Books without Borders!
Books without Borders!
Ever wanted to export your book to a text file? Ever want to import it back in? Accidentally sign it too soon? If so, Books without Borders has got your back!
Features
- Export written books and book and quills to .txt or .yml files
- Import books from files as written books or unsigned books
- Text files can be any length, and the import process fits the content to the correct page length
- Books can be saved privately, or to a directory visible server wide
- Encrypt books to secure their contents [Courtesy of dorrax]
- Give, encrypt, or decrypt held books with signs
- Give players books via command blocks
- Unsign or copy held books with a simple command
- Give first time players a single book or a set of books when they join
- Configurable option to require certain items or pay via Vault compatible economy to create books via command
- Add lore to any item with a simple command
- Supports adding and saving color to titles, lore, and book contents
Usage
[Video Tutorial courtesy of luigi_vampa]
Just use the simple commands linked below and you'll be on your way. No tricky maneuvers required!
To make books auto-update, make the book's title end with "[U]". For example, "booktitle[U],authorname.txt" or "updatingbook[U].txt".
All book data saves to [Server Plugins Folder]->[Books without Borders]->[Books]
View commands and permissions here.
See examples of Yaml format book editing here.
See examples of sign usage here.
View sample configuration file here.
For general book usage and writing information click here.
For advanced book editing and tips like how to use §r to create line breaks, click here.
Concerning Future Updates
Development for this plugin is currently inactive for the foreseeable future, though I would love to start again if I ever got the chance. If I become aware that this plugin no longer functions with current builds of bukkit and minecraft I will update this page to reflect that.
A sincere thank you to everyone who used and/or gave feedback for this plugin. It was a pleasure while it lasted.
If you enjoy this plugin and want to say thanks, some caffeine is always welcome :D
Check out my other plugins!
Feel free to leave comments and suggestions!
@Torondork
Thank you for your feedback. I really like your idea about having a mode where a blank book is required in order to receive a saved written book.
As for the page import formats, it is something I am always working on improving. In my test runs I hadn't encountered any text below the page line, so if its not too much to ask may you pm a text file that does this to me so I can work on this?
Thanks in advance.
I love the idea behind your plugin, and have long had it downloaded without really using it. But last night I finished my 'public library', and wanted to start creating the books for the players to check out. Unfortunately, even with v1.2, the text files typically ran past the page turn arrows, and about 50% of the time one or more lines below the bottom of the page. Is there anything about the formatting of the line of text in the .TXT file that you can offer with regard to importing pages better? I have tried separating key sections by adding a "-" or "_" or something similar, but that seems to simply push the lines down below the bottom of the paper edge on the screen vs. shifting them to the next page. That's my biggest issue.
On a more minor note: Is there a way to require someone to have a blank book or book and quill in their inventory to generate a book, and also have it remove one such book or book and quill upon creation of the book?
Thanks for listening. -T
@metalhedd
I've just submitted v1.2.1 that fixes the bug that was giving all players the .use permission. Thank you for your time and patience.
@metalhedd
Thank you for letting me know, I'm looking into this now.
In version 1.2 I'm unable to prevent users from using the load command. I've granted no permissions whatsoever, and even tried negating bookswithoutborders.use but players can still load books.
@ZwingGX
I'm sorry to hear you are having issues. From what I can see the lines don't seem to be lost, just moved to another page. That is why the first book is 21 pages, and the second book is 114 pages long. I will however work on improving the export process so that it does not spread your book so far out.
Thank you for your feedback
@AkiraAkiba
Hello, bug report.
i just type /BwB save True
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/78671707/1.JPG
after
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/78671707/2.JPG
type /BwB load 1
lol... lost the Lines..
@Rat_Cat12
Sure, I had been toying with the idea myself, it just didn't have much priority at the time. Thanks for the feedback.
Can you add book copying without having to export and import, that way I don't have to get another plugin to do that.
@daboross
Thank you very much, I hope you like it. Version 1.2 should release very soon, and features much improved text import quality, heavily increased ease of use, among other things. The release after that (1.2.x) will add sign based interactions, and your idea will probably be among them.
Again, thank you for the feed back.
Edit: I apologize for being a bit less active this week on plugin development. Real life has not been very kind to me as of late and I am dealing with some massive hardware failures. I should be back up to speed soon though, and I hope to get a new version of BwB out today, if possible. Thanks again for your patience.
I just read this plugin description, and it seams AWESOME! I am going to install it on my server and If it works I am so thankful! I can finally make a server handbook with rules + commands without spending hours in minecraft doing it! One thing I think you should add is the ability to make a sign that gives a user a book with the text from a file.
@bagheadinc
Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention. I will correct this in the next release. Thank you for your patience.
I am loving the plugin, however I am running into an issue. It seems book titles with spaces in them are unable to be loaded without renaming the file to eliminate the spaces.
For example, I saved a book titled Brewing A to Z, and it saved the file as Brewing A to Z,playername.txt. I tried to use /bwb load Brewing A to Z,playername as well as /bwb load "Brewing A to Z,playername" but it kept saying the filename was incorrect.
I renamed the file to BrewingAtoZ,playername.txt and used /bwb load BrewingAtoZ,playername and the file loaded fine.
@D1G1T4L3CH0
Thanks again for the feedback.
I will give unsign a new permission in the next release, as I agree with what you are saying.
I'm always looking looking to improve the text-import function, and will definitely take what you have said into consideration.
Right now its kind of brute and dumb, but its getting there. Currently a text is imported in one of two ways:
If the text file was created by saving a book in-game, the text file's first line will be "[Book]". This instructs the book constructor that every subsequent line is one page, and that each line should be no longer than 256 characters. [new line and end of line characters count as two characters in books]
If the first line is not "[Book]", then the constructor takes the text and does as best as it currently can to fit the content to pages.
I should have the pages that consist of only newlines/return characters bug fixed by next release, and I am also working with some other peoples' feedback on other aspects of the import process to make it much smoother in the long run.
Thanks for your patience and I hope this helped to make some sense of things.
@AkiraAkiba
Thanks, I'll try to get around to checking it today.
EDIT: Works now. :)
As a suggestion, I would like to separate the unsign command from the save/load to player specific directory commands in the permissions since a player with unsign can use it to get an unlimited number of books. They only need to save an empty book, then load it multiple times and then unsign them. This isn't a big deal since books have limited usefulness in the game, but they are a part of the game and would normally cost the player some leather, paper, and feather.
I wouldn't mind unsign though if it can only be used once per book, but that might not be possible with the plugin, unless the unsigned book retains some unique id from the signed one. But then you could still load the book multiple times... maybe a limit on book loads could resolve that. But admins of course should be able to duplicate books as much as needed. Although that could be done with /give.
Also, could you explain the correct way to format a text file in order to write the book the way you actually want it to display in-game? I've noticed on my server at least, it uses the Unix EOL format to separate lines of text. But I've noticed an issue with this. For example:
Page Title [LF]
This is the second line of text. At the end of each of line is a LF and will be indicated by [LF]. [LF]
The above two lines may end up on the same page, but this line may end up on the next page. [LF]
[LF]
Notice the blank line above?, it sometimes makes a blank page.
The problem is, I would like the pages to appear as I've typed them in the text document. Of course if I type too much, it should go on to the next page. Maybe there should be some unique character that can be put into the document that the plugin will recognize and do something according to it's meaning. Maybe a phrase enclosed in brackets? Like [EOP] for End of Page, or [BLANK] for a blank line that separates paragraphs.
Anyway, those are just suggestions, ideas, and feedback. No complaints, just observations.
@do6star
Its a bug I'm currently fixing. Thank you for your patience.
Edit: Fixed and submitted with version 1.1.2
@AkiraAkiba
Cool! Great to hear that.
Another thing though. How to format the text in the text file. Linebreaks doesnt seem to work. Any suggestions or tricks?
Frustrating...I made a reply to do6star and a pm to dorrax a couple of hours ago but now there is no trace of either.... I will do my best to recreate...
@do6star I'm always glad to hear it helps, thank you.
The auto-update should be doable, and if it isn't, an update command definitely is. I really like the idea and will incorporate it into the next release if I can.
As far as the Images in books, excluding Ascii art, I don't think this is possible and if it is it's far beyond me. I'm fairly confident that this can only be done with maps. Thank you very much for your time and feed back
@dorrax I like this Idea a lot and am willing to work with you on it. Pm me the details at your convenience. Thanks again for your patience.
I want to add encryption to this plugin. I have some java code for doing simple encryption. Players could encrypt a book and pass along a hidden message. I am excited about the plugin and am seriously offering to help in any way I can. I sent a PM, but no reply yet. Sorry about spam, I just like this idea a lot.
Great plugin. Saves us a lot of trouble when editing the server rules we have in a book that each member gets.
However, I have a request though. As we add extra rules or changes of the book. The people with the old book doesn't get to see those. Would it be possible for all copies of this book to automatically update when we reload an updated text file?
Another crazy challenge. Could it include images?? I know thats probably a long shot. But would be awesome!