Solved Issue with ItemMeta

Hello, this is a problem I have had several times when dealing with item metas. When I try creating a simple item stack and editing its meta it doesn't work. It lets me get this far and then won't let me do anything with the variable "meta": http://gyazo.com/67dbef38a02e2bee7b87970c85bb43b9

It simply won't let me do anything with the meta. When I type "meta." nothing pops up as the list of things I can do with it. Does anyone know how to solve this or what is causing this?

 

You need to modify meta inside a method.

 

Wow... I never knew that. I must have always gotten by without knowing that since I mostly use it inside a onCommand method. Thanks @SuperOriginal

 

You can put it inside an initialization block

Code:

ItemStack i = new ItemStack(Material.DIAMOND_SWORD, 1);
 
    {
        ItemMeta iMeta = i.getItemMeta();
        iMeta.setDisplayName(ChatColor.RED + "Special Sword");
        i.setItemMeta(iMeta);
    }

And if you want you can make it static by tagging the itemstack as static and also putting static over the initialization block like so:

Code:

static ItemStack i = new ItemStack(Material.DIAMOND_SWORD, 1);
  
    static
    {
        ItemMeta iMeta = i.getItemMeta();
        iMeta.setDisplayName(ChatColor.RED + "Special Sword");
        i.setItemMeta(iMeta);
    }

 

I did not know of this either thank you both for the tips @Garnetty