Projector

Everything is a screen.

Projector turns any flat block surface in Minecraft into a working display. Walls, floors, ceilings,
stair sides, slab tops, anvil surfaces, workstation faces – if a block has a face, you can put text,
images, video, music, a live clock, a scoreboard or a playable board game on it. No special screen
block required: your existing build becomes the screen.

Runs on both NeoForge 1.21.1 and Fabric 1.21.1 (Java 21). Same mod, same features, same data
format — pick the jar that matches your loader. Client and server both need the mod.

Why it feels different

Any surface, not just full blocks. Partial shapes such as stairs, slabs and anvils work; widgets
are laid out on a canvas measured in 1/16-block units, so a widget edge can sit inside a single block.
Everything is adjustable, nothing is snap-to-grid. Size, position, rotation, opacity and layer are
continuous sliders with a live preview that uses the same renderer as the world.
A shared screen, not a private HUD. Plane contents live on the server. Everyone standing in front of
the same wall sees the same text, the same video frame, the same song at the same position and the same
chess position.
Built to survive real servers. Content protection, delete protection, per-plane naming, creator
transfer, upload quotas, distance-based syncing and de-duplicated media transfers.

Which file do I need?

Projector ships one build per mod loader. They are the same mod — same features, same widgets, same
plane data format — you only need the one that matches the loader you play.

You play on	Download this file	Also required
NeoForge 1.21.1 (NeoForge 21.1.x)	`projector-<version>-all.jar`	nothing else
Fabric 1.21.1	`projector-fabric-1.21.1-<version>-all.jar`	Fabric Loader 0.16+ and Fabric API

Both are published from the same source tree; the Fabric build lives on the
1.21.1-Fabric branch of the repository.
Never install both jars at once — pick one loader and one file.
Always use the -all jar: it contains the audio decoding libraries the mod needs.
A world can be opened by either loader in single-player; on a server, all players must use the
same loader as the server.

Quick start

Install the mod on the client and on the server (use the -all jar, see Install below).
Look at a wall from up to 48 blocks away and press U.
The plane under your crosshair highlights and is selected. Press Esc to cancel.
Press U again to open the plane dialog: rename it, add widgets, toggle content protection, or
transfer/delete the plane.
Right-click any widget in the world to open its own editor.

Controls

Input	What it does
U (default keybind)	Select the plane you are looking at; press again to open the plane dialog.
Esc	Cancel the current selection.
Right-click a widget	Open that widget’s editor.
Left-click an interactive widget	Play/pause a video or a song, take the item out of a display frame, operate a web page, make a move on a board.
Click a board	Play: select a piece, then a legal destination.
I (default keybind)	Type into a focused web page.
O (default keybind)	Print the media folder paths to chat.

Every keybind can be re-bound in Options > Controls.

Widgets

Widget	What you get
Text	Any size, any angle, any layer. Colours, optional outline, per-line wrapping. Supports Minecraft format codes (`&` for the section sign, `&&` for a literal `&`).
Image	PNG, JPG/JPEG, BMP, GIF, TGA. Uploaded to the server once, de-duplicated by SHA-1, cached on every client that walks past.
Video	MP4, WebM, MKV, MOV, HLS and other formats, decoded by the optional WaterMedia mod. In-world play button and scrub bar, per-plane progress shared by everyone. Also accepts online video links (see External services).
Music	Local audio, or NetEase Cloud Music search by keyword/URL/ID. Playback is server-authoritative, so the whole room hears the same second of the same song. Playlists with order, list-loop, single-loop and shuffle modes arrive in the 27.2.2 series.
Clock	In-game time. Three styles (simple, spelled-out, stacked), optional title text and an optional period label.
Weather	Current weather as icon plus text.
Progress	Two-line percentage widget: a small caption above a large number, with a duration and a reset button.
Timer	Countdown or stopwatch, with control buttons in the world.
Leaderboard	Live readout of a scoreboard objective, refreshed from the server’s scoreboard.
Board games	Five games against the built-in AI: tic-tac-toe, gomoku, xiangqi, go (9×9) and chess. Three difficulty levels.
Web page	Embeds a live web page as a wall surface, using the optional MCEF mod. Windows, macOS and Linux only – see Known limitations.
Display frame	A “flattened” item frame: shows an item sprite with an outline traced from the item’s own texture; items fly in and out as a light orb. Added in the 27.2.2 series.

Animations

Every widget can be driven by a small timeline: an entrance animation, an exit animation and a loop
animation, each with its own delay and duration, plus drag-to-arrange clips.

13 entrance animations, 13 exit animations, 8 loop animations.
Runs on the plane, so all players see the same animation at the same moment.
A full-screen preview mode lets you walk around inside the animation while it plays.

Multiplayer, permissions and safety rails

Role / switch	Effect
Per-plane content protection	Only the creator and admins may add, edit or remove widgets.
Per-plane delete protection	Non-admin players cannot delete the plane. Only a level-4 operator can toggle it.
Plane naming	Names appear on the selection frame, and in the dialog.
Creator transfer	Hand a plane over to any online player.
Level 2+ operators	Count as admins for content protection, unless the server raises the bar.
Level 4 operators	Manage delete protection and permissions.

By default any player may delete any plane that is not delete-protected (that is the expected behaviour
for creative and shared-world servers). Every refusal is written to the server log with the reason, so
nothing fails silently.

Planes are synced by distance: a player receives a plane when they come within range and it is removed
again when they leave, so a large world does not push every plane to everyone.

Install

Install the loader for Minecraft 1.21.1:
- NeoForge 21.1.x → use projector-<version>-all.jar, or
- Fabric Loader 0.16+ → use projector-fabric-1.21.1-<version>-all.jar and also install
  Fabric API (fabric-api, 0.116.x for 1.21.1 or newer).
Drop that -all jar into mods/ on both the client and the server. The -all file contains the
audio decoding libraries the mod needs; the other jar does not.
Start the game. No setup is required.
Optional, only if you want more (install the build that matches your loader):
- WaterMedia – required for video playback.
- WaterMedia Android Bridge – additional requirement on Android launchers (see Known limitations).
- MCEF – required for the web page widget, desktop operating systems only.

Keep exactly one Projector jar in mods/.

Server configuration

A config file is generated at <world>/serverconfig/projector-common.toml. Defaults are sensible; these
are the values most servers end up touching.

Key	Default	Meaning
`planes.maxPlaneBlocks`	1024	Maximum block faces in one plane.
`planes.maxPlaneSpan`	16	Maximum plane edge, in blocks beyond the first (16 allows up to 33×33). `0` = unlimited.
`planes.maxPlanesPerWorld`	512	Plane budget per dimension.
`planes.selectDistance`	48	How far away you can select a plane.
`planes.syncDistance`	512	How far away a plane is synced to a player. `0` = always.
`planes.contentProtectMinLevel`	2	Permission level that bypasses content protection.
`planes.sameBlockOnly`	false	Restrict plane selection to a single block type.
`media.maxImageBytes`	4 MiB	Per-image upload ceiling.
`media.maxVideoBytes`	64 MiB	Per-video upload ceiling.
`media.onlyAdminCanUpload`	false	Restrict uploading to admins.
`media.clientCacheMb`	2048	Client-side media cache size.
`music.hearDistance`	64	How far the music widget can be heard.
`music.maxConcurrent`	1	How many music widgets may play at once.
`render.renderDistance`	128	How far away planes are drawn.
`render.surfaceBias`	0.02	Lift off the block face. Raise it if widgets flicker with shaders.
`render.backfaceSeeThroughRange`	0	How close you must be for a plane to be visible through walls. `0` = never.
`online.maxDownloadMb`	512	Per-file cap for online video downloads.
`online.keepDays`	7	How long downloaded online video is kept.

Compatibility

Minecraft 1.21.1, Java 21, on either NeoForge 21.1.x or Fabric Loader 0.16+.
The Fabric build additionally needs Fabric API.
Both loaders are feature-complete. The two jars are built from the same source tree; the Fabric
build only replaces the loader-specific glue (events, networking, config file, keybinds, mixin hooks).
Configuration file and key names are identical on both: config/projector-common.toml, keys
U / Esc / O / I.
Optional mods must match your loader too. Install the NeoForge build of WaterMedia on NeoForge and
the Fabric build on Fabric; the same goes for the WaterMedia Android Bridge. Mixing them will not load.
Iris and OptiFine-style shaders: supported. Three render switches exist because shader packs treat
brightness differently – avoidFullBrightLight, realLightForWidgets and surfaceBias.
Sodium and other performance mods: no known conflicts.
Android launchers (FCL, PojavLauncher and similar): supported, including touch controls.
Dedicated servers: plane data is server-authoritative, so single-player, LAN and dedicated servers
all behave the same way.

Known limitations

These are deliberate design decisions or hard platform limits, not bugs:

No built-in video decoder. Video needs WaterMedia. On Android you also need the
WaterMedia Android Bridge, otherwise decoding fails – the mod warns you about this at startup.
On Fabric, use the Fabric builds of both (WaterMedia 2.1.x plus its Fabric Android Bridge); the
Android Bridge declares a hard dependency on a WaterMedia version range, so a mismatched pair refuses
to start rather than decoding badly.
The web page widget does not work on Android. MCEF requires a desktop Chromium runtime, so the
widget reports that it is unavailable instead of pretending to play.
One song, one position, for everybody. Music and video progress are shared on purpose: a plane is a
public screen, not a private player.
Board games are intentionally simplified. Chess has no en passant and treats a stalemate as a loss;
go is 9×9 without komi or handicap; gomoku has no forbidden-move rules. Hidden-information games are not
offered, because everyone sees the same screen.
The progress widget uses a font without CJK glyphs, so keep its caption in English, digits or
another Latin script.
Plane contents are pixel-based, not vector-based. Very large text at very small plane sizes will
look chunky, the same as any texture would.

External services

The mod talks to the network only for features you deliberately use, and never sends telemetry:

NetEase Cloud Music public endpoints – search, song details, lyrics and audio links – when you use
the music widget. A cookie can be configured in music.neteaseCookie to raise the range of playable
songs.
Bilibili – when you paste a Bilibili share link into a video widget, the mod resolves the playable
stream or downloads the file, honouring the caps in the online config section.
Nothing else. Images, videos and music files you upload live on your own server.

Version status

27.2.4 is the current release on both loaders: 27.2.4 for NeoForge 1.21.1
(projector-27.2.4-all.jar) and 27.2.4 for Fabric 1.21.1
(projector-fabric-1.21.1-27.2.4-all.jar). Both carry the same feature set.
The Fabric build additionally contains two fixes that also shipped upstream as
27.2.4-snapshot-202/203: WAV audio playback and the video widget getting stuck on its
“cannot play” placeholder. Details are in the changelog.
Fabric line: source and changelog live on the 1.21.1-Fabric branch of the repository.
The main branch is the NeoForge line; the two branches share all gameplay code.
Build numbers (-snapshot-, -pre-, -rc-, -hotfix-) are testing builds published for feedback;
they are not releases.

Credits and third-party notices

This mod started as a personal project and thanks:

Net Music Mod by TartaricAcid and contributors – the music module is derived from it
(MIT). See the links at the bottom.
WaterMedia – optional video backend. Not bundled and not linked: it is used only when installed, via
its publicly documented API.
WaterMedia Android Bridge – optional, Android video decoding. Detected by mod id only; no code from
it is used.
MCEF – optional web renderer used by the web page widget. Not bundled.
Bundled helper libraries: jlayer, mp3spi, tritonus-share (LGPL-2.1), jflac (BSD), javasound-aac
(LGPL-2.1) and night-config (LGPL-3.0). Full notices ship with the mod.
Minecraft, NeoForge, Fabric and their logos are trademarks of their respective owners. This project is not
affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Mojang or Microsoft.

The mod’s own code is licensed under Apache-2.0.

Written with DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and DeepSeek Harness. Inspired by the in-level percentage markers of
Dancing Line and Through The Fog.

AI Disclosure

Parts of this mod were developed with AI-assisted autocomplete and partial code generation. Game design, integration, and testing were still done by the author.

The Projector

介绍