Best practice for releasing a mod

[SnowyEgret]

Has anyone got advice? From someone who's been there, done that -  things that I absolutely must do, things that I  must never, never do?

 

Distribution, versioning, bug tracking, logo, github, videos, Minecraft Forum, Adfly, CurseForge, beta testing, personal website, etc.

 

(Hoping this is this the right place for a question like this)

 

 

[SanAndreaP]

The absolute simplest way to release a mod is to build it, upload it to CurseForge and make a MC Forums thread linking to the CurseForge mod and an explanation.

 

For versioning I'd suggest Semantic Versioning, specifically in the style of

MCVersion-ModVersion

, for example

1.8-1.0.1

You can use any publicly available bug tracker. If you're hosting your source on github/bitbucket/etc., then I'd suggest to use their bug tracker as well, so you don't have everything spreaded around the place.

For hosting your source: If you want to do that, make sure if anyone decides to fork it (for pull requests etc.), that person can easily run

gradlew setupDecompWorkspace

and use your mod in a dev environment. So include your build.gradle, the gradle-wrapper files (gradlew, gradlew.bat and the gradle folder), your source and resources. Being OpenSource is completely optional, but preferred if you want help with your mod.

If you decide to host on CurseForge, be aware it has a Rewards Program, so you don't need AdFly/AdFocus/etc.. If not, you can use those url shortener, but out of goodwill, you may want to provide a direct link as well, for those who can't access them.

I usually do beta-testing as follows: a group of people get a pre-alpha, then I release a "full" alpha/beta for all. But you can do whatever you want.

A personal website is not needed. I don't have one for my mods (yet), but [tt=http://botaniamod.net/]Botania[/code], for example, does.