FTB Launcher News

[MigukNamja]

My gripes with the Curse launcher:

1. It's a generic Launcher, so we lose the custom-built features of a dedicated MC launcher
2. It's basically adware for Curse. They keep trying to push crap on me I don't want.
3. FTB doesn't control it. Curse does and they can do whatever they want with it. I don't trust Curse.
4. It's buggy.

I couldn't get modded Minecraft to work - at all. It didn't see any MC version beyond 1.5.2 and when I went to load/launch it, it launched an ancient vanilla MC launcher that was pointing to very old Mojang auth servers - I couldn't login. I uninstalled and re-installed several times. I even removed MC (or so I thought) from my system, but that didn't help.

I gave up and used the vanilla MC launcher. It does exactly what it says it does, is slim, is *not* adware, and it works. As for maintaining the modpacks, I'm using @portablejim 's Curse pack updater to keep my Curse pack(s) in sync. Overall, much more straightforward and less annoying than the Curse launcher.

 

[Watchful11]

My gripes with the Curse launcher:

1. It's a generic Launcher, so we lose the custom-built features of a dedicated MC launcher
2. It's basically adware for Curse. They keep trying to push crap on me I don't want.
3. FTB doesn't control it. Curse does and they can do whatever they want with it. I don't trust Curse.
4. It's buggy.

I couldn't get modded Minecraft to work - at all. It didn't see any MC version beyond 1.5.2 and when I went to load/launch it, it launched an ancient vanilla MC launcher that was pointing to very old Mojang auth servers - I couldn't login. I uninstalled and re-installed several times. I even removed MC (or so I thought) from my system, but that didn't help.

I gave up and used the vanilla MC launcher. It does exactly what it says it does, is slim, is *not* adware, and it works. As for maintaining the modpacks, I'm using @portablejim 's Curse pack updater to keep my Curse pack(s) in sync. Overall, much more straightforward and less annoying than the Curse launcher.

Sounds like you're using the old curse client. You want the one from the front page of our site.

 

[MigukNamja]

Sounds like you're using the old curse client. You want the one from the front page of our site.

Wow. I feel stupid. And, you were extremeley helpful. Wish I could "like" your helpful response.

So far, so good. I got the 'Minecraft' button this time and was able to install 'The Pioneers' for 1.8.9 and connect to my server. Much appreciated !

 

[jikuja]

Wow. I feel stupid. And, you were extremeley helpful. Wish I could "like" your helpful response.

So far, so good. I got the 'Minecraft' button this time and was able to install 'The Pioneers' for 1.8.9 and connect to my server. Much appreciated !

Honestly there is no reasons to feel yourself stupid. Curse should take most of the blame. They are are still offering download links to v5 launher when you download mods manually from curse.com.

 

[sealedinterface]

Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. For a long time I've heard that FTB was working towards a new launcher, and it turns out it's the Curse launcher all along. There are a number of reasons I don't like the Curse launcher for Minecraft:

• It's bloated. When you start it up, it goes straight to an array of options that Curse thinks you might want to try playing (including promoted servers), rather than bringing me to a modpack list of what I'm here for. If I want to explore, I'll go do it. Otherwise, just show me what I've been playing recently. In the FTB launcher you start it up, and in less than ten seconds you can click launch to go straight into your last played modpack. In Curse you have to click around a bit.
• It tries too hard to be a Steam clone. Instead of focusing on the games (and modpacks) that Curse is known for, it tries to copy features from Steam that aren't entirely fitting, while skimping on features that could make Curse unique, such as high-level modpack customization.
• It's not dedicated to Minecraft alone, much less FTB. On the FTB launcher, everything there is to provide every kind of FTB experience possible, to allow you to launch any FTB pack you wanted, from a dedicated, coherent frontend. The Curse client isn't FTB-specific, nor is it coherent. There's a huge sidebar for friends that really should be minimized in the modpack screen. The UI design places less emphasis on getting you back to your game and more emphasis on browsing what's available.
• Curse's UI is overly spaced. By this I mean that everything is a bit too "cozy". UI elements that shouldn't be taking up much space are butting into the main content because of the spacing, which often forces the user to resize the window unnecessarily. Example:
  
  Spoiler: UI Image

  
  As you can see, the friends sidebar is massive. A friends list should not take up that much space unless the window is specifically focused on being a friends list. Secondly, the mod list doesn't need that much space between mods. Reducing the size of the toggle switches and download/cancel buttons will allow many more mods per screen.

These are all things the ATLauncher does well. I'd argue that the ATLauncher is the ideal launcher for modded Minecraft. It's lightweight, informative, and cohesive. Sure, it's not quite as intuitive, but chances are if you're willing to play with mods you don't mind looking around a different launcher. It's instance-based design makes it even more versatile than the FTB launcher.

It saddens me that the original FTB launcher is going to be discontinued; I was hoping it would develop into its own fully-fledged launcher for playing FTB, alongside the Curse launcher.

 

[jikuja]

I've commented similar wish earlier in the this thread: http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/ftb-launcher-news.158980/page-8#post-1692614

It saddens me that the original FTB launcher is going to be discontinued; I was hoping it would develop into its own fully-fledged launcher for playing FTB, alongside the Curse launcher.

No. Current launcher code is infixable and requires full rewrite.

• Who will rewrite or fix current code to make it testable/re-usable? (Any volunteers?)
• How small group of volenteers can compete with paid dev group? Adding new MC features included in Curse requires huge amount of time.
  
• Where would it download packs? (If from FTB repos see previous messages about server backends. If from Curse see discussion about APIs)
  
• Would it really be worth of used time? Any volunteers?

Ps. Why I even ask those thing because suggested thing is not going to happen...

 

[jikuja]

After seeing multiple suggestion to do x and y with FTB Launcher I finally decided to post this:

State of FTB Launcher:
Written with Swing

• No HiDPI support = full rewrite for graphics. Multiple feature requests for this!
  
• Multiple Swing related coding errors. Ref: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/concurrency/index.html
  • Most of the bad GUI element changes should be fixed. (That was the thing why I started to work with launcher. ~90% of launcher startups failed with linux + openjdk)
  • Event-thread is blocked in multple places with long running tasks. Requires lot of code reordering and dependency fixes
• GUI code itself is horrible mess even it has been cleaned and simplified

FTB specific pack format and pack information format

• No documentation except source code
• Bad code: GUI elements are created from non-EDT thread without proper callback system. Slow and package infos are added slowly to main window
• Multiple bugs with pack image fetching. (too much clue to make things work)

Pack download & setup process

• Bad, really bad code. Includes dependencies to GUI state and blocks GUI. Not modular or re-usable => hard to implement changes for new new version. Not modular, impossible
• Mostly undocumented
• Bad dependencies => testing code changes is time consuming

Authentication system

• Requires full rewrite. (mojang has asked to use vanilla launcher for credentials and MC launch)

MC launch system

• Requires full rewrite: see previous

Original design goal was too simple(?)

• Designed to install packs and play them. Mod addition dialog was added later. Never designed to have multiple instances of one particular modpack. => Huge rewrites
• IMO design goal was nice and simple but requested feature set have been changed and unfortunately new features are hard or impossible to implement with feasible amount of time

All code

• Bad dependencies: ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_injection Almost every piece of code has dependencies which makes automated testing and code reuse hard or impossible
• logging system: uses too much memory but offers some features which are not found from other libraries. Should be rewritten to decrease memory usage

Launcher team

• Two active members, some random contributors.(fact) No ambitions to actively add new features to dying application.(opinion)

 

[RavynousHunter]

Re: Curse UI

Is anyone here familiar at all with how Curse actually creates its UI? Like, is it WinForms style, where each element actually exists in code-behind or is it more like WPF (or actually is WPF), where the UI exists as a separate, almost HTML-like document for easy editing and styling? If its the former, my suggestion would be...difficult unless the UI is done really well. If its the latter, my suggestion would be not necessarily trivial, but not necessarily extensive, either. My suggestion is this: allow the ability to design and use UI skins for Curse, if this isn't already a thing. That way, any UI concerns can be addressed by an included-by-default, pared-down "minimalist" UI that aims not just for comfortable use, but also utilizing as much real estate as it can with actual information, reducing padding between UI elements and making certain elements smaller.

 

[FyberOptic]

All code

• Bad dependencies: ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_injection Almost every piece of code has dependencies which makes automated testing and code reuse hard or impossible
• logging system: uses too much memory but offers some features which are not found from other libraries. Should be rewritten to decrease memory usage

When I changed it to load pack data from Curse, I probably spent half an hour or longer just stripping out Lombok and adding getters/setters, and this was after I'd already been stripping out entire files of code for stuff I didn't need. Removed JCommander (but didn't rewrite option parsing). There was also a place where one of the Apache or Google libraries was only used for like two lines of code so I rewrote that to remove the library. I can't remember if I managed to remove any other dependencies or not.

Even after all that, it still has like ten dependencies. Ideally it would be half that.

 

[FyberOptic]

Re: Curse UI

Is anyone here familiar at all with how Curse actually creates its UI? Like, is it WinForms style, where each element actually exists in code-behind or is it more like WPF (or actually is WPF), where the UI exists as a separate, almost HTML-like document for easy editing and styling? If its the former, my suggestion would be...difficult unless the UI is done really well. If its the latter, my suggestion would be not necessarily trivial, but not necessarily extensive, either. My suggestion is this: allow the ability to design and use UI skins for Curse, if this isn't already a thing. That way, any UI concerns can be addressed by an included-by-default, pared-down "minimalist" UI that aims not just for comfortable use, but also utilizing as much real estate as it can with actual information, reducing padding between UI elements and making certain elements smaller.

I mentioned it somewhere earlier in the thread, but the CurseVoice GUI is entirely HTML/CSS/Javascript running in Electron, a Chromium-based browser. It connects to a local web server running from the C# back-end, pulling documents out of encrypted archives, and sending commands for the back-end to carry out (like installing packs).

To my knowledge the only way to modify those files wouldn't be sanctioned by Curse. You can completely bypass loading from the internal server though by using the /devMode parameter, which makes it load from localhost:8080 instead.

 

[RavynousHunter]

I mentioned it somewhere earlier in the thread, but the CurseVoice GUI is entirely HTML/CSS/Javascript running in Electron, a Chromium-based browser. It connects to a local web server running from the C# back-end, pulling documents out of encrypted archives, and sending commands for the back-end to carry out (like installing packs).

To my knowledge the only way to modify those files wouldn't be sanctioned by Curse. You can completely bypass loading from the internal server though by using the /devMode parameter, which makes it load from localhost:8080 instead.

Ohhhh yeah, derp, forgot about that. God, that's annoying and...weird.

 

[Skylord_BigBuck]

Well my only problem with the curse launcher is that no matter what modpack i try to install i get told that it can't update the native minecraft launcher

 

[Magzie]

That weird! When is the last time you updated reg Minecraft?

 

[robot650]

So far, aside from my particular distaste for the design and lack of customization available as far as the design goes (I can switch from dark and light mode. Great.), or that Curse, by default, assumes you TOTALLY want it to launch when you start your computer up, or even that you don't want to close it when you press x by default (my biggest pet peeve with ANY program), my biggest problem lies in the fact that the Curse launcher CAN NOT detect the fact that I currently have Java installed, and there is NO option to direct it to my java installation. Not to mention that, as other people have stated previously in the forum, Curse was NOT designed with solely Minecraft in mind, whereas the FTB launcher was. I personally had no problems at all with the FTB Launcher, but now in order to play new packs, I will be forced to use a less than favorable launcher. I'm sure the more I use it, the more comfortable I will get with the UI, but it still will not live up to the high standards the FTB Launcher has set. It truly is unfortunate to see such a great launcher die not with a great, fiery bang, but with a small, orange flame.

 

[lenscas]

So far, aside from my particular distaste for the design and lack of customization available as far as the design goes (I can switch from dark and light mode. Great.), or that Curse, by default, assumes you TOTALLY want it to launch when you start your computer up, or even that you don't want to close it when you press x by default (my biggest pet peeve with ANY program), my biggest problem lies in the fact that the Curse launcher CAN NOT detect the fact that I currently have Java installed, and there is NO option to direct it to my java installation. Not to mention that, as other people have stated previously in the forum, Curse was NOT designed with solely Minecraft in mind, whereas the FTB launcher was. I personally had no problems at all with the FTB Launcher, but now in order to play new packs, I will be forced to use a less than favorable launcher. I'm sure the more I use it, the more comfortable I will get with the UI, but it still will not live up to the high standards the FTB Launcher has set. It truly is unfortunate to see such a great launcher die not with a great, fiery bang, but with a small, orange flame.

Though I also dislike the curse launcher (and can not even use it if I wanted to), I feel that I need to point out that due to the fact that curse uses the normal minecraft launcher you shouldn't need to have java installed as the normal launcher has its own java "build in". If you don't want multiple instances of java (one that will only be used by minecraft) you need to complain to Mojang and not to Curse. Also, you might be able to change the java path in the vanilla launcher that Curse boots for you.

 

[robot650]

Though I also dislike the curse launcher (and can not even use it if I wanted to), I feel that I need to point out that due to the fact that curse uses the normal minecraft launcher you shouldn't need to have java installed as the normal launcher has its own java "build in". If you don't want multiple instances of java (one that will only be used by minecraft) you need to complain to Mojang and not to Curse. Also, you might be able to change the java path in the vanilla launcher that Curse boots for you.

As true as that may be, it does prevent me from launching packs as a .jar, which I prefer FAR more than the native launcher. Not to mention that when I tried to play a pack with my friends, I simply could not due to EXTREMELY low framerate (1-2 FPS), while they're getting WELL over 60, which has never happened on any pack in the past. While that may not be Curse's fault and may be the result of some strange bug, it is...curious...that the first time it's happened has been on a pack offered to me by a launcher that cannot find something as simple as my java directory (I even ran it as an admin -- nada)

UPDATE: Upon downloading and loading into another pack (Arduous), the pack ran mostly smoothly, aside from freezing for a few minutes after loading in, so the strangely low FPS in the first pack (All the Mods) is likely due to an odd bug, but not, in fact, due to Curse not being able to find my Java installation. This doesn't change my other issues with the client, and it still means I'm incapable of launching any pack as a .jar, which is my preferred launch option.

 

[jikuja]

So far, aside from my particular distaste for the design and lack of customization available as far as the design goes (I can switch from dark and light mode. Great.)

Lack of customization is problem when using curse but not while using FTB launcher

Curse, by default, assumes you TOTALLY want it to launch when you start your computer up

Configurable. Is this really a big problem?

even that you don't want to close it when you press x by default (my biggest pet peeve with ANY program)

Configurable.

my biggest problem lies in the fact that the Curse launcher CAN NOT detect the fact that I currently have Java installed, and there is NO option to direct it to my java installation

Configurable. Works for me. (not sure if it's feature of alpha build, can't check)

Not to mention that, as other people have stated previously in the forum, Curse was NOT designed with solely Minecraft in mind, whereas the FTB launcher was

Is that really a problem? Maybe at some point other component will be separated to plugins.

I'm sure the more I use it, the more comfortable I will get with the UI, but it still will not live up to the high standards the FTB Launcher has set

Is this a joke? Standards in FTB launcher? Where?

 

[Pyure]

People really, really hate change. I personally prefer a dedicated launcher too, but really, its not a huge deal.

Is it still possible for me to tweak a modlist in the curse launcher? I haven't figured that out yet.
Is it possible for me to make some sort of desktop shortcut to launch a specific curse-launched modpack? That would save me a lot of time.

I do like the ability to search for packs from the launcher.

 

[RavynousHunter]

Configurable.

I feel compelled to post this article, for some reason.

[Link fixed, on desktop now.]

 

[Pyure]

I feel compelled to post this article, for some reason. (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/the-power-of-defaults/).
(On mobile, so linking is derpy.)

Meh, I'm not overly concerned about the power of defaults (Reika cites this all the time).

The majority of people also like reality TV. Its nice to know that for the niche of the community that is willing to ask questions and explore, there's still extra fun and appeasement to be had.

You just need to make sure the defaults are reasonably selected, and ideally you make it really obvious that a given item is configurable.