This update focuses on performance optimizations, caching improvements, and safer handling of unloaded chunks, ensuring smoother operation and reduced server load.

Highlights

• Caching Enhancements
  • Cached transfer task rate lookups, transferable item checks, and smelt/fuel settings.
    
  • Cached disabled world configs, link distance checks, GUI particle colors, and particle color lookups.
    
  • Cached suction entity buckets, smelter values, hopper filter totals, and experience task nodes.
    
  • Added per-tick link resolution cache for transfer tasks.
    
  • Integrated primitive LongHashSet and long maps for efficient XP orb handling.

• Performance Optimizations
  • Optimized XP orb scanning and bucketing for experience hoppers.
    
  • Limited XP searches to boundary chunks to reduce overhead.
    
  • Batched hopper movement stat updates.
    
  • Avoided hopper holder lookups and simplified inventory detection.
    
  • Used live block states for inventories to improve accuracy.

• Stability & Compatibility
  • Guarded hopper transfers and particle rendering against unloaded chunks.
    
  • Prevented eager chunk loads when resolving containers or handling XP orbs.
    
  • Adjusted chunk loading behavior in transfer tasks.
    
  • Refined hopper activation checks.
    
  • Adjusted internals for Java 8 compatibility.

• User Experience
  • Return to the filter submenu automatically after linking a single item.
    
  • Experience bottles are now returned when breaking hoppers.

This update introduces a major new feature for experience storage and bottling, expands localization support across the entire plugin, and delivers several important stability, performance, and compatibility improvements.

Highlights

• Experience Storage & Bottling
  
  • Hoppers can now store generated XP and convert it into bottles directly from the menu.
  • Supports partial withdrawals, per-XP bottle queues, and localized bottle metadata.
  • Includes updated XP menu lore and handling for legacy servers.
    
• Localization
  
  • Added messages.yml and a new MessageService to make all menus, prompts, and messages configurable and translatable.
  • Covers settings, filters, links, network views, stats, admin/trusted menus, holograms, commands, and more.
    
• Compatibility
  
  • Guarded hologram hook when DecentHolograms is not installed.
  • Runtime particle adapter and legacy-safe item metadata helpers.
  • Graceful handling of NamespacedKey creation on older servers.
  • Support for Minecraft 1.21 shaped recipe categories.
  • Relaxed BentoBox startup gating for smoother integration.
    
• Performance and Stability
  
  • Coalesced async hopper node saves to reduce overhead.
  • Prevented hopper tasks from loading distant chunks unnecessarily.
  • Config reloads before applying power settings.
  • Added migration for shared data directories.
    
• UI Improvements
  
  • New main menu entrypoint for hoppers.
  • Added a back button to the filter browser menu.
  • Moved the search button above simulate.
  • Removed redundant settings button from the filter list menu.
  • Added compatibility icons for experience bottles and other items.
    

Additional Improvements

• Safer fallbacks for GUIs, icons, dyes, panes, and particle effects on legacy servers.
• Refactored sound and particle lookups for cross-version compatibility.
• Multiple small fixes for visual elements and menu consistency.
  

This release adds complete compatibility for Minecraft 1.8 through 1.21, making ImprovedHoppers stable across nearly every version still in use today. The plugin has been backported to run on older Java versions while retaining all modern features.

New in this update

• Added versioned NMS adapters for every Minecraft version from 1.8 to 1.21.
• Backported the codebase to Java 8 for broader server support.
• Introduced compatibility helpers for particles, sounds, GUIs, and materials on legacy servers.
• Added dual-shaded JARs and split plugin descriptors for smooth loading across different versions.
  

Fixes and improvements

• Resolved compatibility issues with particle effects, icons, and menus on older versions.
• Improved handling of missing or legacy APIs with safe fallbacks.
• Fixed multiple small issues with item icons, stats, and comparator behavior on older servers.
  

This update introduces full GUI localization support and a new Message Service system to centralize and configure all in-game messages.

New Features

• messages.yml file added for complete GUI text localization.
  
  
• Message Service implemented to manage all configurable messages.
  

Enhancements
All hopper menus, prompts, and system messages have been routed through the new message service, making them customizable and translatable:

• Hopper settings, filter, fuel link, type change, and link detail menus
  
  
• Network overview, item search, simulation, and stats menus
  
  
• Trusted player management, admin tools, and hologram displays
  
  
• Remote controller, command feedback, and link session messages
  
  
• Place/break messages, unclaim warnings, and smelt unlock/queue alerts
  
  
• Rename prompts, copy filter listeners, and other interactive prompts
  

Fixes & Stability

• Corrected hopper management denial messages.
  
  
• Localized hopper limit warnings.
  
  
• Added safeguards for node saving when the data store is unavailable.
  

Special Thanks
A huge thank you to Gudu666 for suggesting this update!

This update addresses several critical bugs and improves plugin reliability across different setups.

Fixes

• Hopper Filters & Holograms
  
  • Fixed: Filters would not save to specified hoppers when DecentHolograms was not installed.
    
    
  • Fixed: On updating to a newer version, hoppers no longer revert to vanilla named hoppers—they now retain their ImprovedHoppers data.
    
• BentoBox Compatibility
  
  • Fixed: Plugin no longer stalls on servers running BentoBox without AcidIsland.
    
    
  • Improved startup logic to properly handle alternative world names (e.g., bskyblock_world) instead of being locked to acidisland_world.
    
• Configuration Reload
  
  • Fixed: Config watcher now properly reloads updated settings from disk.
    
    
  • Manual edits to config.yml are immediately recognized without requiring /ImprovedHoppers reload.
    

New Features

• GitHub Release Update Checker
  Added a release update checker that integrates directly with GitHub releases. This ensures users are always notified when new versions are available.
  PR: #796 by @JakeHoolz
  
  
• Website Link in Update Notifications
  Update notifications now include a direct link to the project’s website for easier access.
  PR: #799 by @JakeHoolz
  

⚙️ Improvements

• Storage Prioritization
  In average mode, storage links are now prioritized before void, improving consistency in data handling.
  PR: #797 by @JakeHoolz
  
  
• Startup Banner Enhancements
  Update information is now surfaced directly in the startup banner, giving better visibility on version status.
  PR: #800 by @JakeHoolz
  
  
• Improved Release Parsing
  More reliable parsing of release data for update checks.
  PR: #802 by @JakeHoolz
  
  
• API-Based Update Checker Restored
  Reintroduced API-based update checking for stability and accuracy.
  PR: #804 by @JakeHoolz
  

️ Fixes

• Update Checker Patterns
  Fixed issue with single quotes not being escaped in update checker patterns.
  PR: #803 by @JakeHoolz
  
  
• Update Checker Tests
  Rewritten tests to support JSON responses for more robust validation.
  PR: #805 by @JakeHoolz
  

Technical Enhancements

• Scraping GitHub Releases
  Update checker now scrapes GitHub release data in addition to API-based methods, providing redundancy.
  PR: #798 by @JakeHoolz