Dialog screens: building real menus without a mod
Datapack dialogs give you a proper window with inputs and buttons. Here is the JSON shape, how a button runs a command, and how it compares to the book-menu hack.
Server menus used to be written books with clickable pages, or a chest GUI faked with item frames. Dialogs replaced both with an actual screen.
What a dialog is
A JSON file in a datapack that describes a window:
data/<namespace>/dialog/welcome.json{
"type": "minecraft:notice",
"title": { "text": "Welcome" },
"body": [{ "type": "minecraft:plain_message",
"contents": { "text": "Pick a class to begin." } }],
"action": { "label": { "text": "Continue" } }
}Then /dialog show @p my_pack:welcome.
The types
| Type | Shape |
|---|---|
notice | text plus one dismiss button |
confirmation | yes / no, each with its own action |
multi_action | a grid of buttons |
server_links | the built-in links list |
dialog_list | a menu that opens other dialogs |
multi_action is the workhorse — it is the class-picker, the shop, the warp list.
Buttons run commands
{ "label": { "text": "Warp to spawn" },
"action": { "type": "minecraft:run_command", "command": "/spawn" } }Like clickEvent in chat, this runs as the clicking player, at their permission level. A button calling an op-only command does nothing for a normal player. The standard workaround is a trigger objective: the button runs /trigger warp set 1 and a ticking function does the privileged part.
Inputs
"inputs": [
{ "type": "minecraft:text", "key": "name", "label": { "text": "Your name" }, "max_length": 16 },
{ "type": "minecraft:boolean", "key": "pvp", "label": { "text": "Enable PvP" } },
{ "type": "minecraft:single_option", "key": "class", "options": [
{ "id": "mage", "display": { "text": "Mage" } },
{ "id": "rogue", "display": { "text": "Rogue" } } ] }
]Values arrive as macro arguments to the function the button calls, so the receiving function is a macro:
$say Welcome $(name), you chose $(class)The $ prefix on the line and $(key) for substitution. That is the whole binding mechanism, and it is what makes dialogs genuinely useful rather than decorative.
Why this beats the book hack
- It is a screen, so it pauses input rather than sitting in chat history.
- Inputs actually exist. A book could only offer links.
- No item required. Nothing to lose, drop or duplicate.
- It closes cleanly and cannot be scrolled back to.
The one thing books still do better is long-form reading — a dialog body is not a good place for three pages of lore.
Waypoint styles
The same tool covers locator-bar waypoints, which are a separate datapack registry controlling the marker colour and sprite shown for a tracked player or position. Useful for team markers where a bossbar would be too intrusive.
Build dialog screens with inputs and buttons, and customise waypoint styles, in the Dialog Input & Waypoint Style Builder.