PCL: Plain Craft Launcher for Minecraft

TL;DR: PCL, the Plain Craft Launcher, is a Minecraft launcher whose repository is written entirely in Visual Basic .NET. It has 8,716 stars, 1,204 forks and a homepage at meloong.com/PCL. The source ships as a Visual Studio solution with separate projects for the app, a core library and a launcher component, plus a directory of patches.

What it is

The repository description is written in Chinese: it identifies the project as the Minecraft launcher Plain Craft Launcher, abbreviated PCL. The declared topics are launcher, minecraft and minecraft-launcher, so there is no ambiguity about the category.

What you are looking at is the source of a desktop application rather than a library. The implementation language is Visual Basic .NET, which puts it firmly in the Windows desktop world, and the repository was created on 2022-07-26 with its most recent push three days ago.

The scale is modest compared to the giant framework and tooling projects on the same trending page, and that is appropriate. This is a launcher that other people install, so 8,716 stars and 1,204 forks represent a fairly large user base for a desktop utility.

What the repository contains

The layout is a normal multi-project Visual Studio solution, and it reads clearly:

Path	What it holds
Plain Craft Launcher 2.sln	The Visual Studio solution, the entry point for building
Plain Craft Launcher 2/	The main application project
MeloongCore/	A shared core library pulled out of the app
PCLCS/	The launcher component itself
patches/	Patch definitions applied to Minecraft assets
LICENCE	The license text, spelled the British way
最新正式版.zip	The latest official release packaged as a zip archive

The .gitmodules file tells you the project pulls in at least one external repository as a submodule, which is normal for a tool that needs to reference or patch Minecraft files.

MeloongCore/ is the part worth noting. Separating the core logic from the application project means the launcher-specific code and the reusable logic are versioned and reviewed separately, which is a sign the project has been restructured over time rather than grown in one file.

The presence of 最新正式版.zip at the root is unusual and worth understanding before you clone: the repository itself carries a built binary of the latest official release, so the source tree and a ready-to-use download are both in the same place.

Getting it

The homepage, meloong.com/PCL, is where the project publishes its downloads for users. If you want the source instead:

git clone https://github.com/Meloong-Git/PCL.git
cd PCL
ls

To work on the code you need a Windows machine with Visual Studio, since the solution file is a Visual Studio solution and the projects target .NET. The three projects mean you can open the solution and debug the launcher without rebuilding anything else.

What the license field actually says

The GitHub API reports the license as NOASSERTION for this repository. That is not the same as no license. It means GitHub found a license file and could not map it to a standard SPDX identifier, which usually happens with custom or non-standard terms. The LICENCE file at the root is the authoritative text, so read it before you assume any particular permission, especially for anything commercial.

When it is worth a look

Two angles. First, if you have never seen a large VB.NET desktop project, the solution structure here is a decent sample of how a Windows app with a core library, a launcher and a patch pipeline is actually organised. Second, if you play Minecraft on Windows and want a launcher that is not the one the game ships with, this is the project behind one of the common options, and the source tells you what it does to your game files.

When to skip it

This is a Windows desktop utility, so it is the wrong reference if you are on macOS or Linux, or if you are looking for a server-side or headless tool. It is also not a general-purpose launcher: the patches directory and the launcher component are specific to Minecraft, so the code does not generalise the way a framework would.

And if you only want the application, the source adds nothing to the prebuilt release sitting at meloong.com/PCL.

Source and Accuracy Notes

• Project page: https://github.com/Meloong-Git/PCL
• Source repository: Meloong-Git/PCL (verified via GitHub API html_url)
• License: NOASSERTION (GitHub API returned no standard SPDX identifier; see the LICENCE file in the repository)
• Stars at time of writing: 8716