I understand it was deliberately left as false to keep with the original behavior of the mod (as per the comments in #2), but I think the commonly expected behavior of a tree-cutting mod is to only work on leaved logs by default.

I went to change the setting immediately after trying to deconstruct a wooden structure.

Sneaking or using the toggle keybind lets you work around this while keeping the setting enabled, but perhaps a better solution might be to implement a third state or separate toggle to enable/disable this functionality specifically.

Hey, thanks for posting here!

I definitely don't like the current setup, where you need to restart the game to change some client-side configs. I think I'll take this opportunity to make an in-game interface to handle client-side options. This will also let the mod inform to users when server settings override certain options, like in #50, rather than leaving players confused about why their settings aren't working.

Sorry for the wait! As of 0.14.0, onlyBreakTreesWithLeaves has been renamed to treesMustHaveLeaves and now defaults to true. I've also added an in-game configuration screen (bound to the n key by default) that lets you change this option without restarting.

It's only for 1.16.3 - 1.16.5 right now, but I'll update the earlier versions eventually