Step three of GregoriusT’s master plan: the Launcher. Let’s get down to business!
Step three-point-one, what are the functions of the Launcher? Basic principle of engineering, gotta know what the function is before you start on the design.
At the very, very least, a launcher should
Launch the game client program
Here are some suggested functions that a launcher program might perform:
Launch the game server program
Configure the game client program to
connect to a remote game server
Configure the server program to
run on a specific port
save to a specific working directory
Load modifications to the game client program
Load modifications to the server program
Update the game client program
Launch mod developer toolkit
File bug reports
Show news/changelog
Browse the forum
Browse an official wiki
Log the user in to a Mechaenetia account
Handle Mechaenetia account services
Integrate with third-party applications like Discord or Twitch or whatever
The ones I left out from your original List are a “Yes, DUH!” ;D
Considering I want this whole thing to be able to run from a USB Stick and Raspberry Pis (never save tons of Data to the SD Card, it will wear out), yes very much.
I would say “just make symlinks to where you want it to be”, but Windows is a thing sooooo…
Very unsure about that one. Sure the Model Editor definitely is planned to be used there, but a whole Dev Toolkit I am not sure about. installing a new Dev Project however so you can use it with IDEA or so is definitely planned though.
Something like that would indeed be nice if it was possible ingame.
Unsure about that one, I would need help integrating something like this.
I plan for that to be doable Ingame, otherwise you should just use a Browser.
I would like to stay independent of Account Systems, I prefer Cryptographic Authentication with SSL, so your Identity is bound to the Cryptographic Keys you generate yourself. That way you can just tell a Server Owner “Hey my Public Key is XXXXXXXXXX can you whitelist me?”, and you then can join just fine using your Private Key.
I went more in-depth on that other Post of yours, but yes that, and you can add more Databases yourself should you desire to.
Matrix for Chat/Voice Clients, and I would rather not touch Discord or Amazon at all.
After using many kinds of Minecraft launchers,I think the launchers can be divided in to two parts:CLI and GUI.
The CLI part should be able to do everything that the launcher need to do by some simple commands.
The GUI part is used to call the CLI launcher,and make the launcher easier to use. It can also have some unofficial function.
It’s not easy to make a highly customizable GUI,but this design can make players design their own interface easier.
Why?
No, seriously, why?
Browsers are made for this. Why would you want yet another browser with all the stuff that can break with implementing one?
And even if you could integrate a Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Whateverfanciesyourpanties browser in the launcher somehow… WHY?
Same as above ^
And official WIKI would (should) most likely be web based, this because re-inventing the wheel is pointless.
Unless you meant something akin to a text manual, in which case maybe… But a wiki is by far superior to any text based manual and (any decent one) is community driven.
Yet again, why?
Are the applications provided by Discord and Twitch not good enough?
For all the above three suggestions, you can just as easily organize windows in such a way that you have all those features side by side if you really need that.
Or you know, you can tab between them.
The only feature in the lines of Twitch/Discord are probably an in game API that can communicate with those platforms on a basic level. Showing messages and such as an overlay and possibly responding to said messages without switching to the respective applications.
mklink exists on Windows 7, 8 and 10. These are for all intents and purposes identical to symlinks.
IMHO, any in-game documentation should be short and sweet. Pretty much like GT does it right now.
However, a keybind/feature that takes you to the respective wiki page for the item/machine in question in the default browser would be neat.
It is probably gonna be more complicated than GUI calling CLI Stuff, but the CLI should definitely be able to do all the major things for sure.
Yeah that might be a nope for me too, though a dedicated News Feed kinda thing should still be doable. Maybe based on RSS.
Ingame Wiki Stuff would probably be able to conjure up a Browser Window with the regular Community Wiki by clicking Links and Stuff.
Ingame Chat will be Matrix/IRC Compatible, so not really a Launcher thing.
As for Discord and Twitch, both of them are utter garbage and I would never work with either of them.
Good luck explaining the End User what Symlinks are though, if they need em. Because that sure as heck is not part of the File Explorer.
GT6 does it really badly right now, there is better ways to display Tooltips (see Factorio when you hover over something in the World) and additional Information about things.
yep, that and just opening the “Context Menu” of sorts and clicking on Open Wiki Article.
Thinking back to a year ago, I was just trying to fill out the post. I was brainstorming. Anything that popped into my head as something that could be done by the launcher, I wrote down.
