Java Edition 1.12

1.12
Edition	Java Edition
Official name	World of Color Update
Release date	June 7, 2017
Downloads	Client Server
Protocol version	335
Data version	1139
See also other instances of 1.12	Bedrock Edition Education Edition PlayStation 3 Edition PlayStation 4 Edition PlayStation Vita Edition Minecraft Dungeons

1.12, the first release of the World of Color Update, is a major update to Minecraft that was released on June 7, 2017. This update introduced a more vibrant color palette, a new crafting system, hints for beginners, glazed terracotta, concrete, colored beds, illusioners, and parrots. It also replaced achievements with a customizable and more powerful system of 'advancements', and introduced a new system for working with collections of commands, called 'functions'.

Additions

Blocks

Concrete

• Comes in the 16 traditional dye colors
• Created when Concrete Powder comes into contact with still or flowing water

Concrete Powder

• Comes in the 16 traditional dye colors
• Gravity affected (like Sand and Gravel).
• When it touches water, it turns into a Concrete block.
• Craftable. Crafting: 4 Sand, 4 Gravel and one of any dye to get 8 Concrete Powder blocks. The recipe is shapeless.

Glazed Terracotta

• Comes in the 16 traditional dye colors
• Smelt any colored terracotta in a furnace to obtain the Glazed Terracotta of that color (not for regular terracotta).
• Can be placed in 4 directions: North, South, West, and East.
  • When placed down while facing the right directions, a repeating pattern can be created. For example, the white terracotta will create the pattern of a sun when 4 are placed down correctly.
• Will not "stick" to slime blocks if attached to the side, top or bottom, but will if attached to the front or back.

Items

Knowledge Book

• A green-colored book
• Currently obtainable only with the /give @p knowledge_book command.
• A Knowledge Book with a Recipes NBT tag, which contains a list of item IDs, will be consumed and unlock the specified items' recipes for any player that uses it
  • Especially useful when /gamerule doLimitedCrafting is set to true

Spawn eggs

• Parrot (new mob): Green with red dots.

Mobs

Illusioner

• New illager.
• Affects players with Blindness for 20 seconds then shoots with a bow.
  • Its blindness spell will only be cast if the regional difficulty is greater than 2.
• Summons duplicates of itself.
  • All duplicates will show shooting animation, but only the real one can be hit and shoots the arrow.
  • The original turns invisible.
• Does not currently have a spawn egg, so can only be summoned with /summon illusion_illager.
• Targets both the player and villagers.

Parrots

• Tamable with seeds
• Fly around, but sit when "tired"
• If fed cookies, the parrot dies.
  • Poison particle effects are emitted, but they are not actually killed by poison.
  • If a player has tamed a parrot and then fed it cookies, it will display the message "Parrot was slain by <player>".
• Follow and crowd around nearby mobs.
• Imitates sounds of other mobs.
• Parrots dance if playing music on a nearby jukebox.
• Right-click action available:
  • Right-click on a tamed parrot tells it to sit down.
• Walking over/through/near a tamed parrot while crouching will cause it to sit on the player's shoulders.
  • Will let go if the player jumps.
  • Can fly with players during elytra flight.
• Have 6 health.
• Come in red, blue, green, cyan and gray.

Gameplay

Gamerules

• announceAdvancements
  • Defaults to true
  • Toggles announcing of advancements, replacing the old announce-player-achievements server.properties entry
    • If announce-player-achievements is set, the gamerule is automatically updated and announce-player-achievements is removed
• doLimitedCrafting
  • Off by default
  • Enabling will only allow players to craft recipes they have unlocked
• gameLoopFunction
  • A function to be executed once per tick
• maxCommandChainLength
  • The default is 65536.
  • Determines the number at which the chain command block acts as a "chain".

Command format

• @s
  • Targets the executing entity, e.g: /execute @e[type=villager] ~ ~ ~ say @s
• /advancement <grant|revoke|test> <player> <advancement> [criterion]
  • Can grant, test or revoke advancements, and particular advancement criteria, for a given player
  • There are five modifiers to the command: "everything", "from", "until", "through", "only"
    • "everything" - all advancements, no specification required (same as "*")
    • "from" - this advancement, its children, and their children, etc
    • "until" - this advancement, its parent, and its parent, etc
    • "through" - both of the above
    • "only" - this advancement, and nothing else
  • Examples:
    • /advancement grant dinnerbone until story/elytra
    • /advancement revoke dinnerbone everything
• /function namespace:file
  • Runs a function once through the entity or command block which ran the function command
    • Added new arguments:
      • if <selector> - runs the function only if the specified selector is found
      • unless <selector> - runs the function except when the specified selector is found
• /recipe <give|take> [player] <name|*>
  • Can unlock, or lock, the given recipes for the given player
  • If * is specified, it will lock or unlock all recipes for the player
• /reload
  • Command to reload advancements and loot tables from disk
  • This command is available to all opped players in single player and to all level 4 operators on a multiplayer server.
  • Cannot be run from a command block.

General

Advancements

• Replaces achievements
• Can be customized via JSON files
• Tab-based UI
  • 5 tabs (more supported):
    • Minecraft: The heart and story of the game.
    • Adventure: Adventure, exploration, and combat.
    • Nether: Bring summer clothes.
    • The End: Or the beginning?
    • Husbandry: The world is full of friends and food.
  • Data-driven UI, including positioning and layout
• Supports rewards in the form of recipes, loot, experience and functions
  • The only default advancements with a reward are the default "challenge" advancements, which grant experience
• Pop-up "toast" notification for when players advance
  • New sliding effect
  • Comes in two different colors - yellow for normal advancements, and pink for "challenge" advancements
• A number display tracks progress while completing advancements with multiple requirements

Controls

• Added keybinding options for Creative toolbar saving
• Added new keybinding for opening advancements (default "L")

Creative

• Added "Saved Toolbars" tab
  • Save toolbars in Creative Mode with C+1-9 and load them with X+1-9
  • Can save up to 9 toolbars
  • If the player saves an empty toolbar, it will clear the bookmarked toolbar and put back the 'informational paper' in the respective slot.

Function

• Added new function system, which are text files with the file extension .mcfunction in namespace:path/to/function/file
  • For example, running /function custom:example/test will refer to the function located at WORLDNAME/data/functions/custom/example/test.mcfunction.
• Functions are a list of commands, one line per command (without a forward slash), with # comment support

JSON format

• Added 'group' to recipe json format, to clump similar recipes together
• Added new 'keybind' text component, to refer to the player's keybindings

Menu screen

• Added the ability to see credits by clicking the copyright text

Narrator

• CTRL+B toggles a text-to-speech engine that automatically reads player chat messages, including the name
  • Option to toggle narrator between: "off", "chat & system", "chat only", and "system messages only"
• Shows a notification for toggling
• The Narrator will not read commands or command outputs, nor will it read messages produced with /me
• It displays a message whenever the Narrator isn't available
  • Uses the "toast" notification system

NBT tags

•  LastExecution
  • Stores the tick a chain command block was last executed in
•  LoveCauseLeast and  LoveCauseMost for breedable entities
  • Together these record the UUID of the entity that caused a given animal to breed
•  recipeBook
  • A compound tag containing a list of recipes, formatted as JSON, that the player has seen, as well as recipe book information
  •  isFilteringCraftable
    • Becomes 1 if the player has enabled the "Show Craftable" feature in the recipe book
  •  isGuiOpen
    • Checks if the player has left the GUI open
    •  unlocked
  •  recipes
    • Contains information about all recipes the player has seen
    •  displayed
      • Checks if the player has tried out the recipe in the recipe book before (by clicking it/viewing it)
  •  toBeDisplayed
    • Within are recipe names that the player has unlocked but not viewed in the crafting helper yet
    • Used for remembering to play the animation for new recipes
•  Recipes
  • A list of crafting recipes to unlock for the player that right-clicks while holding a Knowledge Book
  • If this is not specified, the Knowledge Book will not be consumed
•  enteredNetherPosition
  • A compound tag containing the X, Y, and Z coordinates of the overworld position the player entered the nether
  •  x
    • The x coordinate.
  •  y
    • The y coordinate.
  •  z
    • The z coordinate.
•  seenCredits
  • Changes to 1 if the player leaves the End through the portal
•  ShoulderEntityLeft and  ShoulderEntityRight
  • Contains entity data about an entity on the left and right shoulders of the player
•  UpdateLastExecution
  • Defaults to 1b. If set to 0b, loops can be created, where the same command block can run multiple times in one tick.

Recipe book

• Catalogs recipes that are unlocked when the criteria are met
• When a recipe is clicked, it will appear in the crafting grid, and can be crafted if materials are available.
  • A shift-click ability puts all available materials in the crafting grid.
• A new white-and-gray colored "toast" notification pops up when the player unlocks new recipes.
  • The pop-up notification that displays upon unlocking new recipes has an icon showing the items that can be crafted with the new recipes.
• If the player searches "excitedze" in the recipe book, their language switches to Pirate Speak.
• recipes folder added with all item recipes as .json files.

Sounds

• New note block sounds
  • Bone block = xylophone
  • Block of gold = bell
  • Clay = flute
  • Packed ice = chime
  • Wool = guitar
• New sound effects
  • Parrots
  • Illusioners
  • Casting a fishing rod
  • Reeling in a fishing rod
  • Throwing an eye of ender
  • An eye of ender exploding or popping back into item form
  • Putting ender eye in end portal frames (dinging sound)
  • Completing the end portal and having the portal spawn (evil sound)
  • Boat paddles
  • Player drowning
  • Player burning
  • Completing a challenge advancement
  • Toast notifications
• New cave sounds: cave17.ogg and cave18.ogg

Splashes

• "Don't feed chocolate to parrots!"
• "The true meaning of covfefe"
  • Reference to a cryptic tweet from Donald John Trump.
• "An illusion! What are you hiding?"
• "Something's not quite right..."
  • The top two are references to Suramar City guards in World of Warcraft, who say these lines when a player, having an illusion on themself, goes nearby.
  • The splash about the illusion could also be a reference to the illusioner.

Tutorial hints

• Displayed in the top right
• Only displayed once per device
  • Saved per player, stored in options.txt
    • Name: tutorialStep
    • List of criteria: movement, find_tree, punch_tree, open_inventory, craft_planks, and none

Changes

Blocks

A comparison of banner colors before and after 17w06a. Image by Jeb.

Banner

• New palette texture.
• "Chief fess" and "base fess" banners are now just "chief" and "base" banners.

Beds

• Now the player can sleep when a neutral zombie pigman is near.
• Now the player can bounce on the bed, albeit much less than with slime blocks
• Now reduce (but not negate) fall damage when landed on
  • The player can survive a 41 block fall onto a bed
  • Any higher, and the second bounce will deal the remaining amount of damage to kill them
    • The player can create a platform around 7 blocks high beside the bed to land on to prevent death, in which case a player can survive a 45 block fall
• Added colored beds which can be crafted with colored wool or by dying a white bed
• Now a block entity, and each half can be colored individually using the NBT tag color
• Beds now display as blocks, unlike Pocket Edition beds. Now use a 3D item model instead of a 2D item because of the new colors

Buttons, levers, redstone torches, torches, and tripwire hooks

• Can now be placed on jack o'lanterns.
  • Redstone torches and torches still cannot be placed on top of jack o'lanterns

Command block

• Now executes all of the commands in a chain before scheduling them for the next tick
  • It is now possible to stop/modify the operation of a chain via commands and get results instantly (as opposed to getting them in a 1 tick delay)
• Optimized error conditions in command blocks
• Tab-completing command names in command blocks will no longer add a / prefix.

Fences, cobblestone walls, glass panes, and iron bars

• Now connect to the back and underside of stairs

Hardened clay

• Renamed to terracotta

Magma blocks

• Are now able to burn infinitely, like netherrack

Shulker box

• Colors changed in accordance with the changes to other block colors
  • Purple shulker boxes unchanged

Stairs

• The rear face and underside of stairs are now considered "solid"
  • Allows for torches, fences, iron bars, glass panes, cobblestone walls, and snow layers to connect to them properly

Wool

• New palette texture.

Items

Map

• Dyed blocks such as banners and terracotta now have unique colors

Mobs

Comparison of old and new shulker and shulker box colors (The purple shulker and shulker box was later changed back to normal)

Sheep

• New color palette for wool on body

Shulker

• Colors changed in accordance with the changes to other block colors
  • Purple shulkers are left the same

Wither

• Can no longer break end gateway blocks and piston extensions

Zombies

• New ConversionPlayerLeast and ConversionPlayerMost tags
  • Contains the UUID of the player that is converting the zombie
  • Used with the "minecraft:cured_zombie_villager" trigger for advancements

Non-mob entities

Minecarts with TNT

• No longer instantly explode when hit with fire charges; instead, they explode as if primed by an activator rail.

Paintings

• Will now try to place the largest possible in the available space it has

Command format

• /give and /replaceitem
  • Now reinforces item-specific stacking restrictions.
    • This is a reverse of 16w32a (105965 resolved as "Works as Intended")

General

Achievements

• Removed and replaced by advancements

Controls

• Pressing F1 will now hide all toast messages

Crafting

• Closing the crafting interface with items inside will no longer drop the items in front of you, but will send them instead to the inventory.

Creative

• Materials tab merged with miscellaneous tab in creative mode.

Java version

• This is the first version to use, and thus require, Java 8.

Language

• Many pieces of text are now translatable, where previously they were hardcoded English
  • The full list of changes can be found here.

Movement

• The player's body now entirely faces to the front, when moving backwards.
  • Prior to this update, moving backwards would cause the player model to rotate one side, making it look like the player was strafing backwards somewhat.

NBT format

• Improved NBT parsing in commands
  • Keys can now (optionally) be quoted, e.g: "Motion":[0.0,0.0,0.0]
  • Unquoted string values are now stricter; they can no longer contain spaces or special symbols, e.g: CustomName:Test Test
  • Indices, which were previously optional in lists, are no longer allowed, e.g: Motion:[0:7.3,1:1.0,2:3.1]
  • Empty keys and values are no longer allowed
• Improved error messaging; now points to where exactly the error occurred

Optimizations

• Huge optimizations to creative inventory searching
• Optimized chunk loading.

Splashes

• "Now Java 6!" changed to "Now Java 8!"

Fixes

53 issues fixed

From released versions before 1.12

• MC-2813 – Snow doesn't form / cannot be placed on upside down slabs / stairs.
• MC-5228 – Cow's/Mooshroom's udder texture is wrong.
• MC-8345 – Placing torch on backside of stairs impossible.
• MC-9176 – Glass panes not correctly rendering with the back of stairs.
• MC-9565 – Fences and Cobblestone Walls connect to Fence Gates, which are facing the other direction.
• MC-10613 – Fence doesn't connect with stairs.
• MC-11240 – Ignited TNT can be set on fire by a Flame Bow.
• MC-11963 – bed hind legs not rendered.
• MC-12503 – Item Description is rendered behind Potion Effect Status in Inventory.
• MC-40275 – Credit screen/End Poem music not playing correctly.
• MC-50166 – Game states that "The block couldn't be placed" when using /setblock to place air in a space occupied by a tile entity, despite working.
• MC-59535 – Server log outputs TextComponent object rather than its Text property for player lost connection/Disconnecting message.
• MC-92324 – Players become invisible.
• MC-92527 – Villager trade items render over inventory tooltips.
• MC-94016 – Glass panes and iron bars connect to barrier blocks.
• MC-95367 – Tamed dog, cat or parrot in a minecart teleports to a player (not visually).
• MC-95560 – Wrong command message: Last character of NBT parsing error message is missing.
• MC-96555 – Wolves, ocelots and parrots can teleport in all non-full cube blocks near owner including path, lava, fire.
• MC-97662 – NBT parser regex checks for pipebars as tag declaration.
• MC-100468 – Dogs, cats and parrots teleport to player despite being in a boat (yet not visually).
• MC-101234 – Stack trace is not printed in log when exception occurs while running command.
• MC-103067 – The unit for "Minutes Played" statistic is not always minutes.
• MC-108175 – Villagers sent through an end gateway portal in a minecart lose their AI.
• MC-108304 – "Level Requirement" message is not translatable.
• MC-108343 – Minecraft crashes with "java.lang.NullPointerException: Ticking screen" while pinging server on multiplayer server list (previously due to network issues, now more frequent).
• MC-109663 – Tamed dogs attack tamed cats.
• MC-109871 – Some advanced tooltips are not translatable.
• MC-110243 – Sneaking + hit -> moved wrongly / no knockback.
• MC-110474 – Activator Rail ejects 2 block tall Mobs to the wrong spot inside of 2 block tall room.
• MC-111054 – Invalid lang in options.txt leads to connection error.
• MC-111699 – Can't rename stacked items.
• MC-111744 – Anvil outputs only 1 item when renaming.
• MC-111753 – Hopper/Dropper will not input water bottles into brewing stand after potions have been removed by a hopper from brewing stand.
• MC-112017 – The anvil rename field accepts 31 characters but the server rejects it if it is over 30.
• MC-112425 – Hitting rabbits with fire aspect sword: "Couldn't smelt 0xtile.air@0 because there is no smelting recipe".
• MC-112602 – "disconnect.spam" kick message is untranslated.
• MC-112765 – hoverEvent JSON with specified color does not share among new lines.
• MC-113125 – Loaded world shows clouds and void for few seconds.
• MC-113255 – Server does not test if some files exist before trying to interact with them.
• MC-113429 – Wither can break piston extension and end gateway.
• MC-114110 – Constructor for playerlist header and footer packet SPacketPlayerListHeaderFooter is missing footer parameter.
• MC-114219 – NBT integer array regex matches non integer arrays.
• MC-114220 – NBT integer arrays have trailing comma in string representation.
• MC-114281 – MutableBlockPos leak.
• MC-115407 – Loot entries serialize incorrectly.
• MC-116422 – Fires put out by splash water bottles do not cause block update.
• MC-116489 – Unknown entity property for entity_properties loot table condition causes server crash for default loot tables.
• MC-116623 – Stained hardened clay / terracotta blocks do not have correct color on map.
• MC-116669 – Exploding TNT minecarts and ender crystals can cause StackOverflow.
• MC-117197 – Message for non-existent team specified in entity NBT data is logged as info instead of warning or error.
• MC-117640 – Pets (wolves, ocelots, parrots) teleport onto magma blocks.
• MC-117710 – Bonus Chest setting is not copied when re-creating world.
• MC-117858 – Right-clicking an item stack into the creative mode item selector destroys the whole stack.

Video

Video made by slicedlime: Java Edition 1.12/Update Video

Trivia

• 1.12 was the only major update to Minecraft Java Edition released in 2017.
• 1.12, along with 1.8.2, with 7 pre-releases had the most pre-releases of any update at the time.
  • This was broken by 1.13, with 10 pre-releases.