Tutorial: Your First Countdown

In this tutorial you will create a fixed-date countdown that counts down to New Year 2027 and displays on the action bar and boss bar.

Time to complete: about 5 minutes.

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Step 1 - Install the plugin

1. Download EzCountdown.jar from GitHub Releases.
2. Place the jar in your server’s plugins/ folder.
3. Start (or restart) the server. You will see a message in the console confirming the plugin loaded.

4. Check that the data folder was created:

   plugins/EzCountdown/
   ├── config.yml
   ├── countdowns.yml
   ├── messages.yml
   └── locations.yml
   

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Step 2 - Create the countdown

In-game (as an operator), run:

/countdown create new_year 2027-01-01 00:00

The countdown is created and starts immediately. You should see a brief action bar message.

Tip: names must be unique and contain no spaces. Use underscores (_) to separate words.

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Step 3 - Check it works

/countdown info new_year

The output shows the type (FIXED_DATE), the target (2027-01-01 00:00), and the running state.

/countdown list

The countdown should appear as running.

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Step 4 - Customise the display

Open plugins/EzCountdown/countdowns.yml in a text editor. You will see an entry similar to:

countdowns:
  new_year:
    type: FIXED_DATE
    target: "2027-01-01 00:00"
    ...

Replace the entry with the following to enable both the action bar and a coloured boss bar, and add custom messages:

countdowns:
  new_year:
    type: FIXED_DATE
    target: "2027-01-01 00:00"
    timezone: "UTC"
    display:
      types:
        - ACTION_BAR
        - BOSS_BAR
      update-interval: 1
      bossbar:
        color: YELLOW
        style: SOLID
    messages:
      format: "<yellow>New Year</yellow> <gray>in</gray> <white>{formatted}</white>"
      start: "<green>New Year countdown started!</green>"
      end: "<gold>Happy New Year!</gold>"
    commands_on_end:
      - "broadcast Happy New Year!"

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Step 5 - Reload

Apply the changes without restarting the server:

/countdown reload

The countdown now shows on the action bar and boss bar with the custom messages.

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Step 6 - Stop and restart

You can pause and resume the countdown at any time:

/countdown stop new_year
/countdown start new_year

Stopping a FIXED_DATE countdown and starting it again will resume the timer from where it left off (the target date does not change).

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Next steps

• Add the countdown to a permission node so only certain players see it.
• Learn how to set up a recurring announcement that fires every few hours.
• Explore display types for scoreboard, title, and dialog displays.