Resource pack

The resource pack system is an API replacement for texture packs and a way for players to further customize their Minecraft experience.

Resource packs allow players to customize music, sounds, language files, end credits, and fonts without any code modification. Ultimately, every mod/plugin will be its own resource pack, vanilla will be a resource pack by itself, and users will be able to apply multiple resource packs at once. This means that all texture packs will no longer be usable, but a tool called Minecraft Texture Ender is available from Mojang to manually convert "unstitched" (1.5.2-style) texture packs to resource packs (1.4.7-style "stitched" packs can be converted by running them through Unstitcher and then through Texture Ender). It also includes a new metadata format so that plugin developers as well as Mojang themselves can easily include whole new types of resources with very minimal difficulty. The new format will also allow Minecraft to more easily detect out of date packs and possibly even load them as if they were up to date.