Java Edition 1.4.6

1.4.6 is an update to Minecraft that was released on December 20, 2012. It introduced fireworks, enchanted books and the Thorns enchantment. It also added a warning for users playing on soon-to-be unsupported systems (PowerPC and Java 5). While it was not the last update to 1.4, it was the last one before the snapshots of 1.5 started.

A pre-release version of 1.4.6 was released on December 17, 2012; this pre-release version was later re-uploaded to fix an issue with mobs spinning. The release version of 1.4.6 differs from the reuploaded pre-release by fixing a crash issue.

Blocks

 * Nether brick slabs
 * Crafted using nether bricks.

Items

 * Enchanted books
 * Enchant books to receive a single enchantment on them.
 * Can be applied to items using anvils, consuming the book.
 * Enchants can be applied to any item in Creative mode.
 * Sold by villagers and found in dungeon and village chests.
 * Can now be found in loot chests and by trading with villagers.
 * Unbreaking can be applied to anything with durability.
 * Efficiency and Silk Touch can be applied to shears, allowing the harvesting of cobwebs.
 * Sharpness, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods can be applied to axes.


 * Firework star
 * Used to create firework rockets.
 * Combine gunpowder with dyes to get a firework star with those colors used for the sparkles.
 * Add glowstone, a fire charge, a diamond, a gold nugget, feather, or a mob head to make the firework twinkling, big, trailing, star-shaped, bursting, or creeper-shaped, respectively.
 * Craft a firework star with dye to change the color that the sparkles fade to.


 * Firework rocket
 * Non-destructive, rise up in the air, and create colorful patterns when shot by dispensers or placed by players.
 * Combine paper with gunpowder to craft a firework rocket.
 * Add a firework star to add effects, or gunpowder to increase the flight duration.

Gameplay

 * Thorns
 * A new armor enchantment.
 * Deals damage depending on tier to attackers.
 * Wears armor out faster.

Blocks

 * Monster spawners
 * Can now spawn differently configured mobs with different spawn chances

Items

 * Bows
 * A high pitched sound is now played when a player hits another player from far away with a bow.

Mobs

 * Ghasts
 * Fireballs' blast radius can now be customized


 * Skeletons, zombies, and zombie pigmen
 * The armor and enchants they spawn with now are even harder on harder difficulties.

Non-mob entities

 * Arrows
 * Now render from farther away.


 * Items and item frame entities
 * Now render in 3D when using fancy graphics.

World generation

 * Dungeons and villages
 * Now have a random chance to have enchanted books in their chests.

Gameplay

 * Inventory
 * Items can now be dragged and dropped.
 * Long pressing will halve the stack before dragging.


 * Hotbar
 * Items now show their name when switching in the hotbar.
 * Can be disabled by changing  to false in options.txt.
 * Dropping items while holding now drops the whole stack.


 * Enchantments
 * Fire Protection now extinguishes fire more quickly.
 * Blast Protection now reduces explosion recoil.
 * Protection is not as protective as it used to be in order to make specific enchantments more worthwhile.


 * Sneaking
 * Pressing while sneaking now uses the held item instead of the currently selected block.


 * Death messages
 * Now appear in server log files.

General

 * Display
 * Added a default resolution setting to options.txt :  and.


 * Options
 * Added an option to toggle touchscreen mode.

General

 * Distance effects
 * Falling block behavior has changed - they are no longer capable of infinitely producing dropped items at high coordinate values.

Release fixes
These fixes occurred between the last snapshot for 1.4.6, 12w50b, and the full release of 1.4.6.


 * Other fixes
 * Fixed mouse wrongly positioned in fullscreen.

Trivia

 * 1.4.6 is the first minor update to have snapshots.