Added

• Placeholder formatted output regression tests - added unit coverage in EzCountdownPlaceholderExpansionUnitTest to verify %ezcountdown_<name>_formatted% honors display.time-format.hide-leading-zeros for both enabled and disabled configurations.
• Optional countdown start/end sounds - countdowns can now define sounds.start and sounds.end with Bukkit Sound enum names in countdowns.yml.
• GUI sound editors - the in-game editor now includes dedicated actions to configure and validate start/end sounds, including none to disable either sound.

Changed

• Runtime start/end flow - when a configured start/end sound is valid, EzCountdown now plays it to online players at countdown start/end alongside existing message, teleport, firework, and command actions.

Fixed

• JitPack build compatibility - corrected jitpack.yml Java selector to openjdk21 and pinned JitPack install to ./mvnw -B -ntp -DskipTests install so builds consistently use Java 21 when compiling against paper-api 1.21.11.
• GitHub Actions version drift - updated workflow actions to current major versions across CI/release publishing (actions/checkout@v6, actions/setup-java@v5, actions/cache@v5, actions/upload-artifact@v7).
• Paper/Folia smoke test resolution for 26.x - CI smoke jobs now resolve builds from fill.papermc.io/v3 and correctly include MC 26.1 with Java 25 where required.

Changed

• Modrinth release step - replaced the legacy Kir-Antipov/mc-publish action invocation in release workflow with a direct Modrinth v2 API upload path for clearer failure diagnostics and up-to-date version resolution.

Added

• Folia support - the plugin now runs on Folia (marked folia-supported: true in plugin.yml). Folia's GlobalRegionScheduler is used automatically when detected at runtime; Paper/Spigot continue to use the Bukkit scheduler.
• compat/ package hierarchy - clean OOP abstraction layer:
  • compat.platform.PlatformDetector - detects Folia vs. Paper/Spigot at startup via RegionizedServer class presence.
  • compat.scheduler.SchedulerAdapter / TaskHandle - platform-agnostic scheduler interface (runTask, runTaskTimer, runTaskLater, runTaskAsync).
  • compat.scheduler.BukkitSchedulerAdapter - SchedulerAdapter backed by BukkitScheduler (Paper/Spigot).
  • compat.scheduler.FoliaSchedulerAdapter - SchedulerAdapter backed by GlobalRegionScheduler (Folia); only class-loaded when Folia is detected.
  • compat.scheduler.SchedulerAdapterFactory - chooses the correct adapter with graceful fallback if Folia classes are missing.
  • compat.version.ServerVersionUtil - canonical location for runtime Minecraft version detection (replaces util.ServerVersionUtil).
  • compat.material.MaterialCompat - canonical location for cross-version material resolution (replaces util.MaterialCompat).
• Startup platform log - PluginBootstrap now logs the active scheduler adapter class on enable (e.g. Scheduler: BukkitSchedulerAdapter).

Changed

• util.ServerVersionUtil and util.MaterialCompat are now @Deprecated delegation stubs that forward to their canonical compat.* counterparts; they will be removed in a future release.

• All internal scheduler usages (CountdownManager, FireworkShowManager, PatternScheduler, ChatInputListener, all listener.actions.* GUI action classes, SpigotIntegration, SpigotUpdateChecker) now go through SchedulerAdapter instead of Bukkit.getScheduler() / BukkitRunnable directly.

• Scoreboard API modernised - ScoreboardDisplay now delegates to compat.scoreboard.ScoreboardCompat. On Paper 1.20.3+ (Criteria.DUMMY available) the modern registerNewObjective(String, Criteria, Component) overload is used; older builds fall back to the legacy string overload. The deprecated Scoreboard.resetScores(String) calls are replaced by objective unregister/re-register via ScoreboardCompat.resetObjective.

• Title API modernised - TitleDisplay now delegates to compat.title.TitleCompat. On Paper 1.18+ the Adventure Player.showTitle(Title) / Player.clearTitle() APIs are preferred over the deprecated sendTitle(String...) / resetTitle(). TitleValidator now also accepts showTitle as a valid title capability. A Spigot/legacy string fallback is retained.

• Per-player notification targeting - NotificationBuilder.players(Collection<Player>) restricts a notification to specific players. EzCountdownApi.sendNotification(Notification, Collection<Player>) provides an inline alternative without building a Notification first.

• Countdown.isVisibleTo(Player) - centralises per-player visibility logic (permission gate + target-player set) in one method; all display handlers now use it instead of duplicated inline checks.

• CountdownBuilder.targetPlayers(Collection<Player>) - restrict a persistent countdown's display to specific players.

• Developer-friendly exception hierarchy - new com.skyblockexp.ezcountdown.api.exception package:

  • EzCountdownException - base unchecked exception; catch this for all EzCountdown API errors.
  • CountdownNotFoundException - thrown when referencing a countdown name that does not exist; carries getCountdownName().
  • DuplicateCountdownException - thrown when creating a countdown whose name already exists; carries getCountdownName().
  • InvalidConfigurationException - thrown by NotificationBuilder.build() and future builder validators when configuration is invalid; replaces the generic IllegalStateException.

• api-version bumped to 1.18 in plugin.yml; minimum supported Minecraft version is Paper/Spigot 1.18. Dialog display continues to require Paper 1.21.7+.

• Broadened Java compatibility - release JARs now target Java 17 bytecode (previously Java 21), so the plugin runs on Paper 1.18 - 1.20.4 (Java 17) as well as Paper 1.20.5+ (Java 21). The jdk21 Maven profile also targets Java 17 bytecode.

• ServerVersionUtil - new utility class (com.skyblockexp.ezcountdown.util.ServerVersionUtil) for runtime Minecraft version detection; enables future conditional feature gating without hard API dependencies.

• Startup guard - onEnable now logs the detected MC and Java version and disables the plugin with a clear error message if the server is too old (MC < 1.18 or Java < 17).

Changed

• All display handlers (ActionBarDisplay, TitleDisplay, ChatDisplay, BossBarDisplay, ScoreboardDisplay, DialogDisplay) use countdown.isVisibleTo(player) instead of duplicated inline permission checks.
• NotificationBuilder.build() now throws InvalidConfigurationException (a subclass of EzCountdownException) instead of a plain IllegalStateException.
• ScoreboardDisplay catch blocks now include NoSuchMethodError so the scoreboard falls back to chat if the String-criteria registerNewObjective overload is ever removed in a future Paper build.
• Project version bumped from 1.4.3 to 2.0.0.

Fixed

• DURATION countdown resets to full duration on /countdown reload - resumeRunningCountdowns() previously called handler.onStart(), which always sets targetInstant to now + fullDuration, discarding the target_epoch saved in storage. It now calls handler.ensureTarget() instead, which is a no-op when a target is already present. The same guard was added to the legacy fallback path for handler-less countdown types. End-commands that fired once before a reload will no longer fire again unexpectedly due to the countdown silently restarting.

Added

• Configurable time format: new display.time-format section in config.yml.
  • pattern (default "{days}d {hours}h {minutes}m {seconds}s") - customize the token layout used for the {formatted} placeholder and %ezcountdown_<name>_formatted% PAPI expansion.
  • hide-leading-zeros (default true) - when enabled, leading space-delimited segments whose unit value is zero are suppressed. For example, 0d 0h 5m 3s is displayed as 5m 3s.
  • Applies to countdown display messages, discord webhook {time_left}, PlaceholderAPI, and the GUI preview action.
  • Hot-reloads with /countdown reload.

Fixed

• Bossbar color/style ignored - display.bossbar.color and display.bossbar.style in countdowns.yml had no effect; the boss bar always rendered in the default blue/solid style. All four countdown-type handlers (DurationHandler, FixedDateHandler, RecurringHandler, ManualHandler) now read these fields from config and pass them to the Countdown constructor.

Added

• Notification API — EzCountdownApi.sendNotification(Notification) fires a one-shot ephemeral timed display from any plugin without creating a persistent countdown or touching countdowns.yml.
• Notification model — lightweight immutable value object with factory methods Notification.ofSeconds(long), Notification.of(Duration), and a fluent NotificationBuilder (display types, format message, start/end messages).
• NotificationBuilder — fluent builder for Notification; all fields have sensible defaults (ACTION_BAR display, {formatted} message); build() validates duration > 0.
• Ephemeral countdown support — Countdown.isEphemeral() / CountdownBuilder.ephemeral(boolean); ephemeral countdowns are removed from memory automatically when they end and are never written to storage.

• Fixed countdown count in bStats
• Fixed small memory leak issue causing lag on bigger servers

• Bugfix: Duration countdowns were resetting to their full configured duration after a server restart