Balm (Forge/Fabric Edition) 1.18.1/1.17.1 is a library mod that does not add anything on its own. It brings an Abstraction Layer (but not really) for Blay’s multiplatform mods.
What is Balm?
It is a mod that is only necessary for Minecraft 1.17+. It’s a design that the owner released in September 2021. That will not change into a dependency of versions that were available years ago. You should think carefully before you ask for any older version.
According to the developer, other modders should not build on this. He will break backward compatibility if he needs it for his mods.
Besides, you are playing with a trial run for supporting both Forge and Fabric on his mods. Hence, there are some mods depending on it at the moment.
If supporting both platforms becomes feasible, the remaining part of his mods will follow.
Remember that it is not a magic solution to run Forge and Fabric mods at the same time! It’s simply a library that mods will base on to make publishing both versions smoother.
Reasons
He cannot just switch to Fabric and abandon every current Forge customer of Balm. Nevertheless, he doesn’t want to miss any Fabric train if there is one.
Testing a port for fun pointed that almost all the platform-specific stuff can conceal away from the real mod code. That is the code that doesn’t require modloader backends. So, he hopes that it will aid both mods at once.
There are other libraries that can implement the same mission. But, with the number of mods that he maintains, he doesn’t expect to put all money on one boat. Meanwhile, other mods are not supported anymore.
How to solve the problem
It only covers platform-specific code behind a unified API in the easiest way. There is no relevant magic. It gives superclasses to deploy in cases where platform-specific ways are visible in Vanilla classes.
It also supplements a straightforward network system and a config layer with sync help.
For Fabric, it relies on Cloth Config. For Forge, it launches the default Forge config system in the backend.
Balm is an API and Library mod that is important for other mods.
