Shorthand Commands

Shorthand Commands is a simple transpiler tool that enables Minecraft datapack developers to use additional convenient syntax that makes .mcfunction files more readable and organized. Minecraft won't recognize the additional syntax on its own, so, after creating a Shorthand Commands datapack project, the converter tool can be used to translate the special syntax into a regular datapack that Minecraft can understand.

• Converter tool download
• Wiki
• Issue page
• My Shorthand Commands datapack: Death Curse

I created this project before I found the MCScript project which targets many of the same problems as this project and is much more fleshed out than this one will ever be. Since I found MCScript, I've decided that the target use case for this project will be something in between a standard datapack and MCScript. It provides some convenient syntax that's better than a standard datapack, but is simple enough that you don't have to learn a new programming language.

Usage

1. Download the converter tool here.
2. Unzip the tool and start a new datapack project or paste an old project in the directory that contains the ShorthandCommands-X.X.jar file.
3. Open the shorthand.conf file in a text editor.
4. Change project=project to project= followed by the name of the datapack directory that was created or copied in step 1.
5. save=output can be left for now, but know that the save= option determines where converted datapacks are saved to. See the Workflow section below to see how this option can prove useful.

From then on, the additional Shorthand Commands syntax can be used within your project. To convert your project into a standard datapack that is usable by Minecraft, double click run.bat on Windows, or run java -jar ShorthandCommands-X.X.jar on any other operating system. If there are any issues with converting your project, the tool will terminate early and print a message stating what went wrong.

Workflow

It's annoying having to copy your converted datapack to your world's datapack directory every time you want to test a change. To get around this, you can modify your shorthand.conf file so that the tool automatically saves your converted projects there for you. Edit your shorthand.conf and change save=output to save= followed by the location of your world's datapack directory. It should look something like this if you're on Windows:

save=C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\saves\Test World\datapacks

After saving your changes to the shorthand.conf file, the tool will then start saving your converted projects to that directory instead.

Building

Run: ./gradlew release. The output is located in app/build/release.

If running from IntelliJ IDEA, first run ./gradlew idea and be sure to modify the run configuration by setting "Working directory" to the app directory.

Feature Preview

Checkout the wiki for a list of all the features along with detailed descriptions.

Function Definitions

Define multiple mcfunctions in a single .mcfunction file.

execute as @a[scores={time_alive=0}] run function example:player/on_death
{
    say Oh no!
    say That hurt!
}

Repeat Lines

Repeat a line n times.

#!10x
particle minecraft:ambient_entity_effect ~ ~ ~ 170 0 0 255 0

Find & Multi-replace

Repeat a line while replacing part of it with values from a list.

#!find=creeper
#!replace=creeper|skeleton|zombie
execute as @e[type=creeper] run say I'm a creeper!

Simplified Scoreboard Expressions

A shortened way of writing scoreboard player ... commands.

#!sb @s[type=creeper,scores={objective=111}] objective = 222
#!sb @s[type=creeper,scores={objective=111}] objective %= @s[type=zombie,scores={objective=222}] objective"

__ Namespace Prefix

A shortened way of writing the namespace of your function.

function __:some/function
scoreboard players set @a __cool 100

Line Break Backslash

Break up long lines into multiple lines using \.

tellraw @a ["",{"text":"A long tellraw command\n","color":"aqua"},\
               {"text":"that you can actually read.","color":"green"}]

Lint Hiding

A makeshift way of hiding text editor error indicators.

function my_namespace:introduce
#! {
    say Hello!
    say I am @s!
#! }

#! tellraw @a ["",{"text":"A long tellraw command\n","color":"aqua"},\
               #! {"text":"that you can actually read.","color":"green"}]

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Licensed under the MIT License