Plugin API Roadmap (Quill)

[caelunshun]

#307 introduces a preliminary draft of Feather's plugin API, quill. This is tracking issue for features needed in the plugin API to achieve the goals laid out in our mid-term roadmap.

Foundational features:

• [x] Plugin state struct
• [x] Access to Copy components from the host
• [x] Mutating Copy components from the host
• [ ] Defining, accessing, and mutating custom components
• [x] Creating and removing entities
• [ ] Access to opaque, non-Copy components from the host
  • [x] Name
  • [ ] Inventory
  • [ ] Window

Features needed for a hub plugin implemented with Quill:

• [x] Support all vanilla entities in Feather: armor stands, mobs
• [x] Particles
• [x] Entities
• [ ] Custom GUIs for server selection
• [x] Sending plugin messages (needed for BungeeCord server transfer)
• [ ] Potion effects
• [ ] Others?

Features needed for minigames implemented with Quill:

• [x] Block access, ideally with bulk operation support ("fill this chunk section with the given block")
• [ ] Custom WorldSources defined in plugins for custom world loading/saving logic
• [ ] Others?

Miscallaneous:

• [ ] Plugin assets - stored in the plugin's tar file?

[oxkitsune]

@caelunshun I'd like to tackle the particle system if that's possible :)

[caelunshun]

I'd like to tackle the particle system if that's possible :)

Sure thing, thanks!

We'll probably want a Particle type in libcraft that defines all possible particles, plus their associated metadata.

The steps for implementing this are:

• Add support for spawning particles in quill. That means a particle_spawn method in the quill-sys crate, plus a method on quill::Game that invokes the raw quill_sys::particle_spawn.
• Implement the particle_spawn host call in Feather. This involves adding the function to crates/plugin-host/src/host_calls.rs.
• Add whatever is needed to send particles to clients.

Let me know if you have any questions, either here or on Discord.

[oxkitsune]

@caelunshun I have a question on the design. Are you planning on making it possible to spawn generic ecs-entities into the ecs system directly through quill.

Or is it going to stay like the way it's done for the minecraft-entity builder is, where we just pass a struct containing all the required data back from the client (the plugin/quill) to the host (feather) and create the ecs-entity there.

[caelunshun]

Are you planning on making it possible to spawn generic ecs-entities into the ecs system directly through quill.

Or is it going to stay like the way it's done for the minecraft-entity builder is, where we just pass a struct containing all the required data back from the client (the plugin/quill) to the host (feather) and create the ecs-entity there.

Spawning raw entities without any default components is probably necessary, yes. The simplest way to do this would be to add a new entity_builder_new_empty function in quill-sys that creates an empty EntityBuilder. (The current entity_builder_new function adds default components to the builder for vanilla entities).

[caelunshun]

Quick summary of recent progress:

• 144f30693aad796b9b3622fe74f2b5375f220819 added block access to plugins.
• 4c78806965b0065dc5a658e50c750a3e59998eb3 added the first bulk block operation.
• #364 added particles.
• #349 added a temporary solution for plugins requiring networking, since WASI is currently moving slowly.

Next up:

• I'm working on custom components right now.
• @amberkowalski is working on window / inventories for custom GUIs.
• @OxKitsune is working on title messages.