Lua setup

The Lua plugin API is one file, vmenu.lua. The rest of the API is on Making a plugin. The Lua example is a complete resource to copy.

Getting the file

Every vMenu Enhanced zip on the releases page has a plugin-api folder with vmenu.lua in it. Take the one from the vMenu version your server runs and copy it into your resource. Its first line says which vMenu version it was built for.

Your resource ships its own copy, so it never loads anything from vMenu’s folder, and start order does not matter. Replace the file when you update vMenu.

Manifest

Load it as a shared script, before your own scripts. It gives both halves a global vMenu table.

fx_version 'cerulean'
games { 'gta5' }

shared_script 'vmenu.lua'
client_script 'client.lua'
server_script 'server.lua'

Things specific to Lua

Topic	Detail
Entry points	vMenu.CreatePlugin(name) on the client. vMenu.ServerPluginDeclaration(name) and vMenu.Server.Register(declaration) on the server.
Properties	Things that never change are fields, such as row.Id, submenu.Menu and plugin.RootMenu. Everything else is a pair of Get and Set methods, such as row:GetText() and row:SetText(x).
Options	Optional arguments go in a table with the C# names: menu:AddCheckbox('Music', { Id = 'music', Checked = true, Persist = true, Description = '...' }).
Events	row:OnSelected(fn), menu:OnOpened(fn) and so on. Each returns a function that unsubscribes. A handler that errors is logged and the others still run.
Positions	Counted from 1, everywhere: list indexes, InsertAt, Move and OnIndexChanged.
Text	A plain string is a literal. vMenu.Text.Key('greet', { name = 'world' }) for a translation key.
Gates	vMenu.Gate.Permission and vMenu.Gate.Setting, combined with & and |, or vMenu.Gate.All and vMenu.Gate.Any. A plain string is a permission gate.
Settings	setting:GetValue() reads the convar.
Batches	plugin:Batch(function() ... end)
Inserting rows	menu:InsertAt(3, function() ... end)
Notifications	plugin:Notify('success', text), with info, success, warning or error.
Players	A player action hands your handler { ServerId, Name }.

Waiting for vMenu

plugin:Connect(), plugin:GetText(), plugin:GetTexts(), menu:RequestOpen(), menu:RequestOpenWithPriority() and vMenu.Server.Register() wait for vMenu to answer, so they have to run inside a thread:

CreateThread(function()
    local result = plugin:Connect()
    print(result.Accepted)
end)

Menu event handlers such as OnSelected already run in a thread of their own, so you can call GetText in one directly. If you would rather not wait at all, pass a callback as the last argument and the call returns straight away:

plugin:Connect(function(result)
    print(result.Accepted)
end)

Calling one of these outside a thread without a callback is an error that tells you exactly that.

Requirements

Lua 5.4, which FiveM runs by default. The & and | on gates are Lua 5.4 operators.