The original post can be found at the bottom in the spoiler tag,
With the release of Mass Effect 3 I haven't had the time really to work on this as I should of allotted. Anyways, Dev work is back in full swing again. One thing I would like to see is the folks that are interested in this, to please register at my forums at http://forums.justminecraft.com/ (http://forums.justminecraft.com/). As I will be posting change logs and when updates are pushed out over there. One thing I need is people to start testing it, IE actually using the program to get real world feedback and bug info, etc.
Welcome, this thread is more or less to bring everyone on to the same page for my 'project'. As you all are aware the Game-IV minecraft server (the primary one) is heavily modded. Some people don't want to mod their jar files, others have no fear of doing it and are just lazy. What ever the reason, I've been nice enough to create installers for all of the mod files. Anyways, Over the next few days I will be testing a new system. Some of you may have used or heard of Minecrafter, my project is the same principle just done differently.
Each server/mod set is organized in to modpacks, these modpacks are an XML file containing all of the information of were to get each mod, order, and an md5 check sum to verify pre-installed mods against. With the mod loader you give it an XML file, and it will perform the same thing as the installer... Just much better. Now if there is an update for any of the mods, the modpack can be updated and once the client (mod loader) is configured it will allow the user to check for updates. If there are updates it will grab them and install them for you.
Not only does it help with the update side of things, it can also minimize your overall download size. Instead of downloading the main installer, and the inevitable conflict id hot fix (yes I know I still have to fix that), the web server is updated, and it trickles down to all of the clients and the clients only take the files they need. Some additional features I've added are a world/save backup/restore and an entire minecraft backup/restore feature.
Now even though it is in Alpha (at this point safe to say late alpha) I've also built in an updater for the application itself, this means when I release an update the mod loader will download it and install the update. So you won't have to reinstall a million times before it hits its final version.
Now for some screen shots, please remember this is still alpha and the interface is always evolving (god I hate designing GUI's)
Main screen
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17772947/screencaps/minecraft/project/main_screen.png)
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17772947/screencaps/minecraft/project/main_with_menu.png)
Configuration Page
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17772947/screencaps/minecraft/project/configuration_screen.png)
and the about page (with a working update button!)
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17772947/screencaps/minecraft/project/about_screen.png)
Please remember, the interface is subject to change.
Any comments are appreciated, or if you want to get in on the testing phase of this post here.
amwdrizz