Developers please help new guy!

Ok, so I wanted to get started making a plugin- for my first one, a MOTD that says "Welcome (playername) to our server" by default. Later on, I'll try some harder stuff, but for now while I'm learning I want to try this.

I would need to know:
1. What to download- a text editor, obviously, but what one? And will I need anything else?
2. What classes I can extend/edit (or whatever bukkit calls them- classes or something else). A list would be handy.
3. A little tutorial on making a MOTD plugin, and on using other essential parts of plugin creation.

An answer in WRITING would be appreciated; I don't want videos please.
Please help me live my dream!

 

Please someone answer this guy before I freak out with is laziness ^^

 

? What?

 

1. I would suggest downloading Eclipse and you need to make sure you have the latest JDK.
2. The main class of your plugin should extend the JavaPlugin class and for basic plugins you only extend Listeners in the other classes.
3. Don't have time to make a tut atm. I'll edit the post later today.
LINKS:
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-classic-362/heliossr2
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

 

Oh yeah, forgot- do I need to add java to my PATH for this? And what would I add? PS my jre and jdk are both in program files x86

 

Ziddia, here goes.
Your JDK is probably in x64, and your jre is probably in x32.
However, just ignore jre for now.
The JDK 'should', be added to eclipse by default, if it is not im sure you will be able to figure out how.
After that is all set up you will be able to create new java projects, and edit old ones.
Hopefully MadMonkey Expands on this since im relatively new to making plugins :/

 

Makes sure you have the latest build of craftbukkit or this tutorial might not work.
Tutorial:
1. Open Eclipse and create a new Java Project. NOTE: When you first start Eclipse it will ask you where you want your workspace. Set the location you want your projects to be stored and remember to check the option to always use this workspace.
2. Right click your project in the Package Explorer and click Properties. Go to Java Build Path->Libraries and click Add external JARs... and find the CraftBukkit JAR file. Select the file and click Open, then click OK.
3. Right click src in your newly created project. Select New->Package and a window will pop up. Set the field Name as nation.author.project where nation is your nations web suffix (Example Iceland: is, Denmark: dk), author is your username and project is the project name. The package name IS case sensitive. When done click Finish.
4. Right click the package and click New->Class. Set the name as the same as the project's name. This is your main class. Then create another class with the name <ProjectName>PlayerListener (Example: Project name is MOTD so the class name would be MOTDPlayerListener). This is your plugin's PlayerListener class.
And now the code, you may need to change stuff like the package name and your clss names.
5. The code for your main class:

PHP:

package com.Ziddia.motd; // just an example package name for you
// import everything that you are using in this class from bukkit.
// NOTE: You will need to import more classes in other plugins since they will be more complicated.
import org.bukkit.event.Event;
import org.bukkit.event.Event.Priority;
import org.bukkit.plugin.PluginDescriptionFile;
import org.bukkit.plugin.PluginManager;
import org.bukkit.plugin.java.JavaPlugin;

public class motd extends JavaPlugin{
    public static motd instance;
    private final motdPlayerListener playerListener = new motdPlayerListener();
    // get your plugin's .yml data
    PluginDescriptionFile pdfFile = this.getDescription();
    @Override
    public void onEnable() {
        PluginManager pm = getServer().getPluginManager();
        pm.registerEvent(Event.Type.PLAYER_LOGIN, playerListener, Priority.Normal, this);
        System.out.println( pdfFile.getName() + " version " + pdfFile.getVersion() + " is enabled!");
    }
    @Override
    public void onDisable() {
        System.out.println( pdfFile.getName() + " version " + pdfFile.getVersion() + " is disabled!");
    }

Your listener's code:

PHP:

package com.Ziddia.motd; //as before you may need to change the name.
//import once again...
import org.bukkit.entity.Player;
import org.bukkit.event.player.PlayerListener;
import org.bukkit.event.player.PlayerLoginEvent;
import org.bukkit.event.player.PlayerLoginEvent.Result;

public class motdPlayerListener extends PlayerListener{
    @Override
    public void onPlayerLogin(PlayerLoginEvent event) {
        Player player = event.getPlayer(); //get the player who logged in.
        player.sendMessage("WELCOME TO AN AWESOME SERVER!!!"); //send the player a message
    }
}


6. Right click on your project again and click Create->File and type in "plugin.yml". Then open the file and add:

Code:

name: <name>
main: <entire packagename.mainclass>
version: <version>

If the file was opened in an external editor you need to right-click it and click Refresh.
7. Finally exporting it to a JAR. File->Export and everything is pretty self explanatory. You need to click the box next to your project's name, it will be filled. Then select a location and a name (Example: <server folder>\plugins\motd.jar) to export it to ( I use the plugins folder so I don't have to move the file later, I recommend using it) and click Finish.
8. Testing. Start up your server, make sure your plugin is in the plugins folder.
If you don't understand something in the tutorial or need help with something else just let me know.
-The Mad Monkey

 

Thankyou, I will be trying this out today.

Also: if I was making a plugin which hooks into permissions to give each rank a dfferent MOTD, how would I create a config file for it I've got hooking from nijikokuns post about it, but how do o make a config, that would say like "admin-MOTD" etc.
And how do I make nodes for these then, for permissions?

 

Well, I use this class (it's like pseudo-yaml):

PHP:

public final class TFLSettings {
    private static final Logger log = Logger.getLogger("Minecraft");
    private Properties properties;
    private String fileName;

    public TFLSettings(String fileName) {
        this.fileName = fileName;
        this.properties = new Properties();
        File file = new File(fileName);

        if (file.exists()) {
            load();
        } else {
            save();
        }
    }
 
    public void load() {
        try {
            this.properties.load(new FileInputStream(this.fileName));
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            log.info("[TheForgottenLands] Unable to load " + this.fileName);
        }
    }

    public void save() {
        try {
            this.properties.store(new FileOutputStream(this.fileName), "Minecraft Properties File");
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            log.info("[TheForgottenLands] Unable to save " + this.fileName);
        }
    }
 
    public void removeKey(String key) {
        this.properties.remove(key);
        save();
    }

    public boolean keyExists(String key) {
        return this.properties.containsKey(key);
    }

    public String getString(String key) {
        if (this.properties.containsKey(key)) {
            return this.properties.getProperty(key);
        }

        return "";
    }

    public String getString(String key, String value) {
        if (this.properties.containsKey(key)) {
    return this.properties.getProperty(key);
        }
        setString(key, value);
        return value;
    }

    public void setString(String key, String value) {
        this.properties.setProperty(key, value);
        save();
    }

    public int getInt(String key) {
        if (this.properties.containsKey(key)) {
            return Integer.parseInt(this.properties.getProperty(key));
        }

        return 0;
    }

        public int getInt(String key, int value) {
            if (this.properties.containsKey(key)) {
                return Integer.parseInt(this.properties.getProperty(key));
            }

            setInt(key, value);
            return value;
        }

        public void setInt(String key, int value) {
            this.properties.setProperty(key, String.valueOf(value));
            save();
        }

        public double getDouble(String key) {
            if (this.properties.containsKey(key)) {
                return Double.parseDouble(this.properties.getProperty(key));
            }

            return 0;
        }

        public double getDouble(String key, double value) {
            if (this.properties.containsKey(key)) {
                return Double.parseDouble(this.properties.getProperty(key));
            }

            setDouble(key, value);
            return value;
        }

        public void setDouble(String key, double value) {
            this.properties.setProperty(key, String.valueOf(value));
            save();
        }

        public long getLong(String key) {
            if (this.properties.containsKey(key)) {
                return Long.parseLong(this.properties.getProperty(key));
        }

            return 0;
        }

        public long getLong(String key, long value) {
            if (this.properties.containsKey(key)) {
                return Long.parseLong(this.properties.getProperty(key));
            }

            setLong(key, value);
            return value;
        }

        public void setLong(String key, long value) {
            this.properties.setProperty(key, String.valueOf(value));
            save();
        }

        public boolean getBoolean(String key) {
            if (this.properties.containsKey(key)) {
                return Boolean.parseBoolean(this.properties.getProperty(key));
            }

            return false;
        }

        public boolean getBoolean(String key, boolean value) {
            if (this.properties.containsKey(key)) {
                return Boolean.parseBoolean(this.properties.getProperty(key));
            }

            setBoolean(key, value);
            return value;
        }

        public void setBoolean(String key, boolean value) {
            this.properties.setProperty(key, String.valueOf(value));
            save();
        }
    }

It's simple to use. Just use the getString(<group>).
Sample code how to setup in Main class:

PHP:

TFLSettings configFile;
private void setup(){
    String directory = this.getFile().getParent() +" \\motd";
    (new File(directory)).mkdir();
    configFile = new TFLSettings(directory+\\messages.yml);
}

Call setup() at the end of onEnable(). Then you can find the users group and check what the message for his group is.
I'll demonstrate how the getString above would work in the .yml file:

Code:

Default: "You are in the default group!"
Admins: "You are an admin!"

Now if you would use getString("Default") it would return "You are in the default group!"
I'm not familiar with how permissions work since I use GroupManager.
Hope this helps.

 

I would replace file name with the MOTD.yml, and tflsettings with my plugin name right? Probably wrong but anywa, what bits of your code would need replacing?

 

Yes, call the yml file whatever you want and TFLSettings should be <PluginName>Settings or whatever you want. Also in the Settings class you need to change the text that is put into the log in the save and load methods.

 

Eclipse wont let me use it because apparently my JDK is not installed. Will be fixed by tonight I hope. And once that's done, ultimate MOTD plugin coming on!