Updates for the Minecraft package?

[Wychmire]

This is not a package request.

The current minecraft template installs the fifth iteration of the minecraft launcher. Minecraft is up to it's seventh iteration and is considerably different from the fifth, especially in that it uses Electron instead of whatever it used before (java?). You can take a look at the visual difference by looking at this image of the older launcher and this one of the newer launcher

As long as the fifth launcher is available from the URL it uses I feel like it should still be installable since it's electron free and still works great, but maybe that's just me being nostalgic?

I've already written a working template which I've installed and am using. I've pushed it to the minecraft-launcher branch in my fork.

So my thinking was either

1. The minecraft package sticks around as-is and the new launcher is added as minecraft-launcher or,
2. The minecraft package is updated to use the new launcher and the old one is a) renamed to minecraft-legacy, minecraft-launcher-legacy or something similar or b) deleted.

Thoughts?

[Wychmire]

Both #14268 and #14221 are related to this.

[toluschr]

I think 1) would be the best solution. However the minecraft package could be changed a little too. It does not have a .desktop file and the dependency openjdk-jre is missing.

[Wychmire]

There isn't a dependency on openjdk-jre since you can also use oracle-jre. It's mentioned in the INSTALL.msg file.
Something like this should work to let the user choose which JRE they want (though they'd have to custom build it if they wanted oracle-jdk)

[...]
depends="[...] $(vopt_if openjdk "openjdk-jre") $(vopt_if oracle "oracle-jre")"
[...]

build_options="openjdk oracle"
desc_option_openjdk="Use openjdk-jre as the jre dependency"
desc_option_oracle="Use oracle-jre as the jre dependency"
build_options_default="openjdk"
vopt_conflict openjdk oracle

[...]

[Johnnynator]

You should take a look at virtual deps depends="virtual?java-runtime" is probably what you are searching, this would default to openjdk-jre, but would also be satisfied by oracle-jre

[Wychmire]

That's much, much cleaner. Thanks for letting me know about that! Should be unnecessary for the entire INSTALL.msg now

[ufUNnxagpM]

@Wychmire I think going with a minecraft/minecraft-launcher package and deleting the current legacy package would be the way to go. The current minecraft package isn't really stable (it stopped working on my machine).

Also I don't think it matters if the new package is called minecraft or minecraft-launcher unless Mojang decides to maintain their own package similar to how they do it on AUR. Either one works

[Wychmire]

I'd hate to limit people to an electron app when there's an alternative but if that's the route this ends up going I think definitely the name should be minecraft-launcher to match the tar file.

Based on my personal testing it looks like the legacy minecraft launcher just doesn't work for 1.14.4. 1.14.3 and back seem to work no problem.

My ideal path would be changing the current minecraft package's description to including something like (legacy launcher) and adding a note about how from 1.14.4 onwards it doesn't work well inside the INSTALL.msg file and making minecraft-launcher the maintained electron version.

It seems a little unlikely Void is high enough on the radar for Mojang to bother. IIRC the only reason Arch got it's official AUR package is because one of the minecraft folks uses Arch and is maintaining the package.

[ufUNnxagpM]

Good point. I can work on aminecraft-legacy package with updated dependencies, install message, and proper licensing. IMO, it seems a bit misleading to have the minecraft package not even work on the latest version.

[Chocimier]

minecraft got removed, MultiMC is suggested alternative.