Bukkit

OPT-IN

Towny is opted-in by setting ‘Settings.Towny’ in ‘config.yml’ to ‘true’. Regardless of this setting, Postal recognizes both WorldGuard, and Towny if they are installed and will honor the right to build when using the /accept command to receive a shipment. Permission node ‘postal.accept.bypass’ allows this behavior to be bypassed.

Automatic

Postal with Towny opted-in works smoothly and can be, for the most part, ignored since Postal defers to Towny definitions in Towny towns. Postal also follows Towny changes and updates itself automatically.

Dynmap

Postal addresses and post offices in Towny towns have Dynmap labels reflecting their Towny connection. Information complementing what is already available in Dynmap is included.

Multi-Permission

Postal recognizes Towny towns when its post office is in one and defers to Towny hierarchy. When outside Towny towns Postal functions normally. Both permission systems may be freely mixed and matched. Mayors and assistants ranked as ‘postal’, I will call staff, are the built in Postal administrators in a Towny town and are ops as far as Postal is concerned. This is true only for their town.

Addressing

Postal's addressing system is composed of two parts; [PostOffice] and [Address]. Outside of Towny the first part, the post office, often marks a town, complete with structured addresses, visible on Dynmap. Inside of a Towny town, depending on the size of the town, the post office name signifies a part of the town. Postal is designed to make addressing letters and shipments very easy by completing complicated names with just a few characters.

The addressing mechanism knows where the player is when addressing correspondence. If the player is in a Towny town, the addressing mechanisms favor a format showing Towny towns as parents of any post offices in the town. Towny address, inside the town, or other Towny towns are the most prominent and convenient.

Postal uses its generic methods outside of Towny towns. The two piece address will get mail anywhere. Mail can be sent from Towny to Towny, and from Towny to outside post offices (and vice versa).

Server Admins

Ops and Postal permission nodes work the same inside or outside of Towny towns. Making it convenient for a Bukkit admin to set up post offices and addresses without having to comply with Towny permissions and hierarchy. Postal always follows up to derive appropriate Towny player names and permissions to remain synchronized with Towny.

Perm-Granularity

An assistant to the mayor may be given administrator privileges to a single post office by ranking him/her with the name of the post office. So, the rank of 'postal' grants admin privileges for all the post offices in a Towny town, while the rank of the post office name is the admin for that particular post office.

Synchronized

Only the mayor or staff can create new post offices. Yes that is plural. Towns, as they grow, need to add post offices. It is the ‘/setlocal’ command that formally registers the mayor as the administrator of that post office. The mayor assigns his/her own postal staff by ranking assistants as ‘postal’ However, the postman verifies and automatically updates addresses each visit, and the postmaster does the same for the post offices each visit. Changes of town leadership or plot ownership automatically ripple through the Postal databases as well as the names posted on the front of mailboxes and post office chests.

Growth

The Postal services available to the mayor and staff are kept proportional to the size of the town. One post office is allocated for every 96 town blocks. One address is allowed for every 8 town blocks. This means a town reaching 97 blocks in size is eligible for a second post office. Postal routes are enforced to start at the post office and end at the address. It only needs to be laid out one way since the postman uses the same waypoints to return to the post office. The route waypoint count may be capped to match the type of server and terrain present. The numbers used here are the defaults and reflect a reasonable starting point. They may be adjusted in the configuration file ‘config.yml’.

Mayor and Staff

The other administrative duty reserved for the mayor and staff is the creation of new addresses using the ‘/setaddr’ command. Both route design and maintenance may done by a plot owner. Un-owned plots with mailboxes simply revert to ‘Server’ and may be maintained by the mayor and staff. Mayor and staff also have access to the '/distr' command so that they may distribute information to their community as well as other communities.

Plot Owners

The plot owner may define his/her own route from the post office to the address using ‘/setroute’. The first time the command is used the player/owner must be standing on his/her property so Postal can verify ownership. Subsequent edits to the route do not require this. The last waypoint on the route must be on the player's owned plot, and of course, near the mailbox. The mailbox must be on the owned plot as well. Towny permissions are geographically oriented, a nice compliment to all the other security available going by plugin and player.

Residents

Towny residents have access to all the service oriented commands like' /addr' and '/package' so that they may use and enjoy the mail and shipping services. Most of the service commands are set to 'true' in the 'plugin.yml' file contained in Postal jar file which makes them easy to access, but not as secure as some admins might like. A Towny based server now has the option of turning the permissions on for these commands to limit them only to Towny residents.

Notes

There is a backdoor method to /accept shipments using '/postal accept' for those having conflicts with questioner.jar responses. Use ShellReact or something similar to remap it to whatever command name you want.