NEWNEW Data Pack Menu Dialog

Summary

A data pack menu to display installed data packs on the pause screen

Required

For all data packs willing to include an about dialog

Example

Vanilla Tweaks dialog included in the smithed dialog tag describing itself

Warning

This convention is using the ✨ experimental ✨ dialogs from Minecraft 1.21.6. This means single player worlds that open a data pack using this convention will display the experimental warning. Additionally, any changes to loaded dialogs while a world is being played (either during development or users loading new data packs and /reloading) will not reload dialogs instead requiring world / server restarts.

Considering these caveat, you may not want to implement this convention until this feature is stabilized. If you already use experimental features, there's not much change in behavior using this convention.

This convention adds a data pack menu to the #minecraft:pause_screen_additions dialog tag which provides an interface for data packs to describe themselves, link to external resources, and provide sub-menus for configuration or options. The main scope of this convention is to provide a central location for data packs to display their information in a consistent manner, similar to the "Mod Menu" experience found in many modded Minecraft clients.

Packs using this convention will be including a small set of files (akin to the yellow_shulker_box.json file and the Lantern Load convention). This will be available as a library but also can be easily copy pasted into your pack.

Usage

First, you'll need to bundle some files with your data pack. These will be available as a library on Smithed but you can also directly copy these files into your pack. These are just tag definitions alongside the official smithed dialog file that will be used to display the data pack menu.

Then, you'll want to make your own data pack dialog file. This dialog should be placed in the #smithed:data_packs dialog tag like so:

{
  "values": [
    {
      "id": "namespace:about",
      "required": false
    }
  ]
}

Attention

Since the dialogs (loaded via a data pack) use the experimental registry system, if a data pack is added to a running world and a player runs /reload, the world's data packs will break. To avoid this from happening, you must include a "required": false field in the dialog tag entry.

The dialog located at namespace:about can then be designed as you see fit. While the exact contents of this dialog are specific to your pack, it's highly recommended to include something similar to the following:

This dialog above includes the pack's name alongside a short description of the pack, the pack's author and version, and some buttons that link to external websites or other sub-menus (such as for configuration). You can choose what details are important or relevant to your pack (if any at all).

Important

Dialogs can also specify exit actions that occur when using ESC or clicking the Back button. To keep a sense of continuity among dialogs, it's highly recommended to use a specific exit_action that redirects to the main data pack menu dialog. This can be done by specifying the exit_action field in the dialog definition like so:

{
  "exit_action": {
    "action": {
      "type": "show_dialog",
      "dialog": "smithed:data_packs"
    },
    "label": {
      "translate": "gui.back"
    },
    "width": 200
  }
}

Appendix

Root Dialog

data/smithed/dialog/data_packs.json

{
  "type": "minecraft:dialog_list",
  "external_title": {
    "translate": "menu.smithed.data_packs",
    "fallback": "%s...",
    "with": [
      {
        "translate": "selectWorld.dataPacks"
      }
    ]
  },
  "title": {
    "translate": "menu.smithed.data_packs.title",
    "fallback": "%s",
    "with": [
      {
        "translate": "selectWorld.dataPacks"
      }
    ]
  },
  "dialogs": "#smithed:data_packs",
  "exit_action": {
    "label": {
      "translate": "gui.back"
    },
    "width": 200
  }
}

Pause Screen Tag

data/minecraft/tags/dialogs/pause_screen_additions.json

{
  "values": [
    {
      "id": "smithed:data_packs",
      "required": false
    }
  ]
}

Data Packs Tag

data/smithed/tags/dialogs/data_packs.json

{
  "values": [
    {
      "id": "namespace:about",
      "required": false
    }
  ]
}

Example Dialog

data/namespace/dialog/about.json

{
  "type": "minecraft:multi_action",
  "title": "Example Data Pack",
  "body": [
    {
      "type": "minecraft:plain_message",
      "contents": "This is an example description.\nIt can have multiple lines too!",
      "width": 300
    },
    {
      "type": "minecraft:plain_message",
      "contents": {
        "text": "v1.0.0\nBy Author Name",
        "color": "gray"
      },
      "width": 300
    }
  ],
  "actions": [
    {
      "label": "Website",
      "action": {
        "type": "open_url",
        "url": "https://example.com/"
      }
    },
    {
      "label": "Issues",
      "action": {
        "type": "open_url",
        "url": "https://github.com/example/test/issues"
      }
    },
    {
      "label": "Config..",
      "action": {
        "type": "minecraft:run_command",
        "command": "function example:config"
      }
    }
  ],
  "exit_action": {
    "action": {
      "type": "show_dialog",
      "dialog": "smithed:data_packs"
    },
    "label": {
      "translate": "gui.back"
    },
    "width": 200
  }
}