Minecraft 1.18 - 1.20. However, older server versions may work if they run Java 17 and 1.14.4 at minimum.

Installation

Release versions of the API are published to the Maven central repository.

Gradle

Kotlin DSL:

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    implementation("dev.aurelium:slate:1.1.5")
}

Groovy DSL:

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'dev.aurelium:slate:1.1.5'
}

Maven

<dependency>
    <groupId>dev.aurelium</groupId>
    <artifactId>slate</artifactId>
    <version>1.1.5</version>
</dependency>

You should use the Gradle Shadow or Maven Shade plugin to include Slate in your plugin jar. It is highly recommended to relocate the API packages to avoid conflict with plugins that may use conflicting Slate versions.

Slate bundles the Adventure and MiniMessage APIs as dependencies. If you are only developing for Paper, which includes Adventure in the server, you can exclude the adventure-platform-bukkit and adventure-text-minimessage modules in the net.kyori package to reduce plugin jar size.

Getting Started

This basic example shows a menu with a single item that closes the menu when clicked.

Create a YAML configuration file for your menu in a sub-folder in your project resources folder, such as menus/my_menu.yml.

size: 3
items:
  close:
    material: barrier
    pos: 0,0
    display_name: <red>Close

Create a Slate instance by passing in your Plugin instance and options. This example assumes you put this in the onEnable of your main class. After getting the instance, use it to build the functionality, generate the config file if missing, and load menus.

Slate slate = new Slate(this, SlateOptions.builder()
        .mainDirectory(new File(this.getDataFolder(), "menus"))
        .build());

slate.buildMenu("my_menu", menu -> {
    menu.item("close", item -> {
        item.onClick(c -> c.player().closeInventory());
    });
});

slate.generateFiles();
slate.loadMenus();

Finally, show the menu to a player where you need to, like in a command:

slate.openMenu(player, "my_menu");

It's recommended to store the Slate instance as a field in your main class so you can access it elsewhere in your plugin through dependency injection. For example:

public class MyPlugin extends JavaPlugin {

    private Slate slate;

    @Override
    public void onEnable() {
        slate = ... // Instantiation shown above
    }

    public Slate getSlate() {
        return slate;
    }
}

Other Examples

Complex examples can be seen in AuraSkills, a popular plugin that uses Slate for all menus.

• Skills menu and its config file
• Stats menu and its config file
• Where menus are registered
• SlateOptions used and custom meta parsers