I'm new to modding and am translating the Minecraft version 1.7 tutorials to version 1.8 with the help of just a couple (incomplete) tutorials on how to update mods.

 

Is there a reference somewhere that documents the changes between the version of Forge for Minecraft 1.7 vs. 1.8?

 

Currently I'm stuck on how to get a blockID so I can make a block drop itself, but I'm also having a hard time getting setHarvestLevel(string,int) to work (the only suggestion I found is to reinstall everything, and I just haven't been brave enough to do that).  I want to learn a lot more, like how to make an ore detector, but have a lot of stumbling around to do before I'll get there.  I'm looking for resources to read that pertain to version 1.8 or resources for 1.7 and translation information.

 

Plus I only have a couple weeks before I have to start working again so I don't want to waste too much time when I could be learning from good resources.

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide! 

You shouldn't use blockID in 1.8, neither in 1.7. If you did, you were doing it wrong. Use direct Block declaration reference (e.g Block myCustomBlock).

 

As to other, there is very outlining changelog http://files.minecraftforge.net/maven/net/minecraftforge/forge/1.8-11.14.1.1329/forge-1.8-11.14.1.1329-changelog.txt

But it's mostly for global changes. Consider re-learning basic block/item setup since it has changed in 1.8:

http://www.minecraftforge.net/forum/index.php/topic,26267.0.html

 

Other than that, updating simple things is very easy.

Oh, man, so that changelog is the release notes... ok, I'll dive in. 

I'd only found outdated versions, and was happy to use that as an excuse to close them quickly. 

 

My main issue is that I'm not updating, I'm beginning from scratch with little understanding of the tools Forge offers and I haven't found a good list of the available classes and methods to use, so I'm stumbling through it.

 

Thank you for the correct changelog link and the advice on blockID, though I still don't know how to make a block drop itself since the idDropped() method seems to return an int, which would have been the blockID. 

Ok, after reading all the entries for 1.8, for those of you who want my summary, I liked the ones below the best. 

The rest, for the most part, didn't call out many specific keywords.

 

Build 1.8-11.14.1.1328:

LexManos: Fire WorldEvent.Load for Client worlds. Closes #1719

 

Build 1.8-11.14.1.1327:

LexManos: Make Container.mergeItemStack respect Slot.isValidItem Closes #1630

 

Build 1.8-11.14.1.1326:

LexManos: Fix JukeBoxes not storing the inserted record. All TE's in minecraft are in net.minecraft.tileentity EXCEPT JukeBoxes. Closes #1633 Closes #1714

 

Build 1.8-11.14.1.1309:

fry: fix ModelLoader.setCustomModelResourceLocation not storing same item with different metadata values

 

Build 1.8-11.14.1.1308:

LexManos: Fixed debugging Dedicated server in Forge Dev workspace.

LexManos: Fixed being kicked from the server while swimming.

fry:

fixed NPE during loading of B3D models without textures/brushes.

changed default B3D color to have full opacity.

fry: Reworked vanilla texture resolution, hopefully fixes NPE bug in FaceBakery

fry: made renderLayer ThreadLocal, now it should hold correct value for use inside custom baked models

LexManos: Try a maven mirrior to fix build issues.

Ok, and in an unrelated search, I found Lex's post on the update:

 

http://www.minecraftforge.net/forum/index.php?topic=27505.0

 

Check it out.

I forgot to summarize the BlockPos change.