Add Entity Visibility API

[Janmm14]

Is your feature request related to a problem?

Right now, per-player entities are done mostly with sending packets. This is a hacky and unreliable way and requires either NMS or ProtocolLib usage and is prone to break with minecraft updates.

Describe the solution you'd like.

I'd like Paper to expand upon the Player#hidePlayer and Player#showPlayer methods with new methods Player#showEntity(Entity), Player#hideEntity(Entity) and Player#canSee(Entity) as well as overloading World#spawn methods with a boolean shownByDefault and adding method Entity#setShownByDefault and Entity#isShownByDefault.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

none

Agreements

• I have searched for and ensured there isn't already an open issue regarding this.
• I have ensured the feature I'm requesting isn't already in the latest supported Paper build.

Other

No response

[Malfrador]

#4722 would have done that, but was closed by the author. Imo the event approach that the PR uses seems more useful to me, as that would allow plugins complete control over how and when an entity is hidden and is easier to implement and maintain.

I still really like the idea and if no one else does I would PR it myself, but im not really comfortable with Paperweight yet and currently quite busy with other things, so that might take a while.

[Janmm14]

I didn't found that PR in my search, but it has some flaws:

• Overshot things with disguises (due to metadata etc), thats best left for LibsDisguises
• Missing API like Player#isTracking(Entity)
• No ability to edit tracking without the event.

The possibility of editing tracking only as entity gets into tracking range is looking fairly limited to me.
If used, a plugin would then probably just maintain a Map themself (prone to forgetting to clear on server leave).

I don't see why plugins would want to hide entities spawned by vanilla or other plugins, but those tracking events themself could be added as well if plugins want to listen to changes. (Those events should then trigger with both hide/spawn Player/Entity methods)

[Janmm14]

:/

[Chew]

Please don't needlessly spam or bump issues...

[Janmm14]

I'd like to know if there is anything I can do to speed up those PRs.

[Proximyst]

There's nothing. We take this on our own time, and right now availability and/or motivation seem to be at a low. Nothing anyone can do 🤷🏻‍♀️

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.