A Curious New Device

From the personal journal of Mathias Cowley, esquire...

In a recent adventure in the skeleton-infested forest of Arbormort, I came across a well-hidden cave. Taking out my field journal, I marked the location as near as I could determine it, and jotted down some notes to aid in finding it again the next time. Then I pressed forward into the cave.

Before long I came to a small cavern, near the center of which I discovered an odd thing. It was half-buried in the dust of the cavern floor, and my eye only just caught a glimpse of it as I passed by. I picked it up, dusted it off, and examined it in the dim light of my torch. It was circular, encased in gold, with a glass face, containing a spinner, floating freely in a mysterious clear liquid. As I wandered the cave, I turned it over and over in my hands, searching for some indication of its purpose. Before long, I realized I was lost. I had not been paying attention as I wandered, and I had no idea how to retrace my steps to the entrance of the cave.

I sank to the floor and sat pondering my situation. I took out my field journal looking for some bit of comfort in these dire circumstances. Finally, in frustration I tossed the book to the ground and stood up. It was then I realized I was still holding the curious device and I glared at it, cursing my foolish distraction. I tossed the device to the ground in anger and it came to rest on top of my journal. Then I witnessed a curious thing indeed. The spinner began spinning wildly, and within seconds came to a stop.

My gaze followed the direction of the arrow, and I realized it was pointing directly down the tunnel, back the way I had come. Hastily I picked up my belongings and navigated back down the corridor. I glanced occasionally at the device, and always it pointed straight ahead. Several times I came to crossing tunnels or forks and the device always pointed very clearly down one branch. Before long, I saw daylight ahead, and emerged from the entrance to the tunnel. As I stood on the spot where I originally marked the entrance to the cave in my journal, the device spun lazily in circles.

Breathing a harsh sigh of relief, I looked again with wonder at the object in my hand. Now, this is indeed a curious new device!

Description

Spinach Fieldnotes is a waypointing system for use on role playing servers. Players can save waypoints and attach notes to them. Waypoints can be reviewed with a command, or by spawning a Field Journal (a book that contains all of your waypoints and notes). Waypoints can be bound to your compass, which will then point to the waypoint and give you direction and distance information when right-clicked. You will also get a nice "You have arrived" narration.

Dependency

Make sure you have the Spinach Core plugin.

Installation

Drop the spinachcore and fieldnotes jars into your plugins folder and reload.

Usage

command	arguments	description
/fieldnotes		explain the fieldnotes system
/fn-create	<name>	create a new waypoint at your current location
/fn-list	[page]	display a numbered list of your recorded waypoints
/fn-delete	<entryid>	remove the waypoint and all of its notes
/fn-select	[entryid]	select a waypoint and show all of the notes associated with it
/fn-near		list top 10 waypoints in order of distance from your location
/fn-find	<search string>	search your list of waypoints and notes
/fn-track	<entryid>	tie the waypoint to your compass. Compass can also be right-clicked while holding it to get distance and direction info
/fn-end		cancels tracking of any waypoints
/fn-addnote	<entryid> <note>	adds a note to the specified waypoint
/fn-deletenotes	<entryid>	removes all notes from the specified waypoint
/fn-journal		spawn a book containing your field notes

Have fun!

I'd love to hear how you're using this plugin, and any feature requests will be considered. I've got my own plans for additional features, but your comments and suggestions are welcome. Thanks for taking a look.