DS-Ads 9.0

Released: May 6, 2026

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⚠️ BREAKING CHANGE — Complete Rewrite

Version 9.0 is a ground-up rewrite. Configuration files from previous versions are not compatible. Delete your old Settings.yml and let the plugin generate a fresh one on first startup.

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✅ What's New

• Tri-Platform Architecture — Three independent JARs: spigot, bungee and velocity. Use whichever fits your network setup.
• MiniMessage Format — All messages use the Adventure MiniMessage standard: gradients, hex colors, bold, italic and more, out of the box.
• Four Ad Types Per Announcement — Each ad can independently enable Chat, BossBar, ActionBar and Title, all in one pass.
• Welcome Ad — A dedicated first-join announcement system with its own Chat, BossBar, ActionBar and Title blocks, fully independent from the ad cycle.
• Sound Support (Spigot) — Each Chat ad on Spigot can play a configurable sound to the receiver.
• Server / World Filtering — Target ads to specific worlds (Spigot) or specific backend servers (BungeeCord / Velocity). Leave the list empty to broadcast to everyone.
• Permission Filtering — Optionally gate any ad behind a permission node. Players without it are silently skipped.
• Random Ad Cycle — The scheduler picks one ad at random every Cooldown seconds instead of cycling in order, keeping ads feeling fresh.
• Center Tag in Chat — Wrap any chat line in <center>...</center> to automatically pad it to the middle of the chat window.
• Debug Mode — Set Plugin-Configuration.Debug: true to enable magenta [DEBUG] log lines in the console.
• Granular Permissions — ads.send, ads.manage and ads.reload let you control access to each subcommand independently.
• Outdated Config Detection — If Config-Version doesn't match the plugin version, a clear warning is printed so you know a migration is needed.

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🔧 Improvements

• Rewritten /ads command with reload, enable, disable and send <ad> <player|*> subcommands.
• BossBar lifecycle fully managed: timers, player disconnect cleanup and proxy phase-safety (no more CONFIGURATION phase crashes on 1.20.2+).
• Startup banner with version, platform and author info on every boot.
• Built-in update checker notifies ops when a new version is available.

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📋 Update Instructions

1. Stop your server or proxy completely.
2. Remove the old DS-Ads .jar file.
3. Place the new platform-specific .jar (spigot, bungee or velocity).
4. Delete your old Settings.yml — it is not compatible with 9.0.
5. Start your server and configure the freshly generated Settings.yml.

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⚙️ Requirements

Platform	Version
Java	17 or newer
Spigot / Paper	1.18.2 +
BungeeCord	1.21 build
Velocity	3.3.0 +