Ability to share resourcepacks/saves/screenshots between instances

[ZephireNZ]

It'd be awesome if your saves and/or resourcepacks would persist across instances. It could be set up as a toggle globally, or per instance. I use the same texture pack on multiple different instances, so the ability to update one and it would update all would be quite helpful.

To a lesser extent, a global place to store screenshots would be nice, but that's a pretty niche feature and doesn't impact the game terribly.

[finalsliver]

essentially Zephire is asking for a central resourcepack repository and an import to instance button in the management window :p

On 10 January 2014 02:23, ZephireNZ notifications@github.com wrote:

It'd be awesome if your saves and/or resourcepacks would persist across instances. It could be set up as a toggle globally, or per instance. I use the same texture pack on multiple different instances, so the ability to update one and it would update all would be quite helpful.

To a lesser extent, a global place to store screenshots would be nice, but that's a pretty niche feature and doesn't impact the game terribly.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/MultiMC/MultiMC5/issues/42 .

[MarcoTheDingo]

Agree, if possible I would like to see a saves and screenshot manager. Saves would sync a world between these instances, and screenshot manager would just cut-paste all the screenshots into a desired folder. Resource packs are already pretty easy to add to all instances, so I wouldn't worry to much on that.

[Khitiara]

I think not for saves, as if you have different instances it is either mod or version changes that could cause problems, but that is just my opinion

[lekro]

@robotbrain Maybe it should be possible to link instances in "save groups" or "texture groups" to prevent this problem. This would eliminate the need for excess copies of the same textures or saves. Perhaps a "vanilla group" can link all vanilla saves, textures, etc.

[MarcoTheDingo]

@robotbrain Well let's say you have a Vanilla instance and a Damage Indicators + non-intrusive instance. You we're playing on your modded instance, and your buddy, who doesn't know how to install mods, nor wants to, wants to play on that world. You could copy the files, or use this suggestion. ALSO, if it could make backups, that would be the best feature so far (besides instances of course).

[peterix]

As a conglomerate of all the different things, this is very unlikely to be done any time soon ~_~

• Screenshot manager: YES! This will be done sooner or later. It is also a completely separate feature.
• Sharing anything between instances:
  • Mods: Yes, eventually. Forge is going that way. We'll do the same.
  • Other things: This would require a big redesign. Not saying it won't ever get done, but don't expect it to happen soon.

[Khitiara]

Screenshot manager is in.

[JRoush]

@peterix: Perhaps this has already occurred to you, but symlinks are an easy solution to this problem. I have used them to create a centralized texturepack folder and config file. It works really well and is very flexible.

The only problem right now is that the MultiMC commands that copy/delete an instance are not aware of the symlinks and will copy/delete(!) my link targets. This is how symlinks are supposed to work - transparent to applications - but it would be awesome if you could make an exception and have the copy/delete commands treat symlinks opaquely. That way I can keep using them without worrying about accidentally nuking my texture collection, etc.

[peterix]

Symlinks are not a thing across platforms. MultiMC also does not create symlinks and is not aware of them. The delete and copy operations MultiMC uses are recursive, and also unaware of symlinks.

I don't think I'd add direct support of symlinks (MultiMC creating them), but the copy/delete operations should be treating them properly on platforms where they exist and the user could create them manually.

So, file a separate bug for copy/delete operations breaking your stuff. That is definitely not intended.

[ghost]

May I add that this could be across instance groups, so say I had instance group "group1". It had two instances. They could have the same saves/screenshots/resource packs/server list.

[DrZed]

Dammit I really want this soon :| I have http://puu.sh/i93gm.png And each have resource packs the same ones the Terrafirma has a 400MB 256x Resource packs And the modded ones have Soartex/personal mix 64x 280MB resource pack and the vanilla ones use it too That's over 4GB of Memory used from just resource packs

[Kilobyte22]

You can use symlinks now. The copy/delete thing is fixed.

[peterix]

Well, the delete thing is fixed on Windows. Both copy and delete are fixed on unix.

But yes, you should be able to use symlinks, just need to fix things up after an instance copy on Windows.

[DrZed]

What should I do to map it to a dir like where should I put the args

[lekro]

With a symlink, you can make programs think they are accessing something at their target path ( in this case, /screenshots ), but actually have this point to some other directory. If the screenshots folder of all desired instances is actually a symlink to a centralized screenshots directory, all of those instances will dump screenshots into the centralized directory while thinking they just put them in the instance's screenshots directory. This way, no modifications need to be made to Minecraft to use the central screenshots directory. On Jun 2, 2015 6:27 PM, "DrZed" notifications@github.com wrote:

Symlinks? Explain?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/MultiMC/MultiMC5/issues/42#issuecomment-108130286.

[DrZed]

Yeah But what should I use for arguements and where do I put them? I wanna put all resource packs dir as C:\games\multimc\resourcepacks and for screenshots similar dir just screenshots

[lekro]

I don't think Minecraft takes arguments for screenshots.

Not sure about the Windows command for symlinking, but if you install Link Shell Extension, you can follow the following steps:

• Create the resourcepack directory C:\games\multimc\resourcepacks.
• Right click that directory and select Pick Link Source.
• Navigate to where the resourcepack directories in the MultiMC instances are, delete those directories (copying resourcepacks where needed), and right click in the instance folder's background and select Drop As... > Symbolic link.
• Repeat for screenshots.

In linux, it's easier with the terminal command... (assuming the MMC directory is ~/multimc) ln -s ~/multimc/screenshots ~/multimc/instances/myInstance/screenshots

Of course, the existing screenshots directories in the instances need to be deleted and their contents moved before executing this command.

[DrZed]

Thanks guys :D I got bored https://github.com/DrZed/DrZed-symlink-Script-D

Also command for windows is mklink

[peterix]

Reclassified as idea..

Some of the approaches detailed here should be on the wiki, or some sort of article where people can read about them and learn to use them.

[peterix]

Moved to workflowy (Chores -> Set up some sort of interview/article thingy, Ideas -> Share resources between instances)

[ShayBox]

Some sort of checkbox area per instance that will automatically symlink the checked box's related files/folders to a set of global files/folders, etc check servers and resource packs, it will symlink them to a global set in the multimc folder, not impossible to do from a users end but annoying, and really the only reason I don't use this over the default launcher. It some files/folders it should include are

• resourcepacks
• texturepacks
• servers.dat
• options.txt
• optionsof.txt
• mods
• shaderpacks
• saves
• screenshots
• config

[peterix]

Symlinks are not usable.

[DrZed]

I beg to differ I already use them with my MMC for my Resource Packs... You need to run the command through cmd and it needs to be admin I'm 99% sure (I made my own Symlink script on my github)

[Artoria2e5]

Symlinks are usable across platforms. On *nix systems the solution is obvious, while on Windows we can do junctions. True, junctions only apply to folders on the same file system, but all the requests here are done on the folder level anyways.

[rzimmerdev]

Hows this going along?