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Improve Paper project creation page #697
Description
Every time I link the project setup guide, I have to recommend ignoring the mcdev part as that plugin serves little to no purpose for plugin development, the gradle build script it does some non-standard things in regard to setting the Java source/target compat and it generates plugins with paper-plugin.yml by default (which isn't as much of an issue as before, but they're still experimental so it being the default when everything else uses plugin.yml has been quite confusing for some users). Overall the whole MCDev part is rather redundant as it explains how to click the buttons in the wizard, which I don't believe is necessary for people who might want to use their generator as it should be plenty straight-forward.
Note
The Minecraft development plugin templates have been updated to an extend that its usage can be recommended once again, which makes the above comment no longer an issue. Those changes are currently published on the nightly channel, but will makes its way onto the mainstream plugin release at some point.
There's also the simple fact that for this kind of guide which people will inevitably skim through, the fact that it shows two ways to achieve the project setup isn't immediately clear unless you're carefully reading the content. People expect some linearity in a guide like this.
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Leguan16 commentedon Dec 16, 2025
I think I have never manually set up a project and always used the plugin. I personally don't see an issue here. Paper got hardforked a year ago so having it default to paper plugins isn't really a problem.
You should always carefully read the documentation. And it literally says in note admonition below the first paragraph (barely to miss if you read from the heading - which you should do regardless - that it is only an alternative if you are using IntelliJ, which is what Paper recommends.
Just as another example: Spring documentation also usually has 2 methods of getting the project set up with downloading a template or going through spring initializer. They don't even have a manual setup guide at all.
electronicboy commentedon Dec 16, 2025
I think mcdev as a quick get started is great, especially as navigating build tools on day 0 is pretty complex, even with the guides we've got some do fail in the process; I think that the real issue is that we need better templates here, I think that for the most part the default generated files make sense in terms of ensuring that they set some stuff up as expected, but the way they do it is maybe less relevant now that legacy versions were dropped;
only real thing is that the templates aren't kotlin scripts, which kinda sucks a bunch
Malfrador commentedon Dec 16, 2025
Both Gradle and Maven can be very overwhelming to a beginner dev. A lot of people looking at that page will realistically have very little, if not zero, experience with Java.
But I rather have people use suboptimal templates than being too overwhelmed and ending up not using a build tool at all.
I wouldn't be against structuring the page a bit differently or splitting it up into a separate one though, the current structure switching back and forth between the mcdev plugin and the manual way is not optimal.
JavierFlores09 commentedon Dec 20, 2025
There was a discussion on the #docs-webiste channel in Discord about what to do about this, and it feels like the consensus was to just update the templates, so this isn't as much of an issue instead. While I still think it'd be better off outside of the Paper documentation, if templates are updated then this will be much less of an issue so it would be fine either way. Will keep the issue open in case people in charge of updating these change their mind.
[-]Remove MCDev part of the project setup guide[/-][+]Improve Paper project creation page[/+]