1.9 exposing classes through an api

[UberAffe]

I have not made an api before and I'm not really finding anything useful for what kind of things need to be availabe and how to make them available.

In my case I have a few interfaces and classes that I want an addon to be able to interact with.

//implement or extend these
abstract class PartType
interface IDraftable
interface ILuxin

//use static methods from these classes
PartReg#RegisterPart(PartType part)
CoreReg#RegisterCore(IDraftable core)
LuxinReg#RegisterLuxin(ILuxin newLuxin)

 

What would I need to do to make these available?

[UberAffe]

So if someone was making an addon for my mod what would they use while programming. Do they just add my jar as a library in their build path or would I need to have something else for them to use?

[UberAffe]

I don't know why I always assume things must be more complicated than my first impression. Since the library isn't getting built into their mod I assume I can just do something like github.com/UberAffe/Light-Drafter/API/LightDrafter-1.9-1.0-api.jar and as long as I don't change those classes then anything they build against that jar will work with the current version of my mod.

 

Do I need to do anything to check for a minimum api version?

[Draco18s]

An API is nothing special. An API is simply a set of classes / methods that you agree to not change.

 

Unless you're Rieka.

 

Or unless there's a good reason, in which case:

1) Mark them @Deprecated for at least 1 version and throw a warning to the console/log

2) Do your best to handle the old way if you can (e.g. if a method name, location, or paramters changed, create the new method and have the old, deprecated version point to it with a best-guess default for new parameters).

 

I've got a few of these, from when I went "this class is handling more than it should be, I'm creating a new API interface for these" and moved them.

 

https://github.com/Draco18s/HarderStuff/blob/master/src/main/java/com/draco18s/hardlib/api/interfaces/IHardRecipes.java#L58-L66