DeluxeMenus GUI background with Nexo or Oraxen

How a glyph becomes a menu background

A chest menu prints its title in the top left corner, and that title can contain characters from the server resource pack. A glyph is such a character, drawn from your PNG. Place a large glyph in the title and the client paints it over the whole chest screen.

Two values position it. A negative shift moves the cursor left before the glyph, so the picture starts at the edge of the chest and not at the title indent. The glyph's ascent moves it vertically until it covers the menu. Slots stay real slots: where the picture shows a button, the menu has an empty slot with material: air that still runs click actions.

If you use ItemsAdder instead, read the ItemsAdder version of this guide. The idea is the same, only the config and placeholder names differ.

What you need

• DeluxeMenus and PlaceholderAPI on your server. DeluxeMenus parses PlaceholderAPI placeholders in menu_title.
• Nexo or Oraxen, which build the resource pack and provide the glyph and shift placeholders.
• For Oraxen: glyphs in inventory titles work natively on Paper 1.21.2 or newer. Older servers need PacketEvents, according to the Oraxen docs.
• A background PNG of at most 256×256 pixels. Bigger textures are not allowed for a single glyph.

Step 1: Design the background

Build the menu in the GUI Maker: choose the rows, a preset or theme, and draw big buttons across several slots. Under export pick Nexo or Oraxen, set a namespace (for example mymenus) and a menu name (for example shop).

The PNG is 256 pixels wide and between 164 pixels (one row) and 254 pixels (six rows) tall. The margin around the chest gives frames room to stick out of the normal menu outline.

Step 2a: Nexo glyph config

Nexo reads glyphs from any YAML file in its glyphs folder. The texture is written as namespace:path, here the PNG at plugins/Nexo/pack/assets/mymenus/textures/gui/shop.png:

gui_shop:
  texture: mymenus:gui/shop
  ascent: 45
  height: 254

• height is the drawn height. Use the real pixel height of the PNG.
• ascent moves the glyph up. Nexo says the height must never be lower than the ascent.
• The placeholders are %nexo_gui_shop% for the glyph and %nexo_shift_<pixels>% for space, which may be negative.

Step 2b: Oraxen glyph config

Oraxen reads glyphs from plugins/Oraxen/glyphs/. Its texture path is relative to pack/textures/, so the PNG goes to plugins/Oraxen/pack/textures/gui/shop.png:

gui_shop:
  texture: gui/shop
  ascent: 45
  height: 254

• Oraxen requires height to be greater than or equal to ascent; Minecraft enforces this.
• The glyph placeholder is %oraxen_gui_shop%. Shifts have two placeholders: %oraxen_shift_<pixels>% moves right, %oraxen_neg_shift_<pixels>% moves left. Each supports up to 2047 pixels.
• A char key exists to pick the character yourself, but it is optional.

Step 3: The DeluxeMenus menu title

The title combines colour, a shift to the left, the glyph, a shift back and the title text. For Nexo:

menu_title: '&f%nexo_shift_-48%%nexo_gui_shop%%nexo_shift_-201%&8Shop'
open_command: 'shop'
register_command: true
size: 54
items:
  button_1_buy:
    material: air
    slots: [10, 11, 19, 20]
    priority: 1
    click_commands:
      - '[openguimenu] shop_buy'

For Oraxen only the title changes, because left shifts have their own placeholder:

menu_title: '&f%oraxen_neg_shift_48%%oraxen_gui_shop%%oraxen_neg_shift_201%&8Shop'

1. &f keeps the picture in its own colours instead of tinting it with the title colour.
2. The first shift moves the cursor 48 pixels left: the GUI Maker counts 8 pixels for the chest title indent plus the 40 pixel margin of its canvas.
3. The second shift brings the cursor back so &8Shop sits on the picture. Its value depends on your picture width; the GUI Maker works it out.

Nexo and Oraxen also have MiniMessage tags such as <glyph:gui_shop> and <shift:-48>. The GUI Maker writes the %…% form, because DeluxeMenus documents PlaceholderAPI placeholders for menu_title.

Step 4: Register the menu and reload

gui_menus:
  shop:
    file: shop.yml

1. Rebuild the pack: /nexo reload (or /nexo reload pack) for Nexo, /oraxen reload all for Oraxen.
2. Run /dm reload and test with /dm open shop.
3. Restart the server once. DeluxeMenus registers /shop from register_command: true only on start.
4. Rejoin so you get the new resource pack.

Common errors and fixes