Chat Formats with Essentials Chat

Chat formatting allows you to control how the chat looks when someone speaks in-game. This is typically used to set group names and change the format to highlight players or groups.

Chat formatting in Paper consists of two parts: the user's nickname or display name and chat messages. EssentialsX, in combination with its plugin

EssentialsX Chat and permission managers like LuckPerms, allows you to modify both.

To avoid conflicts with other plugins, EssentialsX will disable most of its chat formats if you don't install the [EssentialsChat] component with [Essentials]. You can enable display name formatting without EssentialsChat by editing the configuration file, however.

Where to find the configuration

The chat formatting configuration is found in the Essentials configuration file.

You can access this file by going to the "Config Files" tab in your server's control panel.

You can also reach the correct file by following these steps:

1. Go to FTP File Access and log in with your Control Panel password.

2. Click on the "Plugins" folder.

3. Find and click on the EssentialsX folder, and look for the config.yml file.

4. The configuration is located toward the bottom of the file.

There are two ways to define chat formatting, you can define a format style that applies to all groups, or you can give a special format for each group.

Format Examples

Below are format configuration examples as seen in plugins/essentials/config.yml. Here is the section you will need to configure to format in-game chat.

```yaml

# +------------------------------------------------------+ #

# | EssentialsChat | #

# +------------------------------------------------------+ #

# This section requires EssentialsChat.jar to work.

chat:

radius: 0

format: '&9{DISPLAYNAME}: &7{MESSAGE}'

# format: '&7[{GROUP}]&r {DISPLAYNAME}&7:&r {MESSAGE}'

group-formats:

# Default: '{WORLDNAME} {DISPLAYNAME}&7:&r {MESSAGE}'

# Admins: '{WORLDNAME} &c[{GROUP}]&r {DISPLAYNAME}&7:&c {MESSAGE}'

```

There are an infinite number of different combinations for these settings based on your personal preferences. We'll show some format examples so you can experiment and configure the chat to your liking.

Setting the default format

The following line shows how we set the default chat format for all users and groups.

```yaml

format: '&9{DISPLAYNAME}: &7{MESSAGE}'

```

Now you can see our value after `format:` in quotes, for example, "'{WORLDNAME}...'", note that any edits must be made within these quotes, otherwise you might break the chat formatting.

Now, in the value, you can see two basic tags: {DISPLAYNAME} and {MESSAGE}. More tags can be added, like the group a player belongs to. You can find a list of additional tags on the Essentials wiki.

Let's clean up the default value by removing the left and right angle brackets.

```yaml

format: '{DISPLAYNAME}: {MESSAGE}'

```

Now we should set a standard to easily distinguish users' display names, along with any additional tags we'd want to add later. We can do this by creating a simple barrier using a colon

": " to split them.

```yaml

format: '{DISPLAYNAME}: {MESSAGE}'

```

Adding color to the chat

Now we should set some color to further distinguish the separation and add aesthetic appeal. You can find a list of all available color codes on the Essentials wiki, or by running the /kit color command while playing on the server.

To add color or other formatting, like bold or italic text, simply type the format code before your text. For example, if you wanted to use light blue text in the chat or in your format, you would put '&9' before the text. Format codes can be stacked, so you can use both '&9' and '&l' before your text to make it bold and light blue.

```yaml

format: '&9{DISPLAYNAME}: &7{MESSAGE}'

```

That's it, now save your changes and restart the server for them to take effect.

Setting the format by group

In addition to setting a default format for all users and groups, we can also set the format for individual groups. The following line shows an example for the Default and Admin groups. The list is case-sensitive and must match exactly the group name returned by your permissions plugin. We recommend using LuckPerms, as it is very easy to use and learn. To add a new group, simply create a new line within 'group-formats:' and list the new group. In our example, we're going to add a 'Streamer' group.

```yaml

group-formats:

# Default: '{WORLDNAME} {DISPLAYNAME}&7:&r {MESSAGE}'

# Admins: '{WORLDNAME} &c[{GROUP}]&r {DISPLAYNAME}&7:&c {MESSAGE}'

# Streamer: ''

```

Now we need to activate them by removing the "#" from the beginning of the line.

```yaml

group-formats:

Default: '&e{GROUP} &8{DISPLAYNAME}: &7{MESSAGE}'

Admins: '&c{GROUP} &8{DISPLAYNAME}: &7{MESSAGE}'

Streamer: ''

```

Now we can format them similarly to how we formatted the default chat.

```yaml

group-formats:

Default: '&e{GROUP} &8{DISPLAYNAME}: &7{MESSAGE}'

Admins: '&c{GROUP} &8{DISPLAYNAME}: &7{MESSAGE}'

Streamer: '&3{GROUP} &8{DISPLAYNAME}: &7{MESSAGE}'

```

That's it, now save the changes and restart the server for them to take effect. Note that if you have a group format in place, it will take priority over the default chat format.

Common Issues

1. I get the generic chat format in-game after configuration:

This suggests a syntax error in the format. Review the configuration file and run it through a YAML Parser.

2. I get an internal error when using color codes in-game:

This usually means the configuration file can no longer be read by the plugin. The quickest and easiest way to fix this is to delete the configuration file and restart the server. A new one will be generated after the server finishes loading.

3. Adding tags from other plugins like Factions:

The plugin you want to add should provide the tags you need to use when formatting the chat. If you're having trouble finding them, contact the plugin author or a LiveChat agent for additional help.