Minecraft In Game Mod Manager (Download + Review)
Do you love Minecraft mods? Wish that you could somehow manage all your mods from inside the game itself? Well now you can with the brand new Minecraft Mod Manager, a tool that allows you to enable and disable minecraft mods in game.
Mojang promised that they'd get around to putting a mod interface into Minecraft (that's why the texture pack selection bar also has mods written on it) but Notch decided that potions and dragons were far more important to the minecraft experience, and like other promised improvements that would have enhanced the core game experience, a mod manager has thus far gone by the wayside.
Fortunately, as usual, a modder has come to the party and created a mod managing interface you can use in game. You'll know Hippoplatimus, he made the Pistons mod (which has since been integrated into the official game) and he also made the Paint Mod. Basically he's an unpaid Minecraft developer, so if you have some spare cash to send his way, I suggest you make a donation. Whilst Mojang stuffs around adding mushroom colored cows to the game, people like Hippoplatimus are giving us what we really want and need.
Okay, bitter jibes at the creators aside, here's how the Mod Manager works. You install it pretty much like you'd install a mod, except instead of opening the current minecraft.jar, you rename it and add the downloaded minecraft.jar to the .minecraft folder. Once you've done that, you'll have a new interface when you start the game, an interface that allows you to enable and disable various mods. The program also creates a new 'external mods' folder, which is where you'll now place your mods, instead of unzipping them and adding them manually to the minecraft.jar yourself. You'll probably find that the process of modding minecraft is made much more simple by using this new interface, a double bonus for minecraft players who have been waiting a very long time for this relatively simple addition to the game.
The only drawback is that you'll have to exit to the main menu to change which mods are enabled, in much the same way you currently have to exit to the main menu to change texture packs. You'll also have to keep an eye on which mods are compatible with one another, if you install incompatible mods, you may still have problems with your game crashing. However, in future editions of this tool, there will be a 'resolve conflict' button that will fix those issues.
