Content UI Does Not Follow Symbolic Links (yet launcher does)

[41exio]

Describe the bug

On macOS ARM the UI does not correctly follow symbolic links; however, when launching the game the mods are loaded as expected. This issue may be related to #1032, and I believe full support of symbolic links (with documentation) may partially address #992, #949 and #813 (i.e. synced state between devices) - see below for a further discussion on this.

Steps to reproduce

The below was tried with a fresh install and just fabric-api, but the behaviour is observed with many mods too.

1. Create symbolic link: ln -s /source/path/mods ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.modrinth.theseus/profiles/ModrinthProfile

2. Observe no mods in UI (full computer restart had no effect):

3. Game launches and successfully loads mods:

Expected behavior

The launcher and UI should have consistent behaviour - ideally both supporting symbolic linking of the mods folder.

System information

Apple M2 Pro, Theseus v0.7.1

Additional context

Great job on a fantastic launcher! One of the key missing features however, is better support for those of us that switch between multiple devices. There are several open issues regarding this:

1. Add option to set custom directories for icons, profiles, etc. #813
2. Cloud saves for instances #949
3. Add ability for different profiles to use the same screenshots / saves / ... folder and settings #992

Note that the third issue is very similar to this issue, yet for this issue I would consider it closed if just having a symbolic link of the mods folder is supported, whereas #992 is regarding symlinking further folders and handling profile.json conflicts.

Roll Your Own Cloud Sync

For those that aren't aware of how to roll their own sync, I follow the rough steps below:

1. Setup a source repo
   • This could be a GitHub repository or other file hosting/cloud sync service like Dropbox
   • I tend to prefer GitHub because I can manually push updates and don't need to worry about conflicts due to continuous syncing, but I don't need to worry about syncing saves because I play on a server.
2. Prepare the mods folder
   • Create the source folder anywhere on your filesystem/within your Dropbox synced folders
   • Find the mods folder in the profile you want to sync (press folder button or look here)
   • Ensure the Modrith app is closed, copy across any existing mods to your new source folder
   • Delete the old mods folder
3. Create the link
   • On macOS/linux open a terminal and do ln -s $wherever_you_put/mods $wherever_modinth_folder_is/com.modrinth.theseus/profiles/$the_profile_you_want_to_sync/
   • On Windows creating a shortcut might work - I've not tested it
   • You should see the linked shortcut folder in the Modrinth app directory
4. Make sure syncing is working
   • Open Modrinth, add some mods
   • Push the new mods to GitHub/check Dropbox is working
5. Repeat 2 & 3 on other devices
6. Profit