BetterChat

A Minecraft Forge mod for 1.8.9 that completely replaces the default chat with a powerful, customizable, multi-tab chat system.

Features

🗂️ Tabbed Chat Windows

• Create as many chat tabs as you want, each with its own filter settings
• Double-click a tab to rename it
• Right-click a tab to delete it (confirm with a second right-click)
• Drag tabs to reorder them within a window, just like a browser
• Drag tabs out of the window to spawn them as their own independent floating window
• Drag tabs onto another window to merge them back together
• Click [+] to add a new tab at any time

🪟 Multiple Floating Windows

• Each window is independently draggable and resizable
• Windows remember their position and size between sessions
• Tabs can freely move between windows or become their own window
• Lock window position via the settings menu to prevent accidental moves

🔍 Per-Tab Filtering

Every tab has its own independent filter configuration, letting you build a chat layout that only shows what you care about:

• Inclusion keywords — only show messages that contain at least one of these words (comma-separated). Useful for a specific player's name, a server channel prefix, or a keyword like trade
• Exclusion keywords — always hide messages containing these words, even if they pass the inclusion filter. Great for muting spam or specific players
• Include All Messages — bypass all filters and show everything on this tab, useful for a dedicated "Global" tab
• Include Player Messages — show chat from other players (messages in <name> format)
• Include Server Messages — show system/server messages that aren't from players (join/leave messages, announcements, etc.)
• Include Commands — show commands you type (messages starting with /)
• Include Command Responses — show server responses to commands you ran within the last few seconds
• Prefix / Suffix — text automatically added before/after every message you send from this tab. For example, a prefix of [Trade] lets you type naturally while always tagging your messages

Exclusions are checked first, then inclusions. Your own messages always appear on every tab regardless of filters.

📜 Persistent Chat History

• All chat messages are saved to disk and persist across sessions — your full history is always there when you log back in
• History is shared across all tabs — each tab just filters the same global log differently, so no messages are ever lost
• Date separator bars are shown inline whenever the date changes, so you can always tell when a conversation happened
• Chat always jumps back to the latest messages when you open it
• History saving can be toggled off in settings if you prefer a clean slate each session

📅 Smart Day-Based Scroll Bar

• The scroll bar represents only the current day's messages — always a comfortable, usable size no matter how much history you have
• ▲ / ▼ arrows appear on the scroll bar to jump between days
• The date (MM/DD) is shown next to the arrows when browsing older history

🎨 Full Visual Customization

Open the settings panel (⚙ gear icon on any window) to customize:

Colors & Opacity

• 8 individually configurable color slots: tab selection bar, top bar, background, text, timestamps, input bar, and both HUD fade overlay colors
• Each slot has its own fully independent color and opacity setting
• A full HSB color picker per slot — hue ring, saturation/brightness square, live preview swatch, opacity slider, and direct hex code input

Toggles

• Timestamps — shows HH:MM next to each message on the right side
• Unread notification dots — a colored dot marks any tab with unseen messages
• Save chat history — disable if you don't want messages persisted to disk
• Lock position — freezes all windows in place so they can't be accidentally moved or resized
• Reset to defaults — restores all colors and toggles to their original values

Per-Tab Settings (accessible from the Filters page)

• Configure inclusion/exclusion keywords, message type toggles, and prefix/suffix per tab, all from one panel

🔔 Unread Notifications

• A colored dot appears on any tab that received a new message while you weren't looking at it
• Disappears as soon as you switch to that tab

Controls

Installation

1. Install Minecraft Forge 1.8.9
2. Download the latest betterchat-1.0.jar from Releases
3. Drop it into your .minecraft/mods/ folder
4. Launch Minecraft with the Forge profile

Building from Source

Requires JDK 8.

git clone https://github.com/DanielRomanovski/BetterChat.git
cd BetterChat
gradlew build

The compiled jar will be in build/libs/betterchat-1.0.jar.

Compatibility

• Minecraft: 1.8.9
• Forge: 11.15.1.2318
• Side: Client-only — no server installation needed

Config Files

Stored in your Minecraft config/ directory: