PronounsAdvanced V2: Major Rework

• Removed old AI Generated picture and description and code blocks! Doing it all manually as I've learned and grown more :)
• Requires Java 25 instead of Java 17.
• Targets Paper 26.3 instead of older 1.21.x versions.
• Split into proper pronouns-api and pronouns-paper Maven modules.
• Replaced plugin.yml with Paper's paper-plugin.yml + bootstrap system.
• Removed Cloud Command Framework.
• Commands now use native Paper Brigadier commands.
• Cleaner player command structure:
  • /pronouns view [player]
  • /pronouns set <preset>
  • /pronouns custom
  • /pronouns mode
  • /pronouns clear
  • /pronouns menu
  • /pronouns admin ...
• /pn remains available as the short alias.
• Removed old extra aliases such as /pnp and /pnpaper.

GUI & Player Experience

• Added a full inventory GUI for managing pronouns.
• GUI supports:
  • Preset selection
  • Multiple pronoun sets
  • Custom pronouns
  • Pronoun ordering
  • Save/cancel
  • Pagination
• GUI changes are staged until Save.
• Closing or cancelling the GUI does not modify the profile.
• GUI detects stale edits and prevents overwriting newer changes.
• Preset GUI supports 27 presets per page with previous/next navigation.
• Added optional Paper Dialog API input for Java players.
• Added private chat-based custom pronoun input.
• Custom pronoun chat input is not broadcast to other players.
• Added optional Floodgate detection.
• Bedrock players automatically use the safe chat-input fallback.
• Native Floodgate forms are not currently implemented.

Pronoun Profile System

• Replaced the old List<PronounSet> model with a proper immutable PronounProfile.
• Added explicit profile modes:
  • SETS
  • ANY
  • ASK_ME
  • NAME_ONLY
  • UNSET
• Any, Ask, and Unset are no longer fake they/them pronoun sets.
• Added entirely new Name Only mode.
• Pronoun sets now explicitly store:
  • Subject
  • Object
  • Possessive determiner
  • Possessive pronoun
  • Reflexive
  • Singular/plural grammatical agreement
  • Display name
  • Stable preset ID
• Replaced the old plural boolean concept with explicit:
  • SINGULAR
  • PLURAL

Presets & Custom Pronouns

• Built-in presets remain:
  • he/him
  • she/her
  • they/them
  • it/its
• Added administrator-defined custom presets through presets.yml.
• Custom presets automatically work with:
  • /pronouns set
  • Tab completion
  • Admin editing
  • GUI preset selection
• Built-in presets cannot be overwritten by custom presets.
• Existing profiles remain valid even if their preset is later removed.
• Added configurable custom-pronoun policy:
  • Maximum sets
  • Maximum field length
  • Unicode allowed/disabled
  • Blocked values
  • Enable/disable custom pronoun creation
• Existing custom profiles remain readable even if custom creation is later disabled.

Parser & Validation

• Completely redesigned the pronoun parser.
• Invalid input now produces structured errors.
• No more silent partial saves.
• If one set in a multi-set input is invalid, the entire input fails.
• Still supports familiar formats:
  • she/her
  • they/them
  • she/they
  • she/her;they/them
  • Five-part custom pronouns
  • :p for plural agreement
  • :s for explicit singular agreement
• Added centralized custom-pronoun validation.
• Rejects:
  • Blank required fields
  • Control characters
  • Invalid delimiters
  • Oversized fields
• Unicode and non-English pronouns remain supported by default.
• Player input is always treated as plain text.

Storage

• SQLite is now the default storage backend.
• Old .properties storage is no longer the recommended production backend.
• SQLite uses a structured relational schema.
• Profiles are no longer stored as one serialized slash/semicolon string.
• SQLite stores:
  • Player UUID
  • Profile mode
  • Revision
  • Ordered pronoun sets
  • Individual grammatical forms
• Added schema versioning.
• Added transactional storage operations.
• Added safe database shutdown.

MySQL / MariaDB

• Completely rebuilt MySQL support.
• Uses modern HikariCP connection pooling.
• Includes the MySQL JDBC driver in the final plugin JAR.
• Added unique random server-instance IDs.
• Removed the old hardcoded pronouns_plugin_instance.
• Added profile revisions.
• Added compare-and-swap conflict protection.
• Two servers can no longer silently overwrite the same profile revision.
• Added revision-safe profile deletion.
• Added deletion tombstones.
• Stale servers cannot delete newer data.
• Stale servers cannot resurrect profiles that were deleted more recently.
• Added transactional cross-server change logging.
• Added asynchronous network synchronization.
• Remote cache changes are applied in sequence order.
• Failed remote refreshes are retried.
• Cross-server polling shuts down cleanly.
• MySQL/MariaDB storage supports offline profiles.

Caching & Concurrency

• Added thread-safe immutable profile caching.
• PlaceholderAPI only reads from memory.
• Older async writes cannot overwrite newer changes.
• Operations for each player are processed in submission order.
• Failed persistence operations do not leave unsaved data in cache.
• Storage conflicts reload the authoritative profile.
• GUI saves use revision checks to avoid overwriting remote/admin changes.

Migration

• Old storage systems are now treated as migration sources instead of permanent production backends.
• Supports migration from:
  • Legacy YAML
  • Legacy .properties
  • Legacy MySQL
  • PersistentDataContainer / PDC
• Added migration dry-run support.
• Migration does not delete or modify the old source data.
• Migration reports:
  • Imported profiles
  • Skipped profiles
  • Invalid profiles
  • Warnings
• Migration is designed to be safe to rerun.
• Existing target profiles are protected from accidental overwrite.
• Old Any, Ask, and Unset values convert into proper V2 profile modes.

Export

• Replaced the old /dump system with:
  • /pronouns admin export
• Exports profiles to structured JSON.
• Works regardless of whether SQLite or MySQL is being used.
• Database credentials are never included.

Commands

• Replaced Cloud commands with native Paper Brigadier commands.
• Player commands:
  • /pronouns view [player]
  • /pronouns set <preset>
  • /pronouns custom [pronouns]
  • /pronouns mode <mode>
  • /pronouns clear
  • /pronouns menu
• Admin commands:
  • /pronouns admin edit <player> ...
  • /pronouns admin export
  • /pronouns admin migrate
  • /pronouns admin reload
  • /pronouns admin debug
• Offline players can be administered by UUID or cached player name.
• Removed the old --player editing system.
• Removed dedicated /list, /version, /update, and /dump workflows where newer systems replace them.

Permissions

• New permission structure includes:
  • pronouns.use
  • pronouns.view
  • pronouns.set
  • pronouns.custom
  • pronouns.mode
  • pronouns.admin
  • pronouns.admin.edit
  • pronouns.admin.export
  • pronouns.admin.migrate
  • pronouns.admin.reload
  • pronouns.admin.debug
• Admin permissions default to OP.
• Normal player permissions default to enabled.
• Existing V1 LuckPerms permissions may need updating.

PlaceholderAPI

• PlaceholderAPI support remains.
• Placeholder resolution is cache-only and never directly queries SQLite/MySQL.
• Added modern placeholders including:
  • %pronouns_display%
  • %pronouns_mode%
  • %pronouns_subjective%
  • %pronouns_objective%
  • %pronouns_possessive%
  • %pronouns_possessive_pronoun%
  • %pronouns_reflexive%
  • %pronouns_be%
  • %pronouns_have%
  • %pronouns_count%
  • %pronouns_set_count%
• Supports modern indexed placeholders:
  • %pronouns_2_subjective%
• Legacy indexed format remains supported:
  • %pronouns_subjective_2%
• Legacy modifiers remain available:
  • capital
  • uppercase
  • lowercase
  • nounset
• Legacy verb/conjugation placeholders remain supported.
• Important change:
  • %pronouns_possessive% now returns her/their
  • %pronouns_possessive_pronoun% returns hers/theirs
• Important change:
  • %pronouns_all% now returns readable display text instead of the full serialized five-part representation.
• Placeholder behavior for ANY, ASK_ME, NAME_ONLY, and UNSET is configurable.

Public Developer API

• Added a dedicated pronouns-api module.
• Added PronounsService.
• API supports:
  • Cached profile reads
  • Async profile loads
  • Async profile saves
  • Async profile clears
• API is registered using Bukkit's ServicesManager.
• Added convenience API access through:
  • PronounsApi.get()
  • PronounsApi.find()
• Storage implementation details are no longer exposed through the public API.
• API models are immutable.

Events

• Added PronounProfileChangeEvent.
• Added PronounProfileChangedEvent.
• Before-change event can be cancelled by another plugin.
• After-change event only fires after a successful storage mutation.
• Profile clears also participate in the change-event system.
• Other plugins can safely react to profile changes without depending on internal storage code.

Configuration

• Replaced pronouns.cfg with:
  • config.yml
  • messages.yml
  • presets.yml
• Added schema versions to configuration files.
• /pronouns admin reload reloads safe runtime settings.
• Storage backend changes require a restart instead of being hot-swapped.
• Invalid reloads keep the previous working configuration.
• Added configuration for:
  • GUI
  • Custom pronouns
  • Dialog API
  • Floodgate detection
  • Metrics
  • Update checker
  • Placeholder fallback behavior
  • MySQL synchronization

Messages

• Most player-facing chat messages are customizable in messages.yml.
• Uses MiniMessage for administrator-created templates.
• Player names and pronoun values are inserted as plain text.
• Player-controlled text cannot inject:
  • Colors
  • Click events
  • Hover events
  • MiniMessage tags
• GUI copy is centralized, although the inventory GUI itself remains English-only.

Security

• Added centralized security rules for player input.
• Protected against MiniMessage injection.
• SQL uses prepared statements.
• Database credentials are never logged.
• Pronoun values are not written to normal plugin logs.
• Migration warnings do not expose raw pronoun values.
• GUI uses custom inventory holders rather than matching titles.
• GUI protects against:
  • Shift-click
  • Number-key swaps
  • Offhand swaps
  • Double-click
  • Dragging
  • Creative clone actions
  • Item drops
• Permissions are checked server-side rather than relying on GUI visibility.
• Exports use internally generated paths to prevent path traversal.

Update Checker

• Update checks are now fully asynchronous.
• Server startup is no longer blocked by HTTP requests.
• Update checker performs actual version comparison.
• Pre-release/version formatting is handled properly.
• Old manual /pronouns update command is no longer needed.

Lifecycle & Shutdown

• Added explicit shutdown handling.
• On shutdown V2:
  • Closes GUI sessions
  • Cancels custom-input sessions
  • Unregisters PlaceholderAPI
  • Unregisters the public API
  • Stops metrics
  • Stops MySQL synchronization
  • Flushes pending writes
  • Closes database pools
  • Stops executors
  • Clears caches
• V1 did not have comparable complete shutdown handling.

Important Upgrade Notes

• Java 25 is required.
• Paper 26.3 is required.
• V1 configuration does not directly carry over to the new YAML configuration structure.
• V1 permission nodes may need updating in LuckPerms.
• V1's developer API has been replaced by the new V2 API.
• Existing V1 data should be imported using the migration commands.
• SQLite is now the recommended/default backend.
• PDC/NBT is migration-only.
• %pronouns_possessive% changed meaning.
• %pronouns_all% changed output format.
• /pronouns get became /pronouns view.
• Raw custom values should use /pronouns custom instead of /pronouns set.
• Editing another player's profile now uses /pronouns admin edit.
• Native Bedrock forms are not implemented; Bedrock uses chat fallback.
• V2 is a major rewrite, not a drop-in patch for V1.