Forge - Blocks - My Blog

An overview of the Forge code related to Blocks.

GameRegistry.registerBlock to register your block and (optionally) associate it with an ItemBlock. If you don�t provide an ItemBlock, it will make a default one itself and register it for you. If you provide an ItemBlock, you don�t need to register the ItemBlock yourself separately. GameRegistry.findBlock can be used to retrieve the block corresponding to a given name.
RenderingRegistry.registerBlockHandler (in conjunction with an ISimpleBlockRenderingHandler class). RenderingRegistry uses a unique renderID, returned by the class�s getRenderType, to find the renderer with the matching .getRenderID() method. RenderingRegistry.getNextAvailableRenderId() is useful for getting a unique ID for the linked classes to share. See here for more information.
MinecraftForge.addGrassPlant (and .addGrassSeedfor the corresponding Item) are used to add new types of grass.
MinecraftForge has a several methods used to add new tools and control their effectiveness against different blocks, in particular setToolClass and setBlockHarvestLevel.
LanguageRegistry.addNameForObject � allows you to add a displayed name for your Blocks. Apparently it�s better to use a Language Pack instead of this registry. I haven�t tried those yet so I don�t know.
ChestGenHooks is used to control the spawning of loot chests during world generation. See the World generation section.

RotationHelper: a couple of functions to help rotate vanilla blocks to face the desired direction (eg piston, doors, etc), convert from block�s metadata to a standard �direction value�.

Block has many methods added to let mods change behaviour more easily � ladder, fire, tileentities, beds, harvesting, leaves interaction, explosion interaction, plant interactions, redstone, and a few more. They are defined after the comment in the Block code
/*===========Forge Start ========*/.
IPlantableinterface for plants
IShearableinterface for blocks which can be �shorn� by shears � eg like tallgrass or vines
Fluids: A variety of classes to let you define your own fluids (like lava and water) and control their behaviour; comprised of BlockFluidBase, BlockFluidClassic, Fluid and FluidStack.

BreakEvent � when a block is broken
DrawBlockHighlightEvent� draw the highlight box around the block when your cursor is pointing at it
PlayerInteractEvent� among other things - when a player left-clicks a block
HarvestDropsEvent� when a block is harvested
HarvestCheck � can the player break this block with this tool?
BreakSpeed � speed of breaking this block with this tool
SaplingGrowTreeEvent
BonemealEvent � when bonemeal is used on a plant
Various FluidEvents related to the Forge Fluids classes

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