Category Archives: Minecraft

Minecraft + ComputerCraftEdu – Installation

A little different post topic for me… This one is about a Minecraft mod.

Now, plenty of folks play with a variety of mods. I’ve been a bit of a stickler though and haven’t installed any for my kids. Partially because I’m a bit of a purist. Partly because I didn’t want the additional hassle of supporting them and don’t want to wait to update Minecraft itself when updates roll out. (There are usually some gaps in time between when a new game version rolls out and when mods are rolled out that support the new game version) Besides, my kids are already having a blast with the basic Minecraft game and are accepting of these limitations. Smile with tongue out 

Aside from Minecraft, I’m always looking for kid-friendly ways to introduce and encourage basic coding skills, computational though processes, etc. I’m not trying to steer them towards a career, per se, but I want to at least introduce to concepts because I believe they’ll be invaluable as they grow up in this crazy world of ours. 

So, with that background, when I heard about this mod my interest was peaked (as was theirs): http://www.computercraftedu.com/ 

(Incidentally, I got about this from a facebook post by Code.org – another wonderful resource)

Enough of my rambling. On to the steps and notes.

So far, we have it installed so they can experiment with it locally. I’d like to get it running on a server as well to see what craziness happens. These are the steps we used to install it locally. Hopefully this can help some folks get it running faster than I did initially. Smile with tongue out It was my first experience getting some of these things running.

Pre-install notes:

  • First of all, the ComputerCraftEdu site does a good job of getting you started – start there.
  • This particular mod only works with an older version of Minecraft. As of July 23, 2015 ComputerCraftEdu is version 1.7.10 while the current version of Minecraft is 1.8.7
    No need to worry, we can work with this just fine. There are some warnings about the potential for breaking or corrupting a world (file) by opening it with the mismatched version – there are ways to help prevent this – described in the steps below.  
  • Minecraft Forge – it’s a program used to manage and load mods. ComputerCraftEdu requires it to load their mod.
  • WARNING: When visiting and downloading Forge BEWARE OF AD LINKS. When you click on the download links you’ll see a full page add that you’ll be tempted to click and you’ll get some unknown, untrusted software. STAY AWAY. Look at the header and click the SKIP button to get the download you want. (image below)

Steps:

    1. Download the ComputerCraftEdu mod (I’m not going to link directly to the file – go to their page and make sure you’re getting the latest version).
      Note: You might get a “hey, this file could be dangerous” message. This is because of the type of file it is. If you’re getting it from the computercraftedu.com site you should be fine.
    2. Go to the Minecraft Forge installer page HERE (v 10.13.4.1448 – for Minecraft 1.7.10). SEE THE WARNING ABOVE – and image below.
    3. Click the ‘Installer-win’ link. SEE THE WARNING ABOVE.
      forgedownloadwarning
    4. Click the SKIP button – the file you want should be downloaded into the directory you choose or the default location. It should look something like: “forge-1.7.10-10.13.4.1448-1.7.10-installer-win.exe” (numbers may be different for newer versions)
    5. Go to the downloaded file location.
    6. Right-click on the file name and “Run as administrator”. If you are on your child’s machine and it has parental controls in place you may need to enter your credentials at this time.
    7. “Do you want to allow the following program… make changes to this computer” If it is for the “forge-lots of numbers.exe” file, Click ‘Yes.
    8. If the machine has Minecraft installed, the Forge installer will find one of the locations Minecraft files are being stored.
      forgeinstaller
    9. Before we go ahead with the installation, we’re going to create a new folder that we’ll use later. Click the ‘…’ button to see where the files are stored.
      Note: I created the folder this way because I was already at the folder/directory location. You’ll need to note the location for later…
    10. Create a new folder – I called mine “.minecraftCCEdu”
    11. Once the folder is created – Click ‘Cancel’. Yep. ‘Cancel’ to get back to the install screen.
    12. The install folder should still show the original “.minecraft” (as shown above). Click ‘OK’
    13. It should download files, unpack stuff, and successfully install Forge.
    14. Click ‘OK’
    15. Open Minecraft launcher
    16. In the lower-left corner of the launcher, there is a Profile drop-down control and some buttons. Note the name of the default profile (probably the name of the Minecraft user) and click ‘New Profile’.
    17. The Profile Name is probably something like “Copy of [username]”. I changed this to “[Username]CCEdu”
    18. Check the “Game Directory” box, and change the folder path to your new folder – “.minecraftCCEdu”
    19. for the “Use version” option, click the drop-down and select ‘release 1.7.10-Forge…..’
      It’ll be the last (or close) in the list.
    20. Click ‘Save Profile’
    21. Select the new profile from the drop-down.
    22. Click ‘Play’ – There should be some Forge loading bars that are new…
    23. (files and folders get created in your new directory)
    24. Quit Game
    25. Copy the ComputerCraftEdu .jar file from its download directory into your new .minecraftCCedumods directory.
    26. Open Minecraft launcher
    27. Make sure your new profile is selected
    28. Click ‘Play’
    29. Click ‘Create New World’
    30. Name it, select ‘Game Mode Creative’, Click ‘Create New World’
    31. To verify the mod is loaded, open your inventory. There should be a second page of options now showing ‘ComputerCraft’ and ‘ComputerCraftEdu’ icons.
      mincraftCCEduPanel
    32. Congrats! Have fun experimenting!

Post-install notes:

  • Some great Help links to get you rolling once you’re installed and configured.
  • Also: Introduction to ComputerCraftEdu
  • The separate Minecraft profiles you created should keep your ‘normal’ worlds separated from your ComputerCraftEdu worlds – if you’re anything like my kids you have a bunch of worlds in your profile, so this is a nice feature.