This is a plugin that lets you read and write books. There are other similar plugins available, but this one is a bit different. This plugin lets you read and write to the actual book items, rather than just affecting bookshelf blocks. The books' text will actually be stored with the book item. In order for this to work, I have made it so books are not stackable.
Minecraft Built-In Written Books
Since Minecraft version 1.3, written books have been built into the game. They have a nice GUI and work well enough for most players and servers. This plugin was created long before that. It is still available and maintained mostly for those servers who still want to keep their old books intact, and for a few who prefer this version over the official books.
I will most likely continue to support this plugin as long as there are those who still use it, but I will not be adding any new features. Any new releases will simply be bug fix updates.
If you are looking for a plugin that enhances the functionality of Minecraft's built-in books, there are many plugins available. Here is just a small selection:
- SwissBook - Adds several features, such as editing already written books and creating a server manual
- BookShelf - Allows placing books in bookshelves
- BookRules - Create a rule book
- BookShop - Allows players to publish and sell their books
Links
Installation and Configuration
Simply copy the jar file into your plugins folder and run your server. Optionally, you can also install the Spout plugin. Adding Spout will allow SpoutCraft users to see book titles on the book tooltip and read books in a GUI instead of in the chat area. Spout is not required for this plugin to work.
View the Configuration page for information about the various options in the config.yml file. View the Permissions page to see the permission nodes this plugin has available.
Usage Statistics
This plugin uses a system to keep track of its usage statistics. This is the same system used by other plugins such as LWC and Vault. Every half hour it "calls home" and reports some basic usage information, like how many players are online, how many pages have been read, and how many lines have been written. You can see the graphs here:
http://metrics.griefcraft.com/plugin/BookWorm
If you would like to opt out, you can do so by setting the enable-usage-stat-collection option to false in the config file.
Usage
This plugin uses the /bookworm command, but it has the /bw and /write commands as aliases. The in-game help is designed to be, well, helpful. Using the command without any arguments will give you context-sensitive help.
To start writing a book, you hold a book in your hand and type /write <title>. You can then use /write <text> to add text to your book. If chat mode is enabled, you can also just chat without using the command to write into the book, as long as you're holding the book. You can use a double-colon :: to create a paragraph. As you write, the plugin will break your text into pages for you.
You can place a book in a bookshelf by left-clicking on the bookshelf with your book in hand. You can get a copy of a book from a bookshelf with left-click, and you can remove a book from a bookshelf with shift-left-click.
When creating a copy of a book, by default the plugin creates a "fake" copy. Any changes made to the original will also show up in the copy, and any changes made to the copy will show up in the original. This includes adding new text, changing the title, erasing text, or any other modification. You can change this behavior by setting the make-real-copy option in the configuration file to true. If you choose to do this, you should be aware that each copy will then take up hard drive space, and "book space". There is a current limit of about 32,000 books.
You can read a book by holding it and right-clicking the air. You can read a book in a bookshelf by right-clicking the bookshelf.
There are some special commands available while writing a book.
- /write -help : shows this list of commands
- /write -chat : toggle chat write mode
- /write -read <page> : read the specified page
- /write -author <author: sets the displayed author (this is just the displayed author, the real author will stay the same)
- /write -title <new title> : change a book's title
- /write -undo : Undo your last write action. Only has one level of undo. Things that can be undone: written text, replacements, erasings.
- /write -erase <text> : erases the specified text from the book
- /write -replace <old text> -> <new text> : replaces text
- /write -eraseall : erases all text from the book
- /write -get <id> : gets the book with the given id
- /write -id : gets the id of the currently held book
- /write -delete <id> : completely deletes the book with the specified id
Videos
My original (somewhat outdated) tutorial video:
A review by zSistine:
Recent Changes
You can view the full change log here.