BlocksTimer - Plugin FREE

About
BlocksTimer turns ordinary block placement into a timed mechanic. When a player in Survival places a block that you have listed in the configuration, a countdown starts on that exact block. A clean Text Display floats in the center of the block and shows the remaining time in real time. When the timer reaches zero the display is removed and the block is replaced with air, so the placement was never permanent to begin with.

This is the kind of tool that fits practice servers, bridge and bedfight arenas, build fights, events, parkour checkpoints, and any minigame where a block should exist only for a few seconds. You decide which materials are timed and how long each one lasts, so cobwebs can stay longer than dirt, stone can disappear faster than planks, and a custom kit can behave exactly the way your gamemode needs.

Nothing extra has to be installed. There are no required plugins, no economy hooks, and no database. Drop the jar in your plugins folder, restart, and start adding block names to the config.


How it works
Only Survival placements start a timer. Creative, Spectator, and Adventure are ignored so staff can still build maps without triggering countdowns. If a player breaks the block before the timer ends, the countdown is cancelled and the hologram is cleaned up immediately instead of being left behind.

Each timed block is tracked on its own. Different materials can run different durations at the same time, and several timers can exist in the world without colliding. When the plugin is disabled, every active timer is cancelled, every leftover display is removed, and every still-timed block is cleared so a reload or restart does not leave ghost text or uncleared blocks in the map.

The timer display can show tenths of a second for a precise look, or whole seconds if you prefer a lighter and more optimized format. The text is rendered with MiniMessage, so you can use hex colors, gradients, and bold styling instead of old color codes alone.


Display and colors
The hologram is a native Text Display entity, not an armor stand farm. You can choose the billboard mode so the text always faces the player, enable or disable the drop shadow, make the text see-through walls, hide the default background, and scale the display with width and height. The format string uses the {timer} placeholder, which is replaced with the remaining time on every tick.

If you want the number itself to change color as time runs out, enable countdown colors. You set three thresholds and three colors: a high range, a mid range, and a low range. Classic green, yellow, and red work well, but hex colors are supported too. When this mode is on, keep the main display option enabled so the hologram can still spawn.


Commands and permissions
There is a single staff command. /blockstimer reload reloads the configuration so you can add blocks, change durations, or tweak the hologram without restarting the server. The same command is also available as /bt and /btimer.

The permission node is blockstimer.reload. It is granted to operators by default. Players without that permission receive a denial message and cannot reload the plugin.


Configuration
Open plugins/BlocksTimer/config.yml after the first start. Under blocks add vanilla material names with a duration in seconds. Only materials listed there will start a timer when placed. Under display you control the hologram look and the timer number format. Under countdown-colors you optionally switch the text color based on remaining time.


timer-format accepts milliseconds for one decimal place, or seconds for a whole number that is cheaper to update. Billboard accepts the vanilla Text Display billboard values such as CENTER.


Requirements
BlocksTimer is built against Paper 1.20 and uses modern Text Display entities together with MiniMessage. Run it on Paper 1.20 or a Paper-based fork such as Purpur, with Java 17 or newer. No other plugins are required.