Fabric

Fabric is a lightweight modloader. It has a separate API, required by most but not all Fabric mods in the mods folder. It has been worked on alongside the 1.14 snapshots of Minecraft Java Edition since before snapshot 18w49a (before December 5th 2018). It was created in 2016 as a hobby project of asiekierka.

It is currently supporting 1.14.4 and 1.15.2. It also supports the latest snapshots (20w09a) & combat test (currently combat test 5).

Known installation methods of Fabric
MultiMC was the first launcher (albeit third-party) to support the Fabric Modloader.

As of August 11 2019/0.6.7 update (around this time) MultiMC announced and added in an update to the launcher with an 'Install Fabric' button to allow for easier installation of the modloader compared to its prior zip importing method required before. Forge 1.14 support is not available for the launcher currently due to the current state of the modloader and MultiMC being unable to handle the differences Forge 1.13+ has been changed to, making Fabric the only current way to have mods added for 1.14+ with the launcher and possibly in the future (including snapshots that can be modded). There is currently support for 1.15 release and snapshots support for Fabric, from 19w35a to 1.15.2 Pre-Release 2 (Better citation inclusion needed https://multimc.org/posts/forge-114.html).

The Minecraft Java Edition Launcher was supported not long after 18w50a via the Fabric Installer.



Installation instructions for the Minecraft Java Edition launcher
Fabric Installer is purported to be the tool to make instances of 1.14 Minecraft Java Edition snapshots from Minecraft versions 18w49a and onwards to be modded (public knowledge, but not accurate). Fabric API is a core mod of sorts for mods. It is best to not get these mixed up.

Fabric Installation instructions can be found on the Fabric wiki here.

A step by step process is available below:

Fabric is installed into the Minecraft Java Edition launcher from a tool on the Fabric Wiki [here http://fabric.asie.pl/use/]. This source has two MAIN methods: one for MultiMC and the vanilla Minecraft Java Edition launcher. Since this guide assumes the user will be using the vanilla launcher, select that tab and Click the 'download.jar' button for the Installer. Once it is downloaded, double-click on the file.

There are a few options to be aware of.

Once Fabric has installed its profile (it is recommended to do this the first time Fabric is installed), it will be either installed already or the user will have to select the Fabric version from the Launch Options tab. Fabric snapshots can be switched at any time from the Installations tab to update as well and use the same profile; untick the Create profile check box on the Fabric Installer window to do so and it will not create a profile but will install the updated Fabric loader version desired.

The Fabric API is also needed to make mods possible to run in this instance (not all but many do require it). Fabric API is like a library mod that is required by mods that are in the Fabric environment to work. The common source to get Fabric API builds is from Curseforge.

Once Fabric API is downloaded and placed inside the Mods folder and Fabric Loader is installed for Minecraft Java Edition (along with other mods the player chooses to use) the game will become ready for modded play. Sometimes, when Minecraft snapshot versions bump, Fabric API may need an update as well.

'''Note: Like Rift, or Forge for Minecraft 1.13.2, Fabric does not read mods in individual folders. While Forge might have been able to read folders from 1.12.2 when they were put into it, Fabric cannot.'''

Curseforge source for Fabric API builds can be found here.

Mod Menu Notice:
If you're new to Rift or Fabric you'll notice there is no 'Mod Options' button like with Forge. This is due to the option not being built into the modloaders/Fabric API, it is instead a separate mod, this is due to keeping things lightweight as well as for specific limitations if it were bundled. Also players could consider it optional (similar to Fabric API where it is used for some mods but not all in terms of how optional it is) if they aren't interested in knowing how many (or what in particular) mods are installed, or tweaking configs (if the mod developer has configs and has made it accessible through Mod Menu). You can download Mod Menu to take advantage of these benefits here.

MultiMC Fabric Installation Tutorial 1.14.4 tutorial instructions:
There is two known ways to install Fabric for MultiMC. The "Fabric Install Button" and "Importing From Zip" methods.

The Fabric Install Button method is as simple as creating a new 1.14+ instance on MultiMC, then editing the instance to install Fabric how you would Forge or Liteloader for 1.12.2 and prior. By installing Fabric you are installing the Fabric Loader and Intermediary Mappings. Once this is installed just put your mods (including Fabric API) and it should load up correctly stating Fabric after the Minecraft version such as "Minecraft 1.14.4/Fabric."

The Importing from Zip method. requires you to go to Fabric's website here: https://fabricmc.net/use/ and selecting the correct loader version and Game/Mappings version, once you have selected the versions from the dropdown box you have two buttons to choose from, Download MultiMC Instance or Copy MultiMC Instance URL. The Download instance button will give you a zip file you can download to your local hard drive and import with MultiMC, while the Copy URL button copies the URL to your clipboard. Both need you to put a link of either the URL or the zip file folder location to set it up this way. Once the instance is created, just add the mods (including Fabric API) and it should be good to go.

Vanilla instructions
Once a modded Fabric setup has been made, download [Optifine https://www.optifine.net/downloads], go to the downloads, and select from the preview versions and put the Optifine preview file into the mods folder alongside OptiFabric which you can be downloaded from [here https://minecraft.curseforge.com/projects/optifabric] to use for compatibility between the two. One thing to consider with the OptiFabric installation is that the preview file can be used as is (out of the box) or extracted to get the same result; this is not the case with other modloader installations as far as it is known when it comes to OptiForge or OptiRift, but without OptiFabric it will not work with a Fabric created instance; this applies to both the Preview file and the extracted method. This is unrelated to the Optifine install for vanilla 1.14.2 and only applies to Fabric modded instances for 1.14 versions. Once it is loaded up Fabric mods will work alongside Optifine.