WhatLIB?

Is a lightweight information and discovery library for Minecraft mods. It provides shared infrastructure for discovering, inspecting, and exposing information about the mods and systems currently running in a game instance.

Not a standalone library, and is not part of the Extra Special Studio (ESS) mod stack. It uses Extra Special Core (ESC) for its GUI systems and Extra Special Hub (ESH) as the in-game interface through which its information is displayed.

What It Does:

WhatLIB? provides reusable systems for mod discovery, runtime environment inspection, mod metadata, dependency information, integration information, and developer/debugging tools.

It gives other mods a common way to access information about the current modded environment without every project having to implement its own discovery and inspection systems.

How It Works:

WhatLIB? handles the information and discovery side of the system.

ESC provides the GUI rendering, composition, styling, and other visual infrastructure used by the WhatLIB? interface.

ESH provides the in-game hub and navigation layer used to access and display WhatLIB? information.

This keeps the information systems, visual framework, and hub interface as separate components while allowing them to work together as a complete in-game tool.

How To Use It:

Install WhatLIB? alongside its required dependencies.

WhatLIB? is primarily developer infrastructure rather than a standalone gameplay feature. Compatible mods can use its APIs to discover and inspect information about the current Minecraft environment.

When installed, its in-game interface is accessed through ESH and rendered using ESC.

Dependencies:

- Extra Special Core (ESC) (required) – Provides the GUI rendering and composition framework used by WhatLIB?.
- Extra Special Hub (ESH) (required) – Provides the in-game hub and interface used to access WhatLIB?.
- Forge – Minecraft Forge 47.0+.
- Minecraft – 1.20.1.