mudged / mudgecraft-workbench

A VSCode Workbench for working with Minecraft Python APIs

mudgecraft-workbench

A VSCode Workbench for working with Minecraft Python APIs

Purpose

This project was started as a way to help me teach my kids how to program in Python with Minecraft. It uses a browser accessible Open VSCode Server preconfigured with the tools they need including scripts to start a Minecraft Server.

It's is desgined to run on a RaspberryPi 4B with 8Gb of RAM with Ubuntu Server and the Docker Engine installed.

This way my kids can access the workbench via a browser from their laptop, and they only have to install Minecraft Java Edition locally.

Before Running the Workbench

You must have docker installed and have a user that is a member of the docker group.

Installing Docker on Windows

On Windows you can install Docker Desktop from https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/. As part of the installation it will enable Windows Sub System for Linux (or WSL). Once Docker Desktop is installed you can create a new WSL Ubuntu distribution using the following commands in a command prompt.

wsl --update
wsl --install Ubuntu --no-launch
wsl --set-default Ubuntu

Then open Docker Desktop and go to Settings > Resources > WSL Integration. Select the new Ubuntu distrobution, and Apply and Restart.

When you run wsl from the command prompt, you will enter into the Ubunto distribution will access to docker. You can test this by running the following.

docker run --rm hello-world

You can now run the Workbench install script using the instructions below.

Installing Docker on Linux

When installing on Linux you can use the Docker Engine (rather than the Docker Desktop). Follow the instructions at https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ for your Linux distribution.

If installing on a Raspberry Pi 4B, then I recommend using the Ubuntu Server distrobution.

Once installed you need to ensure that your user is a member of the docker group. You can check this by running id and looking in the groups section.

If you are not a member you need to run the following.

sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker ${USER}

You'll then need to restart the docker engine service (e.g. sudo systemctl restart docker or equivilent for your install). You'll probably also need to restart your terminal session as well.

You can then test that docker is working as expected by running the following.

docker run --rm hello-world

You can now run the Workbench install script using the instructions below.

Installing Docker on Mac

I haven't been able to test on a Mac as I don't have one. However from past experience it should be similar to the Linux install if you make use of Colima.

Running the Workbench Image

You can install/update the Workbench by running the following command.

 curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mudged/mudgecraft-workbench/main/install.sh | bash

You can now access the Workbench at http://localhost/?folder=/home/steve/workspace

If you are accessing the application from a different machine to where you installed it, then you will need to change localhost to the name or ip address of your machine.

Commands within the Workbench

When you are inside the Workbench you will see a Visual Studios interface. Use the menu on the upper right to select Terminal > New Terminal. The terminal should appear at the bottom of the screen. You can use the mc command to interact with the Minecraft server. Type mc to see a list of commands. And mc <command> --help to see the options available for that command.

For example you can start the Minecraft server in a flat creative mode with cheats enabled using the following.

mc start --cheats --creative --flat

Or you can pass commands to a running Minecraft server by using the the mc command.

mc command weather clear

To stop the Minecraft server use the followin.

mc stop

And to clear the Minecraft world data use the following.

mc reset

Accessing the Minecraft Server

The Minecraft server can be access from the Minecraft Java Edition client on port 25565 on the computer it was installed on. If you are running on the same machine, then you can use localhost:25565.

Within the Visual Studios workbench, the Minecraft server is always acessible a computer called minecraft.

Working with files in the Workbench

A word of caution, only files created under /home/steve/workspace will be saved. Any other files will be lost when the docker container is stopped.

Files are saved in a docker volume called mudgecraft-workspace-data.