Intro

Menu gliding is a trick where, by providing an exact sequence of inputs, the map can be tricked into allowing you to move with the settings menu open. The settings menu applies levitation and slowness, so this allows you to glide through the air.

There's a fair bit of complexity to how the settings menu works, but there is one key bit of information. The map will always try to teleport you back to the location that you opened the menu UNLESS it's the first tick that the menu is open. If you're teleporting back to the place you opened the map, that means the map wasn't told to open the menu during that tick. For reference, Minecraft runs with 20 ticks per second.

With most setups, it's possible to hold down a letter on the keyboard such that, after a brief moment, the letter starts getting repeated rapidly. This is called a key repeat rate. You can test the speed of your key repeat rate here: http://stereopsis.com/keyrepeat/

Key repeat rates

Key repeat rates are usually configurable

Windows 10 "Keyboard Properties"

In Windows 10, you can increase the key repeat rate to 30hz through the "Keyboard Properties" dialog (drag the key repeat rate slider all the way to the right.)

Windows 10 "Filter Keys" regedit

It's also possible in Windows 10 to increase the key repeat rate twice as high through Filter Keys/Bounce Keys by modifying the AutoRepeatRate through regedit. Please exercise extreme caution when modifying registry values, you can really mess up your computer if you modify the wrong things. We're not responsible for any damage you do to your computer by messing with the registry. If you do go down this road, you might refer here https://superuser.com/a/1223508 for guidance, and you'll likely want to set the "AutoRepeatRate" to "1" for the fastest rate.

Mechanical Keyboards

Finally, if you have a mechanical keyboard, there's a chance that the keyboard also allows configuration of these key repeat rates. If so, consult your keyboard manual, and you may be able to go even higher than is possible through software alone.

How much does this matter?

You need at least 20hz, but if you want to do the variant where the menu glide is exited (e.g. Alohomora and Wingardium skips) you'll want as high of a repeat rate as you can get. For the Alohomora and Wingardium skips, there should be a noticeable difference in the failure rate when comparing 30hz to 60hz.

Application

Base Trick

To perform the base trick, open the settings menu and start by holding in the direction you want to go (e.g. hold sprint and forward,) then start holding down q. Once you start holding down q, you can't press or release any buttons, or the repetition will end and you'll be teleported back to where you entered the menu.

Performance

You also need to make sure you don't get any lag spikes. Playing on 2 render distance helps with this, as there is less stuff for Minecraft to spend resources on, and lower pressure on the JVM garbage collector. You may also want to look straight downwards or straight upwards so that there is less geometry in your field of view, reducing the amount of work Minecraft does, and thus reducing the chance of a lag spike. Additionally, you may want to tune your JVM GC arguments to improve performance. (e.g. https://aikar.co/2018/07/02/tuning-the-jvm-g1gc-garbage-collector-flags-for-minecraft/) Finally, you'll likely want to be playing with a performance mod. The trick works fine with Optifine, but you may find that Sodium and Phosphor provide better performance.

Sometimes the trick stops working in such a way that pausing and unpausing can fix it, probably the client and server getting out of sync or something.

Deloads

The first type of application is deloads. For these, you'll be menu gliding through the air to get far enough away from enemies to deload them. For this, you only need a high enough repeat rate to press q on every tick, so anything above 20hz should work. You may find it useful to turn on chunk borders and spin around within a single chunk once out of range. By staying within a single chunk, Minecraft doesn't need to load any new chunks or unload any old ones, reducing the chance of a lag spike.

Skips

The second type of application is to exit the glide to perform a skip. Two examples here are to skip Alohomora and to skip the end of Wingardium Leviosa. For these, you'll need to press f at the end of the glide to exit. IMPORTANT: Even though f is being pressed on the last tick, you still need to make sure q is pressed during that tick! Your inputs should be as follows: Tick 1: q Tick 2: q Tick 3: q ... Tick n-1: q Tick n: q, f

If tick n only contains an f press, you'll be teleported back to the place you opened the menu. Because of this, you'll want as high of a key repeat rate as possible. If you're running on 100hz key repeat rate, your inputs will be something like this: Tick 1: q, q, q, q, q Tick 2: q, q, q, q, q Tick 3: q, q, q, q, q ... Tick n-1: q, q, q, q, q Tick n: q, q, f

By having a high key repeat rate, it's more likely that there has already been a q press provided in the current tick when f is pressed. The higher the key repeat rate, the less likely it is to press f before atleast 1 q press is provided for the current tick.

Warp Storage

The third type of application is warp storage. When you open the settings menu, an invisible armour stand is created and teleported to your location. When the menu tries to teleport you back to where you opened it, it's teleporting you to this invisible armour stand. If the settings menu is exited without triggering a teleport, and the invisible armour stand is outside the player's rendered chunks, then the invisible armour stand WON'T be removed. If the settings menu is opened again, and the server still has the previous invisible armour stand loaded, you'll be teleported to the previous armour stand when opening the menu. The easy way to trigger this is to turn the render distance down to 2, glide enough chunks away that the armour stand is unloaded, and use a cutscene trigger to force the menu to close without a teleport. The death cutscene and quest cutscenes work for this, as seen in Expecto Patronum and Apparition respectively. Once the invisible armour stand has been left in the intended location, simply opening the settings menu while within a reasonable distance will perform the warp.

Multiplayer

As mentioned earlier, this trick requires completely stable performance. If you encounter a lag spike then the trick won't work and you'll be teleported back. In the context of multiplayer, lag spikes can come either from your client lagging, or from network instability. The trick is probably possible on multiplayer, but expect for it to be much less consistent than on singleplayer due to networked multiplayer being inherently less stable.