Using Solder.

[plokami666]

As this has been the source of confusion for quite a few people, I thought I would write a quick guide to explain how to use Solder. Most of this information can be found in the original Solder API thread but I thought I would simplify it EVEN further and put it all together for easy access.

This guide assumes the following:

You have already installed Solder and it's fully functional.

You have FTP/FTPS/SFTP or Terminal access to the public and application/config directories of the solder installation.

You know how to use an archiver (such as winrar/7zip/etc)

Your Solder installation is located in /var/www/solder/

Your IQ is at least 90. I can't dumb this down any more than I already have bellow.

For the purpose of this guide, I am going to use the following as examples.

1. modpack.jar
   
2. coremodexample.jar
   
3. modexample.jar
   
4. Your modpack is called ExampleCraft
   
5. You solder installation URL is solder.example.com
   

Step one: Repo setup.

Inside the /var/www/solder/public/ directory, create a new directory called repo.

Go to the /var/www/solder/application/config/ directory and open the solder.php file with some sort of text editor.

Locate this line: 'repo_location' => '',

Change it to: 'repo_location' => '/var/www/solder/public/repo/',

Locate this line: 'mirror_url' => '',

Change it to: 'mirror_url' => 'http://solder.example.com/repo/',

Save and reupload to /var/www/solder/application/config/

Go back to the /var/www/solder/public/repo/ directory.

Create a new directory named mods and enter that.

Step two: Properly packaging the mods for Solder and uploading.

On your computer, go to the directory where your modpack.jar, coremodexample.jar and

modexample.jar are located.

Create a modexample directory. Within that directory, create a mods directory and inside of that mods directory drop your modexample.jar.

If you have altered the config file that came along with modexample.jar you will need to create a config directory within the modexample one and drop your config file in the config directory.

With your archiver program, compress both the mods and config directories to one zip file named modexample-1.0.0.zip . The numbers in this are the version of the mod. You should enter the correct version of the mod you are using.

Upload the modexample directory to /var/www/solder/repo/mods/

Do the same for coremodexample.jar and modpack.jar.

Instead of a mods folder, you need to create a coremods folder for coremodexample.jar

and a bin folder for modpack.jar

Every mod you will add to solder will need to have the above done to it.

Every mod-x.x.x.zip will need to be in it's own directory named after it.

Step three: Getting solder to recognize your mods and adding them to a modpack.

Go to solder.example.com and log in.

Click on Mod Library at the top.

Click on Add a Mod at the left.

Go through the process of adding all the information for the mod you wish to add.

In the Mod Slug input, you should put the same name as the director that contains your mod.

If you're adding BuildCraft and your directory is called buildcraft, that's what you will need to enter.

If it's called something else, it will have to be that something else.

Finally, click on Add Mod at the bottom.

Go to the Mod List. Locate the mod you wish to add a version to and click on Manage to the right.

It will take you to an editor page. Click on Mod Versions to the left. You will need to enter ONLY the version. If the mod zip you've uploaded is called modexample-1.1.1.zip you will have to

ONLY enter the 1.1.1 part. Click on add version.

Now that your mod is recognized by the system, you will have to add it to your modpack.

If you don't have a modpack already created, now's the time to do so. To Solder instuctions for that

are very clear so I won't bother explaining how.

Create a build for your modpack. Refresh the page and click on the Manage button to the right.

There will be a pretty dropdown list. Click it, select your mod and on the list to the right, select the version. Click on add mod and refresh the page.

And that's it. You've added your very first mod to your modpack.

You will need to do this for all mods, coremods and for your modpack.jar

And that's basically it.