Bukkit

There are many permission plugins available to choose from. This is yet another one.

Introduction

The aim of this plugin is to make managing permissions as user-friendly as possible. It has an easy to use in-game menu system for making permission modifications, as well as fairly easy to understand commands. The files it creates are also very user-friendly, as they are not as strict as YAML files. Indentation and whitespace are not a concern.

Features

• Server-wide permissions
• Per-world permissions
• Inherit multiple groups
• Chat prefixes and name colors
• Promote and demote players
• Rename and delete groups
• Complete in-game menu system

Guide

The full guide to this plugin can be found here:

http://nisovin.com/yapp/

What Are Permissions?

If you have never used a permissions plugin before, you may not know exactly how they work or what they are used for. If that is true, then this section is for you. If you are already familiar with other permissions plugins, you can skip this section.

A permissions plugin allows you to have detailed control over what kinds of things your players can do. Each plugin can define certain permission "nodes" that control certain actions from that plugin. A node generally takes the form of pluginname.command or pluginname.feature.something. In order for a player to use that command or feature, they must have the associated permission node. Each plugin should have a list of permission nodes somewhere on its project page or website.

This plugin allows you to assign permission nodes directly to players. It also allows you to set up permission groups. You can then assign permission nodes to groups instead of to the players. Then you can put a player in the groups they belong in, and they will inherit the permissions of the group.

In addition, groups can be members of other groups. So for example, you could have an "admins" group, that inherits (is a member of) the "moderators" group, which inherits the "members" group. If a player is placed in the "admins" group, then they will get those permissions, as well as the "moderators" and "members" permissions.

This plugin also allows you to set up server-wide permissions and world-specific permissions. For example, you could give a certain permission node to a group, but then remove that permission node for that group in a specific world. Or you can ignore server-wide permissions all together and put all permission data in each individual world. How you set it up is your choice.

Installation and Configuration

Simply download the file and drop it into your plugins folder to install. If you are converting from another permissions plugin, there are some conversion commands available.

When you start your server for the first time after installing, a config.txt file will be created in your plugins/YAPP folder. An important thing about this configuration file (and all files this plugin creates) is that they are much more friendly than yml files. It is okay to add extra whitespace, including both tabs and spaces.

The names of the config values are fairly self-explanatory, but a full description can be found in the config section of the plugin guide.

Permissions

This plugin uses several permission nodes. The important ones are:

• yapp.admin - Only those with this permission can use the in-game commands to modify permission settings. Defaults to op-only.
• yapp.build - A player must have this permission to interact with the world. This permission can be disabled in the configuration file. Defaults to false.

There are also permissions for the promote and demote commands, as well as permissions that can control a player's ability to interact with the world. A full list can be found in the permissions section of the plugin guide.

Usage

The methods for modifying permission settings are designed to be very easy to use and easy to remember. There are actually three ways to make changes to the permission system.

• In-Game Menu System
• Regular Commands
• Direct File Editing

Remember when making changes with any of these methods you will need to reload for the changes to take effect. In the menu, the option to reload is in the main menu, option '5' or 'S' or 'R'. The command to reload is /yapp @ or /yapp reload. You can also reload just a specific player's permissions with the command /yapp @ player. Note that this will only reload simple changes, like adding or removing permission nodes or groups directly to the player (if you add or remove permissions to a group, reloading the player will not reload the group changes).

Menu

The main command in this plugin is /yapp. The aliases /perm and /perms are also available. If you use this command on its own without any arguments, it will open a guided menu system. The menu is the easiest way to make simple modifications to permission and group information.

While you are in the menu system, there are a few options that are always available to you.

• < will return you to the previous menu
• ! will return you to the main menu
• ? will tell you your current selection, and will sometimes give help about the current screen
• q or quit will exit the menu

Many of the menu screens will have a list of numbered options with highlighted words. To select an option, you can either type the number, type the highlighted word, or just type the highlighted letter within the word.

Commands

Changing settings with normal commands will require multiple commands in sequence. These commands can be used both in-game (with the yapp.admin permission node) and on the command line. In general, your commands will use the following pattern:

• Select something (a player or group, and world if desired)
• Make changes to the selected object
• Save the settings and reload the permission data

You can look at some examples to help you understand how it works.

There are also commands for promoting and demoting players.

Files

The file storage system for this plugin is designed to be very easy to read and understand. It is whitespace-friendly, meaning you can add extra spaces, tabs, and line breaks without problem. The one disadvantage is that the information is spread into many different files. However, this can also be seen as an advantage, as you don't have to scroll through huge files to find what you're looking for.

For further information, please see the files section of the plugin guide.

Source

The full source can be found on my repository on Google Code:

http://code.google.com/p/nisovin-minecraft-bukkit-plugins/source/browse/trunk/YAPP/

Question and Answers

Why create another permission plugin?

Partly to learn. Partly because I wanted to make a better plugin. And because I just felt like it. Some may hate me for adding yet another permission plugin to the pool, but I personally think I've created something useful.

Does this support Vault?

It should fully support Vault, including any plugins that depend on Vault.

Can I use the '*' node?

Special wildcard nodes are supported, but they have some restrictions. See the wildcard information in the guide.

Why so many files?

Why so few? I know a lot of people prefer to have their permission data crammed into just a couple files, but I personally think it's nice to have it spread out. Digging through a massive file for a specific user or group is just annoying. This way, you can easily see all the files, probably in alphabetical order, and find exactly what you're looking for fairly quickly.