(dev builds available, wip) alternative minetest launcher

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

(dev builds available, wip) alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

there are now development builds available!
if you are struggling to build from source, you should be able to just download development builds here and try it out!

i encourage anyone who tries (successfully or unsuccessfully) to please provide feedback/notes/bugs, thank you so much!

i've been lurking minetest for a few weeks now and saw an opportunity to build something that i think at least is kinda cool

i'm working on an alternative launcher to help improve the overall ui/ux, especially for newer players!
it's written in sveltekit and packaged with tauri (which is electron but using native webview components and compiles to a small rust binary - no shipping and running an entire instance of chromium!) so it actually loads fast, stays fast, and doesn't c o n s o o m 42tb of ram (dev copies currently use about 90mb of ram and a whopping 0.3% cpu usage..)

it's super early in development rn but will post it on github when it's more mature as it's kinda ugly in both code and ui rn

implemented features:
  • support for multiple installations, including bespoke versions (just drag and drop your custom minetest installation to the provided versions/ folder and it'll show up!)
  • patented (not really) one-click-join-a-server-technology (tm) with a responsive, sortable, filterable server list - including local favourites (separate to what may show up on your minetest client)
(i literally started writing this like 12 hours ago what do u expect from me)

planned features:
  • password management for multiplayer servers (ie: generate random """"secure"""" passwords for each server, save somewhere, and reuse when logging in to a server to reduce friction)
  • full contentdb support for all (installed) versions
  • world management for all installed versions where possible (this will probably just end up as a glorified "backup my world pls" function)
  • screenshot, log management
  • global minetest.conf settings (you will no longer need to set your mouse sensitivity for each new version if you're a Pro Gamer (tm) like me)
  • maybe support for a custom uri scheme like mtlauncher://<server-address-or-localhost>?version=5.6.0<&gameid=game-id>
  • maybe set up some simple web-service to create a "one click join" public url for any server, including onboard instructions for people who don't have the launcher/minetest installed
  • maybe some onboard ui for people who haven't used minetest before too
  • idk im kinda just vibing and learning
anyways if you managed to get thru this terrible post and wanna see more, you can see a quick demo video here!

if you don't like video then u can have some botched screenshots instead
Image
Image

let me know what you think, if you have any suggestions/criticism/vitriol/etc i'm more than happy to hear you out!
i'm mostly writing this to get some experience with tauri b/c electron is kinda poopoo and thought this could be helpful (at least until the ui overhaul comes out some time this year)
Last edited by recluse4615 on Fri Sep 23, 2022 14:55, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
ROllerozxa
Member
Posts: 155
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2021 12:25
GitHub: ROllerozxa
IRC: ROllerozxa
In-game: ROllerozxa
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by ROllerozxa » Post

Well that certainly looks interesting, can't wait to being able to try it.

User avatar
MisterE
Member
Posts: 693
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2020 21:06
GitHub: MisterE123
IRC: MisterE
In-game: MisterE

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by MisterE » Post

looks really promising. Please consider making a blog info submission about your work.

maybe, include mumble support via the mumble csm?

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

MisterE wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 21:18
looks really promising. Please consider making a blog info submission about your work.
thanks! i'm more than happy to talk about it in a blog post once it's in a more "stable" state - finger in the air probably has this towards the latter half of the month, but it depends on free time, motivation etc
MisterE wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 21:18

maybe, include mumble support via the mumble csm?
sorry, but i'm not familiar with this - are you effectively just asking for an option to install a custom mod?
looks like it doesn't exist on contentdb, i'm not familiar with the mod so i don't have a link available (or what the prerequisites are) but happy to add it to the list! if it's effectively just downloading, unzipping, and storing in a folder then i can probably slide it in somewhere before a proper release of the launcher

User avatar
rubenwardy
Moderator
Posts: 6969
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2012 18:11
GitHub: rubenwardy
IRC: rubenwardy
In-game: rubenwardy
Location: Bristol, United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by rubenwardy » Post

Mumble is a wrapper program and a client-side mod. ContentDB only has server-side mods

You can find the Mumble wrapper and CSM here: viewtopic.php?t=21586
Renewed Tab (my browser add-on) | Donate | Mods | Minetest Modding Book

Hello profile reader

User avatar
Desour
Member
Posts: 1469
Joined: Thu Jun 19, 2014 19:49
GitHub: Desour
IRC: Desour
In-game: DS
Location: I'm scared that if this is too exact, I will be unable to use my keyboard.

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by Desour » Post

Cool!
Some suggestions:
  • Separate the concept of explicitly marked favorite servers from already-visited servers.
  • Add a friends list, and mark servers where one of the players is a friend of the user. Also, allow to see the names of the players on a server. (This idea is completely taken from another game, called teeworlds.)
  • You could put the minetest process into a sandbox, i.e. using firejail. Minetest doesn't always need access to all world folders, or even the whole home dir.
  • Maybe consider making the yellow star filled, for colorblind people. (I can't judge if there really is a problem though.)
he/him; Codeberg; GitHub; ContentDB; public personal TODO list; "DS" is preferred (but often too short)

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

rubenwardy wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 22:37
Mumble is a wrapper program and a client-side mod. ContentDB only has server-side mods

You can find the Mumble wrapper and CSM here: viewtopic.php?t=21586
thanks! this is really helpful

tl;dr - it should be possible, but it either needs:
  1. some changes in the wrapper client itself
    OR
  2. implementation directly in to the tauri binary
1. some changes in the wrapper client itself

https://github.com/Elkien3/minetest-mum ... ain.rs#L68 probably needs to be a for loop, so it can capture any arguments after the minetest binary argument (the launcher passes in, for instance, --go and --address to name a few)

https://github.com/Elkien3/minetest-mum ... in.rs#L113 this would then need a .args(some_vec_of_strings_from_above) tacked on to it to pass the minetest params in

2. implementation directly in to the tauri binary

since tauri applications are rust, you can actually implement "backend" logic in rust and call it directly in the javascript frontend

with that being said, i'm really not that great with rust so would need a helping hand w/ that.. i will try and prioritise cleaning up the code so that perhaps someone can assist in that part!

rust theorycrafting over
DS-minetest wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 22:53
Some suggestions:
  • Separate the concept of explicitly marked favorite servers from already-visited servers.
in the launcher there is currently no notion of an "already-visited server", but i like the idea of implementing that!
it may not make it in for the initial launch outside of quietly counting when you click "play" for a given server, but i can definitely look in to that - perhaps it can start off as a table column (so it can be sorted naturally)
DS-minetest wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 22:53
  • Add a friends list, and mark servers where one of the players is a friend of the user. Also, allow to see the names of the players on a server. (This idea is completely taken from another game, called teeworlds.)
i like this idea, and is sort of a natural extension of the idea i had of "join links" where any player could generate a join link to effectively send to someone saying "hey, i'm on this server - click the Big Green Button (tm) to join me! i'm <insert name here>"
i'm unsure how this would work with the idea that some people may have "original" names which only register on a small subset of servers (eg: "dave") - it feels like there could be some infrastructure requirements here (eg: a "social" api that basically tracks your successful logins on servers and maps out a "launcher account" to your various "server accounts" so you could see across multiple servers?) or if it's "good enough" to have the occasional false positive on the basis that most people probably still use unique usernames regardless? as a rule of thumb i don't want to track users in any way, and although i can write secure-enough backend applications would prefer not to unless it seems to be a necessity.
DS-minetest wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 22:53
  • You could put the minetest process into a sandbox, i.e. using firejail. Minetest doesn't always need access to all world folders, or even the whole home dir.
this makes sense from a security pov, and would definitely be a "nice to have", but (as far as i can see) firejail is linux-only (although i assume you could build & bundle for other platforms since it's low-dep & written in C) and my goal is to try and make this cross-platform.
there's another question i need to solve, which is "how on earth am i going to handle linux?!" which probably isn't something i will have an answer for - i'm a windows user through-and-through and although i do use WSL2 (and have tested the application on ubuntu this way - just with no MT binaries :/ ) i don't readily have enough experience with linux to figure this out.

this is more of an open question but, from what i've seen, there only exists a macos artifact for v5.6.0 and nothing previous (at least, from github). there are no linux artifacts for any versions (although there are android apks for most versions)
see here: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/releases
i'm currently using github as the "source of truth" for downloading binaries, but with the general lack of macos artifacts and non-existence of linux artifacts i'm wondering if this is going to be correct moving forwards?

DS-minetest wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 22:53
  • Maybe consider making the yellow star filled, for colorblind people. (I can't judge if there really is a problem though.)
the icons i'm using (feather icons) don't actually support this for whatever reason, i spent longer than i'd like to admit trying :p
i can try increasing the stroke width, but i think from an accessibility pov it should be ok because the contrast between the yellow, the white & the green/red seems decent at least to me. i have accessibility tools that i can try and confirm this with, and if it's an issue i can play around with the contrast or make a more accessible mode that shoehorns in some more contrast-y backgrounds (like a black box underneath all star icons, perhaps?)

--

btw - thank you all for the input so far! i have a bit of a busy friday ahead of me (and saturday/sunday unfortunately) but will have some free time here and there to start iterating on some more things and get ready for a "public" launch which would focus primarily on:
  • basic contentdb integration - download mods, games & texture packs for your current version (dropdown in the botom left)
  • cleaning up the code to reduce some poor practices on my end
  • set up github actions to build binaries for windows, macos, and linux (windows will 100% work, macos will work with 5.6.0 and hopefully prior versions pending the above, linux will need some manual work unless i figure something out for that unfortunately!)
  • cleaning the ui up a bit
really appreciate all the suggestions, input, and enthusiasm thus far however! for any longer discussions it might be better to reach me via the minetest matrix, i'm vibing on there as "recluse4615" :)

User avatar
Blockhead
Member
Posts: 1602
Joined: Wed Jul 17, 2019 10:14
GitHub: Montandalar
IRC: Blockhead256
In-game: Blockhead Blockhead256
Location: Land Down Under
Contact:

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by Blockhead » Post

Please make sure to obey the user's locale when displaying dates, I see American format there. It's better to just use words to be honest.

I do appreciate the effort to be lightweight and privacy-respecting.

Have you also given consideration to:
  • ..keyboard controls - maybe F1-F3 for the tabs? Then make sure tabbing between all elements works, Ctrl+F activates search, maybe Alt-V activates the version dropdown. Those are just shortcuts, you should also be able to reach the tabs and version dropdown by Tab/Shift-Tab.
  • ..what the contents of the games tab will be? Does it integrate with ContentDB? Perhaps you plan to add a mods tab - or per-version-installation mods? Mod & Game compatibility across versions gets complicated quickly.
As for the 'find your friends' feature suggestion: I wouldn't try to make it so complicated as to look for multiple server-usernames. I would just make it search the server list for a constant string, and require people to add multiple usernames for the accounts of their friends if need be. Maybe you could make it record multiple usernames manually across servers. Anyway there is always going to be overlap as well - the name Blockhead is taken by me in a fair few servers, but not all of them, such as JT2. Hence I understand your need to feel pedantic about wanting to match usernames to servers, but it's not an overriding concern compared to the desire for privacy as well. Also not all servers report logged in users or they anonymise them. It's a losing battle, but one we asked for when we decided against a centralised authentication system.

If you do implement the password saving functionality, please make it require a master password. Too many Minecraft accounts were hijacked by people accidentally sharing their .minecraft directory with their reversibly-encrypted credentials inside. If not, at least try to make it as secure as possible by following best practices from someone like Mozilla - that said I don't know if they're best practice with the Firefox password saving, but Mozilla is at least trustworthy.

How is Minetest Version correlated to joining the server? Say I normally play on 5.6. Do I need to select 0.4.17 manually before joining a server like JT2 or Linuxgaming2? Protocol version matching might help, where you can automatically downgrade the Minetest client that will be launched to the maximum supported version of the server.

As for Linux: since it's a GUI app, and you can't please everyone, nor is it targetted at everyone: I would install the Minetest versions through Flatpak/AppImage. That makes them portable and saves you building them. People like myself will just roll our own solutions like having several self-compiled versions that are run-in-place versions. Honestly I think macOS support might be harder, since we've had support threads for old macOS versions that have trouble with SSL certificates that have gone out of date, and there's also two CPU architectures to support.
/˳˳_˳˳]_[˳˳_˳˳]_[˳˳_˳˳\ Advtrains enthusiast | My map: Noah's Railyard | My Content on ContentDB ✝️♂

c56
Member
Posts: 307
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2021 03:05
GitHub: tigercoding56
In-game: bm5 or bemo5 also sell_her_on55

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by c56 » Post

rubenwardy wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 22:37
Mumble is a wrapper program and a client-side mod. ContentDB only has server-side mods

You can find the Mumble wrapper and CSM here: viewtopic.php?t=21586
maybe contentdb should add a client mod section (for usefull client mods like mumble )
this is a signature not a place to post messages also if i could change my username i would change it to sell_her_on55

User avatar
LMD
Member
Posts: 1385
Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2017 08:16
GitHub: appgurueu
IRC: appguru[eu]
In-game: LMD
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by LMD » Post

c56 wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 04:33
rubenwardy wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 22:37
Mumble is a wrapper program and a client-side mod. ContentDB only has server-side mods

You can find the Mumble wrapper and CSM here: viewtopic.php?t=21586
maybe contentdb should add a client mod section (for usefull client mods like mumble )
No. The "useful" mumble client mod is useless on its own; it requires the wrapper to be of any use.
My stuff: Projects - Mods - Website

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

Blockhead wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 04:02
Please make sure to obey the user's locale when displaying dates, I see American format there. It's better to just use words to be honest.
yes, this will be done before publishing - the news page was put together very hastily just so there was more content available for a quick demo, it simply parses the publish date as a JS date and then renders that to the page
Blockhead wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 04:02
Have you also given consideration to:
  • ..keyboard controls - maybe F1-F3 for the tabs? Then make sure tabbing between all elements works, Ctrl+F activates search, maybe Alt-V activates the version dropdown. Those are just shortcuts, you should also be able to reach the tabs and version dropdown by Tab/Shift-Tab.
short answer: no (but am happy to add in keyboard controls wherever they make sense)
the application is navigable via the tab key but no specific shortcuts exist. i could probably add some, but again do keep in mind that the application actually renders within a webview component - so some things like a native search bar (akin to your browsers') already exist with a CTRL+F
Blockhead wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 04:02
  • ..what the contents of the games tab will be? Does it integrate with ContentDB? Perhaps you plan to add a mods tab - or per-version-installation mods? Mod & Game compatibility across versions gets complicated quickly.
the games tab will probably be what it says on the tin - a list of all your games for your current version with (at least for now) simple button controls to launch minetest, navigate directly to the folder, or options to (maybe not for first launch) backup/delete the game
it will also include games that you have installed for other versions just in a separate list
contentdb will likely exist as another tab, probably called "Download Content" or something along those lines. contentdb will, at least for now, likely end up fairly simple as just a way to filter by your current version, download and install mods, texture packs, etc for it

Blockhead wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 04:02
As for the 'find your friends' feature suggestion: I wouldn't try to make it so complicated as to look for multiple server-usernames. I would just make it search the server list for a constant string, and require people to add multiple usernames for the accounts of their friends if need be. Maybe you could make it record multiple usernames manually across servers. Anyway there is always going to be overlap as well - the name Blockhead is taken by me in a fair few servers, but not all of them, such as JT2. Hence I understand your need to feel pedantic about wanting to match usernames to servers, but it's not an overriding concern compared to the desire for privacy as well. Also not all servers report logged in users or they anonymise them. It's a losing battle, but one we asked for when we decided against a centralised authentication system.
fair enough, appreciate the thoughts
Blockhead wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 04:02
If you do implement the password saving functionality, please make it require a master password. Too many Minecraft accounts were hijacked by people accidentally sharing their .minecraft directory with their reversibly-encrypted credentials inside. If not, at least try to make it as secure as possible by following best practices from someone like Mozilla - that said I don't know if they're best practice with the Firefox password saving, but Mozilla is at least trustworthy.
yes, saved passwords will be protected by a master pasword
Blockhead wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 04:02
How is Minetest Version correlated to joining the server? Say I normally play on 5.6. Do I need to select 0.4.17 manually before joining a server like JT2 or Linuxgaming2? Protocol version matching might help, where you can automatically downgrade the Minetest client that will be launched to the maximum supported version of the server.
this isn't implemented yet but the basic logic works something like this:
servers expose a proto_min and a proto_max field -
  • if your selected version is within the bounds, you can launch it without issue
  • if your selected version is not within the bounds, something will notify you saying you need to join on a newer (or potentially older) version, and will provide you with the latest version string that matches the proto_max field
Blockhead wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 04:02
As for Linux: since it's a GUI app, and you can't please everyone, nor is it targetted at everyone: I would install the Minetest versions through Flatpak/AppImage. That makes them portable and saves you building them. People like myself will just roll our own solutions like having several self-compiled versions that are run-in-place versions. Honestly I think macOS support might be harder, since we've had support threads for old macOS versions that have trouble with SSL certificates that have gone out of date, and there's also two CPU architectures to support.
i'm not sure how flatpak/appimage works, and as you mention i don't want to build anything (i don't even want to distribute pre-release versions that are made any other way than transparently via some form of CI/CD)
how it works right now is it just downloads the releases for your relevant platform (ie: windows, since only really windows builds exist on the github right now lol) from github, unzips it in memory and saves all the files in to your versions/ directory

since the versions dropdown basically works from a mix of an API request and whatever exists in your versions/ directory you can have custom installations in there, so for those who want to use the launcher on mac/linux (again, until i figure out a safe & trusted source for those) you can still download minetest and move manually in to that directory and it'll work as expected and i'll have some documentation written up to reflect this too

it's admittedly a bit of a mess, but i'm committed to resolving it - just need a bit of a helping hand to figure that stuff out!

thanks for your feedback!

edit - just to clarify, i apologise if anything i say at this moment is a bit wishwash-y or unknowledgeable - i may have jumped the gun a bit in terms of showing this to people, but was excited to start iterating and collecting feedback

things should iterate a bit faster for the most part, comparatively making fast & reactive interfaces with svelte(kit) is a lot faster than most traditional tools so i'm not too worried about that right now

my main priorities as mentioned before are basically to clean up the UI a bit, remove some crappy/placeholder-esque code, and work on the core functionality ahead of launching somewhere (which i see as multi-version, super basic game & content management) but with that being said i've had a lot of good feedback here so need some time to properly go through everything & scope it out to see what else would be most beneficial for a first launch!

c56
Member
Posts: 307
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2021 03:05
GitHub: tigercoding56
In-game: bm5 or bemo5 also sell_her_on55

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by c56 » Post

LMD wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 08:51
c56 wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 04:33
rubenwardy wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 22:37
Mumble is a wrapper program and a client-side mod. ContentDB only has server-side mods

You can find the Mumble wrapper and CSM here: viewtopic.php?t=21586
maybe contentdb should add a client mod section (for usefull client mods like mumble )
No. The "useful" mumble client mod is useless on its own; it requires the wrapper to be of any use.
ok also add a external program section :P
this is a signature not a place to post messages also if i could change my username i would change it to sell_her_on55

Thresher
Member
Posts: 37
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 02:27
GitHub: Bituvo
In-game: Thresher

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by Thresher » Post

Looks nice! I am going to try and make one myself.

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

Thresher wrote:
Sun Sep 04, 2022 19:06
Looks nice! I am going to try and make one myself.
sweet :D

update for this weekend: contentdb go brrr (video link) (ignore the bright red scrollbar, i was just testing that hahaha)

Image

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

been a while, huh?

i've been tinkering away recently, focusing on (in no particular order) -
  • cleaning up some code, especially some core components
  • implementing some design changes w/ lemente
  • adding in loading indicators, and making some things smoother where possible
  • adding in a (basic) encrypted user.dat file, which contains all your server passwords (and some other things, like "profiles" which are effectively preset username/password combos) which is required to generate on first launch!
tl;dr - your installation can actually be "copied over" by just directly copying 2 files (you may want to back these up):
  • preferences.json - this is a user-editable JSON file that includes your favourite servers as well as some other things
  • user.dat - your Password Protected Sensitive Stuff (tm)
as always, enjoy a demo video!

with these additions, i'm fairly (until i inevitably move the goalpost...) close to getting a public launch out for this! i'm super excited to get some more feedback and work more on this project, so much so that i'm writing this at 3am and can barely think rn

current list of features:
  • news, games, servers pages
  • launch directly in to your favourite server and save your username/password for each server
  • launch a game (currently not working due to --gameid not doing anything w/o a world set, but will once it's implemented)
  • install games, including compatibility checks & auto-resolving of versions (eg: server only supports X version, game supports Y-Z versions etc.)
  • support for local or ad-hoc versions (note: ad-hoc versions that do not map to an existing version by folder name will not work for compatibility checks)
features i want to add before launch:
  • comprehensive server filtering (eg: by gameid, by mods (if applicable))
  • "servers running this game" when you're browsing games in launcher, to reduce friction
  • maybe mod support???
  • better design for things (courtesy of lemente, held back by my laziness...)
  • basic world support
  • suuuuuper basic onboarding flow with the "tutorial" game courtesy of wuzzy (more info at the bottom of my ramble)
features that i will Probably Add When I Feel Like It (aka. probably soon, but wouldn't get your hopes up for v1):
  • super basic matrix chat client in-launcher (nothing major, but inspired by the conversations within matrix recently wrt community chat rooms)
  • support for client side mods (namely the mumble integration)
  • self-publish content to contentDB where applicable
  • maybe a lightweight lua editor/some mod scaffolding
  • idk
re: onboarding & tutorial
as you can see from the video, the launcher "knows" when it's a first launch (due to no user.dat file present)
when the launcher detects this, a modal will pop up asking if the user wishes to play a tutorial to learn minetest
this is completely optional and will only ever show on the first launch after setting a password. all it will do is simply:
  • install the latest MT version
  • install the "tutorial" game for that version
  • download a pre-generated world for the tutorial (this is to circumvent the "launch a game" bug i mentioned prior)
  • directly launch the tutorial world, in singleplayer
if possible, i'll bundle the pre-generated world with the binary itself in some way. everything will be open sourced, anyways, so sleuthy users are able to confirm if indeed the world is an accurate tutorial world.

/drops mic

User avatar
freshreplicant
Member
Posts: 223
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 10:37
In-game: freshreplicant

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by freshreplicant » Post

Man, I have to admit I was pretty sceptical of this first, but it looks pretty smooth and has some nice features. Looking forward to the launch.

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: (wip) alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

freshreplicant wrote:
Sat Sep 17, 2022 12:39
Man, I have to admit I was pretty sceptical of this first, but it looks pretty smooth and has some nice features. Looking forward to the launch.
i appreciate it! i can understand the scepticism, but hopefully people can see the uses! it's still under heavy development at the moment, but as things get more and more polished hopefully it'll become more obvious about the usage

on that note, the launcher is in a place where i can start to gather feedback from those interested. at the moment, i can supply test builds for the following:
  • windows
  • maybe ubuntu? i'm not sure if WSL will be able to compile a compatible appimage for it
i'm not sure if there is an interest in that at the moment, as it's still rough around the edges (iterating fast, polish comes a bit later down the road) but if there is i can supply builds!

i'm hesitant about open sourcing it right now simply because i need to work out licensing and clean up some more code (a lot of random todos, things a bit all over the place, and potential concerns about using google fonts & feather icons) - once those are sorted out i'm happy to open source it however!

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: (source available, wip) alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

update time!!!!!

i added in some extra functionality around server identities - being able to see if you have one for a certain server, and also adding in functionality to generate a "random" password (a 32 character long PRNG string based on a limited-ish character set)

check the demo video here!

on top of that, i have now released the source for the project ahead of getting a "public" launch in the next week or 2. you can check out the source here!

you are more than able to build from source right now for your current operating system, but i can't guarantee things will work v nicely outside of windows just yet :(

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: (source available, wip) alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

there are now development builds available!
if you are struggling to build from source, you should be able to just download development builds here and try it out!

i encourage anyone who tries (successfully or unsuccessfully) to please provide feedback/notes/bugs, thank you so much!

i'll be away most of the weekend but will be back next week to go through whatever people report and polish things up for a proper public launch, thank you all!

c56
Member
Posts: 307
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2021 03:05
GitHub: tigercoding56
In-game: bm5 or bemo5 also sell_her_on55

Re: (dev builds available, wip) alternative minetest launcher

by c56 » Post

could you also add ARM64 builds (archlinux)
this is a signature not a place to post messages also if i could change my username i would change it to sell_her_on55

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: (dev builds available, wip) alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

c56 wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 02:32
could you also add ARM64 builds (archlinux)
you can try following the wiki instructions here to build mtlauncher yourself for arm64 https://github.com/minetest-world/mtlau ... rom-source

however, you'd need to manage the versions yourself as the launcher only "knows" linux appimages for x86_64

if there's sufficient demand for it in the future i can look in to it, however, especially if builds are already available for arm64 for MT itself :)

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: [v0.0.4] alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

v0.0.4 is now available to download!

this release should allow people to download versions if you're running linux or mac, so now it should be "usable" for everyone!

minetest should also properly load content from your versions/ directory across all systems now.
you can find development builds here!

User avatar
recluse4615
Member
Posts: 21
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2022 18:52
GitHub: recluse4615

Re: [v0.0.5] alternative minetest launcher

by recluse4615 » Post

v0.0.5 is now available and oh boy it's a biggun!

changelog:
  • added a screenshots page, courtesy of Miniontoby! this will display screenshots from all your installed versions, and you can click in to any screenshot to see a larger-res version (and to open the folder containing the screenshot, if that's something you want) demo video here!
  • added a modal that shows you the most recent error if your minetest crashes! this can be super useful if a server is disallowing you from joining, demo video here!
  • added a global settings page! you can now set some core settings across all your installed minetest versions! demo video here! (note: if you need more settings, you can just update minetest.mtlauncher.conf and it'll automagically sync up!)
  • added a new launcher icon! no more boring default tauri icon
  • you can now press ENTER after typing in your password to log in to the launcher, rather than being forced to click "log in" - courtesy of Miniontoby!
you can download the development builds here!

c56
Member
Posts: 307
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2021 03:05
GitHub: tigercoding56
In-game: bm5 or bemo5 also sell_her_on55

Re: (dev builds available, wip) alternative minetest launcher

by c56 » Post

recluse4615 wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 03:32
c56 wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 02:32
could you also add ARM64 builds (archlinux)
you can try following the wiki instructions here to build mtlauncher yourself for arm64 https://github.com/minetest-world/mtlau ... rom-source

however, you'd need to manage the versions yourself as the launcher only "knows" linux appimages for x86_64

if there's sufficient demand for it in the future i can look in to it, however, especially if builds are already available for arm64 for MT itself :)

flathub has some i think , also there are minetest builds in the repo for manjaro ARM so maybe it could use them (and launch them via some shell script )
this is a signature not a place to post messages also if i could change my username i would change it to sell_her_on55

User avatar
Miniontoby
Member
Posts: 616
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2019 19:25
GitHub: Miniontoby
IRC: Miniontoby
In-game: Miniontoby
Location: The Netherlands

Re: [v0.0.5] alternative minetest launcher

by Miniontoby » Post

recluse4615 wrote:
Wed Sep 28, 2022 23:26
v0.0.5 is now available and oh boy it's a biggun!

changelog:
  • added a screenshots page, courtesy of Miniontoby! this will display screenshots from all your installed versions, and you can click in to any screenshot to see a larger-res version (and to open the folder containing the screenshot, if that's something you want) demo video here!
  • added a modal that shows you the most recent error if your minetest crashes! this can be super useful if a server is disallowing you from joining, demo video here!
  • added a global settings page! you can now set some core settings across all your installed minetest versions! demo video here! (note: if you need more settings, you can just update minetest.mtlauncher.conf and it'll automagically sync up!)
  • added a new launcher icon! no more boring default tauri icon
  • you can now press ENTER after typing in your password to log in to the launcher, rather than being forced to click "log in" - courtesy of Miniontoby!
you can download the development builds here!
Yay, code by me!

I am glad to have helped with this update!
Working on mtctl ---- Check my mod "Doorbell" -- Stay safe

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests