Minecraft Forge Modding Setup Part Two: Setting up the Eclipse IDE

Welcome to the second part of the modding setup tutorials for Minecraft Forge modders (and want-to-be modders)!

This time round we will be setting up our integrated development environment (IDE) which is simply a program that allows us to write code easily. For this tutorial we will use Eclipse. I will warn you now: even if you think you know what you're doing, never ever use Notepad!!! Notepad sadly cannot save files correctly, so even if you use it, it will save files as one single line. There are many other editors that can handle multiple lines of text, but Notepad cannot. Now that is explained, let's get going.

Part Two: Set up Eclipse

First, download and install the Java Development Kit (JDK) and Java Runtime Environment (JRE) from this website. The below image shows where to click. Remember where you installed them. If your browser asks you whether you want to download it, choose Yes. "?" and "????" refer to the versions of Java.
(Don't click the second button on the website if Minecraft runs fine or you know you have "Java". Generally games, programs and browsers refer to the JRE as "Java", but the JRE and JDK are completely different apart from the fact that they use the same programming language.)

Now, we need to download Eclipse from their website. Click "Windows 32-bit" (or "Windows 64-bit" if you know what it means) next to "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" and again, allow the file to download.
Create a folder for Eclipse then extract the file to it using Windows Explorer or perhaps if you have a better one, any zip utility. Eclipse doesn't install itself, meaning you just need to create a folder for it.
As of writing, the current version of it is 4.2/Juno.
In Eclipse's folder, there is an "eclipse.exe" file. Run this file, and it should ask you about a "workspace" of some sort. We don't need to create one, but instead we'll need to find our Minecraft Coders Pack folder (inside the forge folder in your mod's folder), and use the "eclipse" folder inside it. You should also click the "Use this as default and don't ask again" option if you don't want this prompt every time you start Eclipse.

That's it for the two-part setup seires. Next time we'll get into the actual making of the mod file. Also may I mention that today (4th of April) is my birthday! Until next time, goodbye!

Minecraft Forge Modding Setup Part One: Setting up MCP and Forge

Welcome to my Minecraft Forge tutorials for modders (and want-to-be ones too)!

NOTE: This is currently out of date.

I'm here today to start a series of tutorials for modding the game Minecraft using an API known as Minecraft Forge. Before I begin, please allow me to explain that although modding games is usually illegal, in the case of Minecraft the creators of the game (first Markus Persson then Mojang) have allowed us to do so. However, we are not allowed to sell our mods. My next point is that we will use a tool called Minecraft Coders Pack (or MCP for short) to get into the game's code. Now, let's begin by setting up our coding enviroment!

Part One: Set up Forge

Please remember that I will describe some things as I do them, however more professional modders may use different ideas.

First, click here to download the latest version of Forge. Click absolutely NOTHING else than Skip Ad. This will download the compressed file.
Next, create a folder for where you will keep your MCP setups. I call this MinecraftModding. Create a folder inside that one for your new mod. I use a format which is 151-whiteStoneForge0.2, where 151 is the Minecraft version (1.5.1 in this case), whiteStoneForge is my mod's internal name (what it calls itself from the code) and 0.2 is the version.
Now we need to copy the forge folder in the zip file we downloaded to the mod folder (in my case 151-whiteStoneForge0.2).
The last thing we need to do is go into the forge folder and run the install.cmd (Linux users will have to install Python 2.7 then run install.sh). We don't have to get MCP, Forge and Minecraft anymore as Forge does it for us. Also, if you want to make a ModLoader mod, DO NOT set up ModLoader in the minecraft.jar. Forge Mod Loader inplements all of the old obselete ModLoader methods. In my opinion Forge is much easier, more compatible and much better than ModLoader anyway as well as allowing mods to run without needing to edit Mnecraft's code.