ShopGUIPlus, Custom Categories

Why Custom Categories?

ShopGUI+'s default categories cover basic blocks, food, and ores, but they rarely match what your server actually needs. A skyblock server needs categories for island upgrades and spawners. A survival server might want categories for building materials, redstone, potions, and mob drops. Shopguiplus custom categories let you organize your shop exactly the way your players expect to browse it.

This guide assumes you have ShopGUI+ installed and working. If not, follow the ShopGUI+ setup guide first to get the plugin running with Vault.

Creating a New Category File

Each category is a YAML file in plugins/ShopGUIPlus/shops/. Create a new file, for example spawners.yml:

# shops/spawners.yml
spawners:
  name: "&5Spawners"
  icon:
    material: SPAWNER
    enchanted: true
  size: 54
  fillEmpty:
    enabled: true
    item:
      material: BLACK_STAINED_GLASS_PANE
      name: " "
  items:
    1:
      material: SPAWNER
      mob: SKELETON
      buyPrice: 50000
      sellPrice: -1
      slot: 10
      name: "&7Skeleton Spawner"
    2:
      material: SPAWNER
      mob: ZOMBIE
      buyPrice: 35000
      sellPrice: -1
      slot: 11
      name: "&7Zombie Spawner"

The top-level key (spawners) must be unique across all shop files. The name field appears in the main shop menu. The icon is what players see as the category button.

Organizing the Main Menu

After creating your shopguiplus custom categories files, you need to assign them slots in the main shop GUI. Open config.yml and adjust the shop menu layout:

shopMenuSlots:
  blocks: 10
  food: 11
  ores: 12
  spawners: 13
  potions: 14
  redstone: 15
  tools: 16

Slot numbers follow the standard chest GUI layout. Place your most popular categories in the center row where players look first.

Adding Category Permissions

You can lock shopguiplus custom categories behind permissions so that only certain ranks can access them:

spawners:
  name: "&5Spawners"
  permission: shop.spawners
  icon:
    material: SPAWNER

Grant shop.spawners through LuckPerms to the ranks that should see this category. Players without the permission see a locked icon or the category is hidden entirely, depending on your config settings.

Layout Best Practices

Keep these guidelines in mind when designing your shopguiplus custom categories:

• Limit categories to 9 to 12 total. Too many categories overwhelm players and slow browsing.
• Use a 54-slot (6-row) GUI for categories with many items, and 27-slot (3-row) for small categories.
• Group related items together visually. Place all wood types in adjacent slots, all ores in a row.
• Use glass pane fillers in empty slots for a polished look.
• Add lore lines to category icons explaining what is inside: "&7Buy and sell spawners".

Integrating Custom Items

If you use Oraxen or ItemsAdder for custom items, ShopGUI+ supports them natively. In your category file, reference the custom item by its plugin ID:

    3:
      type: ORAXEN
      oraxenId: ruby_sword
      buyPrice: 5000
      sellPrice: 1000
      slot: 12

This means your shopguiplus custom categories can sell things that do not exist in vanilla Minecraft, opening up entirely new shop sections for custom weapons, armor, tools, or decorative items.

Combine categories with dynamic pricing to make your shop responsive to player buying patterns, and use ChestShop alongside ShopGUI+ for player-run shops that complement your admin store.

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