TidyMOTD

Full control over your server-list entry — rotating MOTDs, gradients, centering, hover text, icons, maintenance mode.

Every time someone refreshes their server list, TidyMOTD picks the next (or a weighted-random) MOTD — with live placeholders, an optional custom hover tooltip, per-entry icons and more.

Features

• Rotating MOTDs — random (with per-entry weight:) or sequential.
• Two formats, auto-detected per line — classic &-codes or MiniMessage (<gradient:#ffaa00:#ff5500>, <#55ff55> hex, …).
• <center> — start a line with it and TidyMOTD pixel-centers it in the server list, even as {online} changes width.
• Live placeholders — {online} {max} {time} {date} {day} {tps} {random-player} {unique-players}.
• Hover text — replace the player-name tooltip on the player count with your own lines (globally or per entry).
• Player count control — hide the count (???) or show a fake max.
• Version text — custom text where "outdated server" normally appears.
• Icons — put 64×64 .png files in plugins/TidyMOTD/icons/; rotate randomly or pin one per MOTD entry.
• Scheduled entries — between: "2026-12-01 / 2026-12-31" date ranges and daily: "18:00 - 23:00" windows (wraps past midnight).
• Maintenance mode — /tidymotd maintenance on switches to a dedicated MOTD/icon/version text, persists across restarts.

Config

order: random          # or: sequential
motds:
  - lines:
      - "<center>&6&lMy Server &7- &fSurvival"
      - "<center>&7Now with &b{online}&7/&b{max}&7 players!"
  - lines:
      - "<center><gradient:#55ff55:#00aa00>My Server</gradient>"
      - "<center>&aCome build with us!"
    weight: 2                          # shown twice as often (random order)
    icon: summer.png                   # from plugins/TidyMOTD/icons/
    hover:
      - "&6Welcome!"
      - "&evote.myserver.net"
    between: "2026-06-01 / 2026-08-31" # only in this date range
    daily: "18:00 - 23:00"             # only in this daily window

The default config.yml documents every section (hover, player-count, version-text, icons, maintenance, formats). Old 1.0.x configs are migrated automatically (a backup is kept as config.yml.bak).

Note on version text: Minecraft only renders custom version text when the client's protocol doesn't match, so always-show: true forces a mismatch — the client then shows a crossed-out ping icon, but players can still join normally.

Install

Drop the jar in plugins/, restart, edit plugins/TidyMOTD/config.yml, run /tidymotd reload. Requires Paper 1.21.x / 26.x (matching jar).

Commands & permissions

tidymotd.admin includes tidymotd.reload.

Safe by design

Owns exactly one thing: what the server list shows. If your MOTD list is empty it steps aside and the server default shows. Thread-safe by construction — pings arrive off the main thread, so live data ({tps}, {random-player}) comes from a periodic main-thread snapshot and everything the ping handler reads is immutable. Only network activity: one startup update check (Modrinth public API) + anonymous bStats stats.