SignEdit for Bukkit is a Bukkit plugin that allows players to edit sign objects by looking at them or clicking on them and typing in a SignEdit command.

• SignEdit for Bukkit
  • Table of Contents
  • Installation
  • Usage
    • Commands
      • Commands from Older Versions
    • Aliases
  • Syntax
    • Formatting Codes
      • Examples
    • Language Tags
      • Examples
    • Selecting Multiple Lines
      • Examples
    • Versioning
      • Examples
  • Permissions
    • Wax/Unwax Permissions
  • Configuration
    • clicking: [auto|false|true]
    • force-locale: [false|true]
    • line-starts-at: [1|0]
    • locale: [en|…]
    • compatibility.sign-ui: [Auto|EditableBook|Native]
    • compatibility.edit-validation: [Standard|Extra|None]
  • Features
    • Features from Older Versions
    • Supported Locales
    • Visual Examples
      • /sign ui
      • /sign 2 Deltik's
      • /sign clear 1
      • /sign set 1,4 ===============
      • /sign set 1,4 &1#&2#&3#&4#&5#&6#&7#&8#&9#&a#&b#&c#&d#&e#&f#
      • /se set 3 &4CONSTRUCTION
      • /se set 1-4 Arts\&Crafts
      • /sign copy
      • /sign <tab>
  • Advanced Customization
    • Theming and Colors
    • Custom Translations
  • Compatibility
    • Version Compatibility Table
    • Backwards Compatibility with Omel's SignEdit v1.3
    • Compatibility with Permission Plugins
    • Minecraft 1.16.1 Sign Editor GUI

1. Download the latest .jar file from the Releases page and upload it to your Bukkit server (Spigot, PaperMC, etc.) plugins/ folder.
2. Restart your Bukkit server.

These commands no longer apply to the latest version of this plugin:

(>= 1.10)

Only ampersands (&) that precede a Minecraft formatting code character turn into section signs (§). If you want to type a literal ampersand, escape it with a backslash like so: \&a

(>= 1.12)

In Minecraft 1.16+, the client supports text in sRGB (standard Red Green Blue – 24-bit color depth, true color, or 16 million colors) by prepending colored text with §x§A§B§C§D§E§F, where A, B, C, D, E, and F are the hexadecimal representation of the color.

This plugin supports three ways to resolve §x§A§B§C§D§E§F-style true color from user input:

• &#ABCDEF – Six-digit form, similar to the representation in HTML/CSS/SVG
• &#ACE – Abbreviated three-digit form, which is equivalent to the six-digit form &#AACCEE
• &x&A&B&C&D&E&F – Expanded form, resembling how true color formatting is stored in Minecraft

Regardless of which form the user inputs, when this plugin converts the raw Minecraft true color formatting to become user-editable, the six-digit form (&#ABCDEF) is returned.

All of these forms can also be escaped by prepending the ampersands with a backslash like so: \&#ABCDEF, \&#ACE, and \&x\&A\&B\&C\&D\&E\&F

The hex digits are case-insensitive, but the Minecraft server may internally convert them to uppercase.

(>= 1.0, < 1.10)

All ampersands (&) are replaced with section signs (§) for Minecraft formatting codes.

It is not possible to type a literal ampersand in versions >= 1.0, < 1.10.

(>= 1.10)

(>= 1.12)

(>= 1.10.2)

Locales are identified by their IETF BCP 47 language tag. For the practical scope of this plugin, only the two-letter language code plus an optional two-letter region code joined by a hyphen (-) are used.

Go to Supported Locales for a list of languages supported by this plugin.

(>= 1.10)

For commands that take a lines argument, the specified lines can be any combination of a comma-delimited list (e.g. 1,3 selects lines 1 and 3) and a hyphenated range (e.g. 1-3 selects lines 1, 2, and 3).

• 1 selects line 1.
• 1-1 selects line 1.
• 1,3 selects lines 1 and 3.
• 1-3 selects lines 1, 2, and 3.
• 1-2,4 selects lines 1, 2, and 4.
• 1,2,4 selects lines 1, 2, and 4.
• 2-3,1,4 selects lines 1, 2, 3, and 4.
• 2,2,2,3,3 selects lines 2 and 3.

This plugin uses semantic versioning. From a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH:

• MAJOR increases when behavior changes that breaks how previous versions worked,
• MINOR increases when new features are added while being compatible with how previous versions worked, and
• PATCH increases when bugs are fixed without breaking how previous versions worked.

In the documentation, version constraints are used to indicate to which versions the piece of documentation applies:

• >= means starting from this version,
• > means after this version,
• <= means up to and including this version,
• < means up to but not including this version,
• = means this version only, and
• ~> means this version and any newer versions after the last point (.).

• >= 1.5 matches version 1.5.0 and higher.
• > 1.4 matches version 1.4.1 and higher.
• <= 1.3.1 matches version 1.3.1, 1.3.0, 1.3, and lower.
• < 1.4 matches any version lower than 1.4.
• = 1.0 matches version 1.0 and 1.0.0.
• ~> 1.4 is the same as >= 1.4, < 2.
• ~> 1.3.0 is the same as >= 1.3.0, < 1.4.
• ~> 2 is the same as >= 2.0.0.
• = 1.0, = 1.1, = 1.2, = 1.3 matches only versions 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and their .0 PATCH versions.

All features of this plugin will be available if the player has the following permission:

signedit.use

(>= 1.8) More refined permissions are available in this format:

signedit.COMMAND.SUBCOMMAND

Examples:

signedit.sign.cancel
signedit.sign.clear
signedit.sign.copy
signedit.sign.cut
signedit.sign.paste
signedit.sign.redo
signedit.sign.set
signedit.sign.status
signedit.sign.ui
signedit.sign.undo
signedit.sign.unwax
signedit.sign.wax
signedit.sign.version

(>= 1.14) On Bukkit 1.20 and newer, signs may be waxed with honeycomb to prevent them from being edited.

To bypass this restriction, grant the signedit.sign.unwax permission. With this permission, not only can the player can use /sign unwax to make signs editable, but also the other /sign edit commands will unwax the sign.

To preserve the wax but still edit the sign, grant the signedit.sign.wax permission as well. An unwaxed sign will remain unwaxed unless /sign wax is explicitly used.

All configuration is in the file plugins/SignEdit/config.yml.

(>= 1.1) The configuration file is created with default values when the plugin is loaded and the file does not yet exist.

(>= 1.5) The configuration file is sanitized when the plugin is loaded and unloaded and rewritten when the plugin is unloaded.

(>= 1.10) During plugin unloading, the configuration file is reloaded before being rewritten.

(>= 1.13) Changes to the configuration file while the plugin is active in a running server are detected and applied at runtime. The server does not need to be restarted for configuration changes to take effect.

(>= 1.1)

(>= 1.7) auto (default): Behave like clicking: true when you are not looking at a sign and behave like clicking: false when you are looking at a sign.

false (default < 1.7): Edit signs by looking at them and then typing a /sign command, which will then instantly edit the sign you are looking at.

true: Edit signs by typing a /sign command and then right-mouse clicking a sign.

(>= 1.10.2)

On Bukkit 1.11.2 or older, this option has no effect, and the plugin behaves as if the option were set to true.

false (default): Does not change the behavior of the locale configuration option.

true: Force every player to use the locale specified in the locale configuration option, regardless of the players' actual locales.

(>= 1.5)

1 (default): Line number 1 corresponds to the top-most line of sign blocks.

0: Line number 0 corresponds to the top-most line of sign blocks.

(>= 1.10.2)

The value of locale is an IETF BCP 47 language tag.

(> 1.10.2) It is the locale used to display text to the player when the player's locale cannot be determined. If the value is not supported or Bukkit is older than version 1.12, English will be used as the fallback locale.

(= 1.10.2) This option has no effect if force-locale is false (due to an implementation bug).

en (default): Set the default/fallback locale to en (English).

…: Set the default/fallback locale to …. Go to Supported Locales for a table of supported languages.

(>= 1.12.2)

Choose which visual sign editor to show for all players that run /sign ui.

Auto (default): Shows the native Minecraft sign editor GUI, except for on a Minecraft 1.16.1 server, which shows the book and quill alternative sign editor GUI instead.

EditableBook: Shows the book and quill alternative sign editor GUI regardless of Minecraft server version. Requires Bukkit 1.13 or newer.

Native: Shows the native Minecraft sign editor GUI regardless of Minecraft server version

(>= 1.12.2)

Decide what events to send to other plugins for sign edit permission validation when a player edits a sign with this plugin.

Standard (default): Only emit SignChangeEvent. This option is the most compliant with the Bukkit API.

Extra: Emit BlockBreakEvent, BlockPlaceEvent, and SignChangeEvent (in that order). The edited sign block will not actually be broken and replaced. This option improves compatibility with permission plugins that don't handle SignChangeEvent correctly, but it may conflict with plugins that expect block-breaking or block-placing behavior. Requires Bukkit 1.13 or newer.

None (not recommended): Bypass all permission validations by not sending any events. All players with access to /sign modification commands will be able to edit all signs on the server. This option matches the behavior of this plugin version < 1.8.

• (>= 1.8) Edit the targeted sign with /sign ui in the native Minecraft sign editor (except for Minecraft 1.16.1).
  • No dependencies!
• (>= 1.10) Change all the lines <lines> of the targeted sign to be <text> with /sign set <lines> [<text>] or /sign <lines> [<text>].
• (>= 1.10) See the sign text before and after in chat.
• Targeting a sign works as follows:
  • In clicking: false mode or in version = 1.0, the sign you are looking at is edited.
  • In clicking: true mode, after running the /sign command, right-click a sign to edit it.
  • (>= 1.7) In clicking: auto mode, the behavior is the same as clicking: false if you are looking at a sign and clicking: true if you are not looking at a sign.
• All editing functions support formatting codes (& turns into §)
  • (>= 1.10) Escape formatting codes with a backslash (e.g. \&C turns into literal &C)
  • (>= 1.12) Since Minecraft 1.16: RGB text color (e.g. &#800000 makes the text maroon)
• (>= 1.10) Tab completion for /sign subcommands
• (>= 1.10) Copy, cut, and paste sign lines with /sign copy, /sign cut, and /sign paste, respectively.
• (>= 1.10) Undo and redo sign changes with /sign undo and /sign redo, respectively.
• (>= 1.13) Other plugins can validate any attempted sign edits as if the player was filling out a new sign. Permission plugins can block the edit, and censorship plugins can modify the inputted text before it is saved.
• (>= 1.10.2) Automatically uses the player's language, if supported.
• (>= 1.11) Fully customizable plugin text theming and localization/translations
• (>= 1.14) Unwax signs with /sign unwax to make them editable again.

These features no longer apply to the latest version of this plugin:

• (< 1.10) Edit the line <line> of the targeted sign to be <text> with /sign set <line> [<text>] or (>= 1.6) /sign <line> [<text>].
• (>= 1.8, < 1.10) Before editing a sign, this plugin checks if the player is allowed to edit the sign by pretending to blank out the sign and seeing if the corresponding SignChangeEvent is cancelled.
• (>= 1.10, < 1.12.2) Players cannot edit signs that they do not have permission to edit. Every attempted edit is validated through a SignChangeEvent and will not succeed if another plugin or policy cancels the SignChangeEvent.
• (~> 1.12.2) Players cannot edit signs that they do not have permission to edit. Every attempted edit is validated through an admin-configurable chain of events and will not succeed if another plugin or policy cancels any of the events.

(>= 1.11)

You can customize the text displayed to the player to say whatever you want and look however you like!

After starting up the plugin, a read-only copy of the theme and translation files will be copied to the plugin's data directory at plugins/SignEdit/locales/originals/.

Your customizations are loaded from plugins/SignEdit/locales/overrides/, which as the folder name suggests, overrides the built-in locale files.

The locale files are standard Java resource bundles.

Important caveat: Your string (text) customizations will not update automatically in newer versions of this plugin. Please see the release notes under:

• the "Added" section for new strings and
• the "Changed" section for modified strings.

If the plugin detects that you are missing a translation key during a message, a warning will be sent to the console:

Please update your SignEdit locale override! It is missing this key: …

and the plugin default translation will be used for the message.

The color scheme can be changed by copying the plugins/SignEdit/locales/originals/Comms.properties file into the plugins/SignEdit/locales/overrides/ folder (keeping the same file name) and then editing the copy's "Theme" section.

These are the possible theme properties and their defaults:

# Theme
reset=§r           # Reset formatting after this to the client default. Not recommended to change
primary=§6         # The primary color of the theme
primaryDark=§7     # The dark variant of the primary color
primaryLight=§e    # The light variant of the primary color
secondary=§f       # The secondary color of the theme
highlightBefore=§4 # The color to highlight the "before" line of a sign change
highlightAfter=§2  # The color to highlight the "after" line of a sign change
strong=§l          # Bold
italic=§o          # Emphasis
strike=§m          # Strikethrough
error=§c           # The error text color

These properties can then be used on any other string by inserting them as {PROPERTY}, where PROPERTY is the name of the property. Example:

you_cannot_use={error}You are not allowed to use {primaryLight}{0}{error}.

You can add support for a custom language by making a new file plugins/SignEdit/locales/overrides/Comms_LANGUAGE.properties, where LANGUAGE is a language tag.

In that new file, add keys from plugins/SignEdit/locales/originals/Comms.properties to translate those strings. Any keys that you do not add and translate will continue to use the configured default locale.

By default, this plugin will use the player's locale if possible. See the Configuration section for how to override the player's locale for all players.

If you have translated the plugin to your language, please help the development of this plugin by submitting your translation as a GitHub issue or a GitHub pull request!

This plugin is a fork of Omel's SignEdit v1.3. Omel's SignEdit v1.3 and older are not compatible with Bukkit 1.12 and newer because a deprecated API method was removed (see related issue in MyPet).

Support for Bukkit 1.8 and lower was dropped in plugin version >= 1.3.1. This is because plugin version >= 1.3.1 compiles with a method signature introduced in Bukkit commit e1f54099, which landed in Bukkit 1.8.3.

Since that change, this plugin strives to be compatible with all versions of Bukkit since Bukkit 1.8.3 by using stable API methods where possible and failing gracefully when a feature is not available.

SignEdit for Bukkit versions ~> 1.5 are backwards-compatible with Omel's SignEdit v1.3, but the following caveats apply:

• (~> 1.5) By default, sign line numbers range from 1 to 4 in this plugin instead of 0 to 3 in the original plugin.

  To restore the original behavior and start line numbers at 0, set line-starts-at: 0 in plugins/SignEdit/config.yml.

• (~> 1.7) By default, clicking mode is activated when the player is not looking at a sign.

  To force clicking mode on at all times, set clicking: true in plugins/SignEdit/config.yml.

  To force clicking mode off at all times, set clicking: false.

• (~> 1.4.0) Sign line numbers range from 1 to 4, whereas they ranged from 0 to 3 in older versions.

  Upgrade to SignEdit for Bukkit version ~> 1.5 to have the possibility of restoring the original line number range.

The original Omel's SignEdit releases are archived here:

Since >= 1.8, other plugins can receive a SignChangeEvent from SignEdit for Bukkit and cancel the event to deny the player from editing a sign through this plugin.

In >= 1.8, < 1.10, this plugin emitted SignChangeEvents with blank lines. This is incompatible with plugins that validate the contents of sign changes (e.g. censorship or "bad word" plugins). In >= 1.10, the new sign contents are sent with the SignChangeEvent, which allows other plugins to validate the text of the sign change.

Some permission plugins that check if a player can break or place a block do not also check if the player can edit signs. It is typically undesirable for a player to be able to edit a sign that they cannot place or break. To improve compatibility with these plugins, SignEdit for Bukkit >= 1.12.2 offers a configuration option to send a BlockBreakEvent and a BlockPlaceEvent before the SignChangeEvent as if the player broke, replaced, and rewrote the targeted sign. The extra events will not reflect the actual condition of the sign block; it will not be broken and replaced―only changed.

In Minecraft 1.16.1, invoking the native sign editor GUI with /sign ui (>= 1.8, < 1.12) will open a blank sign editor without the existing sign contents. This is a regression (bug) in the Minecraft client; there is no way to get the native sign editor to open correctly from the Bukkit 1.16.1 server.

Despite Mojang's refusal to fix the bug, it was fixed in Minecraft 1.16.2.

(>= 1.12.0)

Plugin version = 1.12.0 introduces a clunky workaround that offers a sign editor GUI via a book and quill (AKA writable book):

The workaround is applicable to these Minecraft versions:

When using the workaround, instead of opening the native sign editor after the player runs /sign ui, this plugin places a temporary book and quill in their hand. To open the alternative sign editor, the player must look away from the sign and then right-mouse click. The writable book opens, and the first four lines represent the four lines on the sign. Once the player commits the changed text, the book is removed, the sign is updated, and the item they were originally holding is restored.

As this implementation is a hacky workaround, note these caveats:

• If the Bukkit server crashes or otherwise uncleanly unloads the plugin while the player is using this alternative sign editor GUI, the player will be given the book and quill, and the item originally in their hand will be destroyed.
• If the player is in Creative mode and selects the sign editor item in their inventory, the item will be cloned.

If the caveats are too problematic, you should disable the /sign ui subcommand by revoking the signedit.sign.ui permission.