How to display name from nickname plugins

Content

• Tablist
• Nametag
  • Option 1 - Unlimited nametag mode
  • Option 2 - Changing using a nickname plugin
• Tips & Tricks
  • Tip 1 - Nickname prefix
  • Tip 2 - Sorting nicked players with lowest priority

Tablist

This one is easy. The tablist format of players is one text that's split into 3 parts in the plugin for convenience (tabprefix, customtabname, tabsuffix). Using customtabname you can configure name part into any placeholder you want, including one from your nickname plugin. All you need is a working PlaceholderAPI placeholder from your nickname plugin. Example:
groups.yml

_DEFAULT_:
  customtabname: '%essentials_nickname%'

or using in-game command /tab group _DEFAULT_ customtabname %essentials_nickname%.

This example uses %essentials_nickname% placeholder from Essentials. Giving it to _DEFAULT_ group keyword makes it a default value for all groups that do not override this property.

WARNING: Do NOT put nickname placeholder into tabprefix! You will end up with double names!

Nametag

Nametags are more complicated, because they consist of player's username, team prefix and team suffix. There is no intended way to do this. The only way is changing it using a nickname plugin. Some nickname plugins actually change name in game profile, which also changes it in nametag. You will need to find one that offers this and then use it. This is a complicated process with lots of side effects, so TAB does not offer it.

Proper compatibility with plugins that change profile name

If using a nickname plugin that changes player's profile name in order to change it in the name tag, this has lots of side effects. Most notably, it breaks all name-bound features, especially nametags and sorting. For that reason, TAB must detect name change. This is done automatically on Bukkit, BungeeCord and Fabric. This detection is not available on Sponge and Velocity.

In order for TAB to properly detect name change, player UUID must remain the same, otherwise it's a random entry with a random uuid and random name, which TAB isn't able to match with actual players. Make sure your nickname plugin is not changing UUID of players. If UUID changes, plugin won't be able to properly format names even in the tablist, since entries there are bound to UUIDs and by changing it, it will break.
Identifying whether name change detection is working properly or not can be checked by setting debug: true in config and checking console on name change. It should say Processing name change of player <player name> to <new nickname>. If it doesn't, something went wrong, most likely UUID not matching.

Tips & Tricks

Tip 1 - Nickname prefix

By default, Essentials prefixes nicknames of players in chat using ~ symbol for nicked players. We can very easily replicate that with Conditional placeholders. First, create a new condition:

conditions:
  nick:
    conditions:
    - '%essentials_nickname%=%player%'
    yes: "%player%"              # If nickname = player name -> player is not nicked
    no: "~%essentials_nickname%" # If nickname != player name -> player is nicked

Then, use %condition:nick% in your customtabname & customtagname instead of the placeholder directly.

Tip 2 - Sorting nicked players with lowest priority

Let's say your sorting list looks like this:

  sorting-types:
    - "GROUPS:owner,admin,mod,helper,builder,vip,default"
    - "PLACEHOLDER_A_TO_Z:%player%"

Let's also assume that you want every nicked player to be sorted as default. This can be achieved using sorting by placeholder and creating a condition that will return output based on nick status. First, let's create the condition:

conditions:
  group:
    conditions:
    - '%haonick_isNicked%=true'
    yes: "default"
    no: "%group%"

When the condition is met, meaning player is nicked, it will return the group we want nicked players to be sorted as, in this case default. Otherwise, return player's actual group.
The condition check may differ with different nickname plugins. You will need to check documentation of your nickname plugin to see what kind of placeholders it offers and what they return (you can also use /tab parse to see what exactly did a placeholder return).
In this case, we are using placeholder %haonick_isNicked%, which returns true for nicked players.
If using Essentials, the line would look like this: %essentials_nickname%!=%player%, because Essentials is made to return player's actual name when not nicked, meaning when it's not equal, player is nicked.

Finally, use the conditional placeholder in sorting:

  sorting-types:
  - PLACEHOLDER:%condition:group%:owner,admin,mod,helper,builder,vip,default"
  - PLACEHOLDER_A_TO_Z:%player%

This will result in nicked players being sorted as default.
If you want to achieve something more complicated, such as not only sorted as default, but another rank, you will need to dig deeper into your problem, analyzing available placeholders and functions that will help you achieve your result.