Table of Contents

What was just created?

Upload Sample Files

Check If Everything Works

Customizing the Launcher
Testing the Changes
Next Steps

These set of tutorials help you distribute a modpack with the launcher. The tutorial is aimed towards someone with little technical knowledge.

There are four major parts:

First, the tutorial asks you to run some simple commands to create an executable launcher. At this point, the launcher doesn't have your own custom graphics or title yet.
Then, it asks you to upload some sample files to a website to make sure you can get it to work.
Then, you are given a tour of the modpack creation tools. You'll be able to test if your modpack works.
Lastly, you are told how you can customize the launcher so it has your graphics, your name, and it's linked to your modpacks.

You'll have something to test after every major step, so you can tell if everything is working for you.

If you ever need help during one of these steps, see Getting Help.

Requirements

Most of the tutorial just involves clicking buttons, entering values, or putting files in the right folder.

However, the exception is that you need to have a website you can put files on. If you already have one, you can skip this section.

Don't worry if you don't have a website! We maintain a list of recommended web hosts for you to choose from - it's very easy to upload files to static hosting!

The launcher & creator tools require Java 8 as a minimum.
If you find a Java version above 8 which still has Oracle support, and that the launcher does not support, this is a bug and should be reported as such.

Compiling the Launcher

Install the Java 8 Development Kit (JDK). Set your JAVA_HOME environment variable to point to your JDK install. Google/search engine will assist. If you're too lazy here
Download the source code.
Extract it somewhere.
Do one of the following in the extracted folder:
- Windows users: Double click build.bat
- Linux/BSD users: Open a terminal, cd /path/to/launcher, and run ./build.sh
- Mac OS X users: Open Terminal, cd /path/to/launcher, and run ./build.sh
- Or via terminal: ./gradlew clean build

If it worked, then you should see something like:

What was just created?

You will find several .jars that were just created in the following folders:

creator-tools/build/libs/ has a full-blown GUI for making mod packs.
launcher/build/libs/ has the launcher.
launcher-fancy/build/libs/ has the black version of the launcher.
launcher-bootstrap/build/libs/ has the wrapper program that auto-updates.
launcher-builder/build/libs/ has command-line tools for creating modpacks.

As long as this is a clean build, there should only be 1 jar in each folder.

Now, if you want to run the launcher, double click the .jar in launcher/build/libs. Try the fancy black one too. Also try the "creator-tools" one..

License Information: The launcher is licensed under the open source LGPL license. If you make changes to the launcher's source code, you are legally obligated to release those changes if you release your launcher copy.

Upload Sample Files

We recommend uploading the sample (but fake) modpacks to your web server so we can see if your setup works.

Find the sample-files/upload/ folder and upload its contents to your website.
- If you are using FTP to upload, make sure to upload in "binary mode."
Try visiting the following URLs, where http://example.com is your site instead:
- http://example.com/news.html
- http://example.com/packages.json
- http://example.com/latest.json

Check If Everything Works

The pages SHOULD load. The news.html page should also look like this:

If you have PHP installed (or think that you do), visit http://example.com/packages.php and make sure it looks the same as packages.json. If it doesn't, then you probably don't have PHP.

Customizing the Launcher

Open up the launcher/src/main/resources/com/skcraft/launcher folder. We'll be changing the files in this folder to customize the launcher.

Open up launcher.properties in your favorite text editor. For Windows users, we recommend Notepad++.
Change newsUrl, packageListUrl, and selfUpdateUrl to the URLs that you just tested:
```
newsUrl=http://example.com/news.html
packageListUrl=http://example.com/packages.json
selfUpdateUrl=http://example.com/latest.json
```
If you have PHP support, use "packages.php" instead of "packages.json."
Change the images (you can also do it later).

Testing the Changes

Recompile the launcher again. If you already forgot how to:

Windows users: Double click build.bat
Linux/BSD users: Open a terminal, cd /path/to/launcher, and run ./build.sh
Mac OS X users: Open Terminal, cd /path/to/launcher, and run ./build.sh
Or via terminal: ./gradlew clean build

After it's done, go to the folder launcher/build/libs/ and start the launcher by double clicking the .jar file.

If everything worked correctly, you should see "Light Modpack" and "Monster Modpack" in the launcher on the left. Double click one of the modpacks, enter your Minecraft account, and see if the game loads.

This launcher version is "portable," so it stores its data files in the current folder. If you look into the launcher/build/libs/ folder, you will find a bunch of launcher files (accounts.dat, config.json, etc.). Later on, there will be instructions on setting up a "bootstrapper" so that the launcher isn't in portable mode (unless you prefer it that way).

Next Steps

So far, so good. Onto the next page: Creating Modpacks

Launcher Wiki

Tutorial

Launcher Features:

Customization:

Additional Reading:

Find the launcher useful?

Donate to obw, the current maintainer:

Donate to sk89q, the original maintainer:

Need help? See Getting Help.