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A button is a switch. Like levers, pressure plates, and tripwire hooks, it sends a redstone signal to adjacent blocks when pressed. However, a button can only be activated by being pressed and will only stay pressed for a short duration. After this, the charge to the object will be lost and the button will pop out, ready to be clicked again. However, with the creation of a T Flip-flop redstone circuit, it can be used as a lever substitute. Unlike levers and torches, a button can only be placed on the side of a block.

Like any object that gives charges, it must be next to the object receiving the charge (doors, rails, etc.) or connected to it by a length of redstone wire.

The button is one of five switches currently in the game. As a momentary-contact switch, it can be useful for resetting redstone circuits. The duration that a button is activated when pressed differs between button types, with stone buttons remaining active for 1 second (10 redstone ticks) and wooden buttons for 1.5 seconds (15 redstone ticks). Note that the wooden button can be shot by an arrow to become activated, unlike a stone button which must be physically pressed by hand, and they will stay pressed until the arrow despawns or is retrieved.

When submerged in water, Buttons are destroyed, rather than merely becoming unattached, like torches.

Also like torches, buttons can be placed to a side of a chest, dispenser, workbench, or furnace in the same fashion. This is done by placing any solid block above the one you want to place the button on, and right clicking it on the bottom with a button in hand. The button can't attach to the bottom of blocks, and will relocate to an available space. This lets you place the button on a block's side without right clicking it.

Mobs (excluding the player) cannot press buttons by hand, but skeletons may unintentionally trigger wooden buttons when firing arrows. Wooden buttons can also be triggered by arrows fired from a dispenser.

Natural occurrence

Stone buttons can be found naturally in Strongholds right next to iron doors.

Crafting

The current crafting recipe for Stone/Wood Buttons is as imaged below.

Ingredients Input » Output
Stone or Wooden Planks Template:Grid/Crafting Table

Video

Button/video

History

Jigsaw Block (top texture) JE2 BE2
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The Button was introduced in the Seecret Friday Update 3. The Button appears in Alpha, Beta and the game's Full Release.

Since Beta 1.5_01, it appears that the hitbox for the button is off. You need to click a space in front of the button for it to be pressed. This was fixed in 1.6.6, with the side effect that you cannot punch through doors anymore.

On servers, lag could cause buttons to stick for longer than their intended time. This issue was fixed in the fifth 1.9 pre-release.

Wooden Buttons were added in snapshot 12w34a. They could be triggered by arrows as well as players. In this snapshot there was no crafting recipe for this button. This was changed in 12w34b where a new crafting recipe was created for both stone and wooden buttons.

The pre-1.4.2 crafting recipe for the stone button is imaged below.

Ingredients Input » Output
Stone Template:Grid/Crafting Table

Bugs

  • Arrows still do not trigger wooden buttons properly, if the arrow hits the bottom half of the block face the button is attached to, then it will trigger the button. However, hitting an arrow on the top half of that block face will not trigger the button, with the exception of the arrow hitting the button itself.
  • If a piston moves more than one block which has the button on the end of the chain of blocks, then the button will move to the next block.

Trivia

  • When sitting in a minecart and looking down at a slight angle at a button, sometimes you cannot press it even though it is in the crosshairs. This is caused by the hitbox of the minecart being larger than the minecart itself is, as with boats and many other entities.
  • Since buttons have the same texture as the blocks they are produced from, buttons can be placed on those blocks to make 'camouflaged' switches. However, despite this, buttons are popped out from the block in which they are attached to, therefore making this only useful if the subjects are directly across.
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