metadaddy/forcecraft

Visualization of Salesforce Data in Minecraft

Forcecraft

This Minecraft mod visualizes Salesforce Accounts, Opportunities and Contacts. Forcecraft adds a new dimension to Minecraft, where each Account in your Salesforce environment (aka 'org') is represented by a building, comprising a level for each Opportunity associated with that Account.

Levers on each level represent and control the Opportunity Stage Name; updating an Opportunity's Stage Name outside Minecraft will cause the lever state to update within the Minecraft world, while throwing the lever in Minecraft will update the Opportunity's Stage Name.

Each Salesforce Contact is represented by a Villager-derived entity, with the Contact name shown as a custom name tag above the entity's head.

Interacting with a Contact (right-click, by default) will show the Chatter feed for that Contact and allow you to post to the feed. Similarly, Account and Opportunity signs give access to the respective Chatter feeds.

If an Opportunity's Stage Name is updated to 'Closed Won', a Contact from the associated Account will teleport to the player and give the player items to the 'value' of the opportunity. If, on the other hand, an Opportunity's Stage Name is updated to 'Closed Lost', the weather will take a turn for the worse!

Take a look at the mod in action:

UPDATE (version 0.2.1) : if you define a custom object, Vegetable, in your Salesforce environment, the corresponding item will appear in the game when a record is created. The Vegetable object must include the following fields:

• A picklist field named Type with values Flower, Carrot and Potato
• A number field named Quantity

If the Vegetable object exists, Forcecraft will automatically listen for updates.

Running the mod

Pre-requisites

• Minecraft 1.7.2. Download the Minecraft Launcher, edit your profile, and select version 1.7.2.
• Minecraft Forge - I've been using 10.12.1.1060 - later versions may also work. Download the Forge Installer and run it (select 'Install Client') to create a Forge profile in the Minecraft launcher. Select the Forge profile.
• The mod binary - Download it and drop it into the Minecraft mods directory. On a Mac, this is ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/mods; on Windows it is %appdata%/.minecraft/mods.
• A Salesforce org. Create a free Force.com Developer Edition if you are new to Salesforce and want to try out Forcecraft.

IMPORTANT You MUST create a configuration file with your account credentials so that Forcecraft can authenticate to Salesforce. Use this as a template:

# Configuration file

####################
# general
####################

general {
    I:dimensionId=7
    S:loginHost=login.salesforce.com
    S:[email protected]    
    S:password=p455w0rd
}

Edit this, and save it as

• Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/config/Forcecraft.cfg
• Windows: %appdata%/.minecraft/config/Forcecraft.cfg

You MUST edit the username and password entries. If you are using a Salesforce sandbox, change the loginHost to test.salesforce.com.

Run Minecraft and select the Forge profile. If all is well, you should see Forcecraft listed on the Mods screen. Start Minecraft as a single player and create a new world, in creative mode.

Once the game starts, you can type /login to teleport to the Forcecraft dimension. Type /logout to return to the default 'Overworld' dimension.

Note - if you're demoing the mod, you probably want to stop the game from pausing when you switch away to the browser or another app. To do this, edit options.txt

• If you're running via Eclipse (see below), it's at <forge dir>/eclipse/options.txt
• If you're running 'standalone' on a Mac, it's at ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/options.txt. On Windows, it's at %appdata%\.minecraft.

Look for the line that reads

pauseOnLostFocus:true

Change true to false.

Building the mod

Pre-requisites

Minecraft, etc, as listed above, under 'Running the mod'. You will need the Minecraft Forge 10.12.1.1060 source distribution. Follow the installation process.

Getting the source

Fetch the Forcecraft repo into the Forge root directory (the forge/ directory created during zip extraction) like this:

cd forge
git init
git remote add origin https://github.com/metadaddy/Forcecraft.git
git fetch
rm build.gradle src/main/resources/mcmod.info
git checkout -t origin/master

Building the mod

gradle build

The build process creates build/distributions/Forcecraft-1.7.2-0.2.3-mod.jar. This is an uber-jar including all the mod's dependencies, packaged so that Forge will load it correctly.

You should be able to drop this into the mods directory to play the mod with Minecraft + Forge.

Debugging the mod

Create the Eclipse project:

gradle eclipse

Build the mod jar (see above). In the Eclipse Project Explorer, open the build/libs folder, select Forcecraft-1.7.2-0.2.2-dep.jar, right click, and select 'Build Path | Add to Build Path'. This jar file contains all the dependencies that Eclipse needs.

Follow the instructions in the 'Running the mod' section above to configure the mod, except that the configuration file needs to be at /<forge dir>/eclipse/config/Forcecraft.cfg.

In Eclipse, you can use the 'Run' or 'Debug' button as appropriate.

forcecraft's Issues

Configuration question

This is probably pilot error, but tonight I spent some time trying to get this running and I got pretty close. I used the instructions on the repo, and when using Forge 1.7.2, I kept getting an error when I'd attempt to launch using the Forge profile:

java.io.IOException: Error=13 Permission Denied

I figured I could change this by changing the profile to downgrade and look at a 1.7 JRE, but that didn't seem to work for me (I tried to make my JRE directory accessible, but I'm not sure I succeeded)

Being oh-so-clever, I tried upgrading to Forge 1.7.10. That worked great-- I got past the Permission Denied error-- the mod installed, all looked good, but when I went to launch my cool new world, it crashed with an error:

no opengl context found in the current thread

So, while I didn't expect that to work because 1.7.10 is not supported, I figured I'd ask to see what my best course of action is here-- do I need to downgrade my JRE more aggressively, or am I doing something obviously wrong when I'm configuring?

Thanks!

Have redstone light give cue to opportunity state

Each lever representing the states in an opportunity should connect to a redstone block - this way more complete opportunities would give more light, and by having it always be night, you can see how far along opportunities are by the glow from each floor of a building. (from John Tobin)

Contact feed doesn't work when Chatter data is > 32k

Packet250CustomPayload can't be more than 32k. Need to extract the feed items we want before putting it in the packet.

NullPointerException with > 49 opportunities

It is only possible to build up to y = 255. We use a ground level of 8 and a story height of 5, so the 50'th opportunity extends beyond a y coordinate of 255.

ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException when less than 10 Opportunity stages

Forcecraft assumes 10 opportunity stages. Running with < 10 results in a ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException.

Use srgExtra to shade apache libs

See MinecraftForge/FML#424 (comment)

Stop contacts/villagers from wandering

A slightly different architecture (such as ladders or gated rooms, iron doors, etc.) would be a way to keep villagers (contacts) in the account or opportunity that they were relevant to instead of wandering off. (from John Tobin)

Single player mode no longer works

Run single player world - no connection to Salesforce, so can't retrieve accounts for new world, can't get Chatter data etc for existing world.

Handle inability to login to Salesforce more cleanly

Currently, we just log the error and carry on, even though nothing will work. For example,

2014-04-21 22:49:32 [INFO] [STDOUT] Logging in to login.salesforce.com as [email protected]
2014-04-21 22:49:32 [INFO] [STDOUT] executing POST https://login.salesforce.com/services/oauth2/token
2014-04-21 22:49:33 [INFO] [STDOUT] ----------------------------------------
2014-04-21 22:49:33 [INFO] [STDOUT] error: invalid_grant
2014-04-21 22:49:33 [INFO] [STDOUT] error_description: authentication failure - Failed: API security token required
2014-04-21 22:49:33 [INFO] [STDOUT] ----------------------------------------

We should somehow show the error more visibly, then fail sooner.

Rework building placement to allow town square, different ordering

Have the buildings radiate around a central square, with the largest accounts or target account buildings closest to the center (perhaps it could read from a sales plan, for each user, to determine priorities). (from John Tobin)

Spawn contact when a new one is created in Force.com

Listen for new Contacts and spawn one in the game when a new one is created in Force.com.

Fireworks!

Winning an opportunity could set off fireworks from the top of the building. (from John Tobin)

Forge 1.7.2 currently not available

As of October 2021, there is currently no working installer for Forge 1.7.2. Forge is available for Version 1.6.4, but it crashes on launch with Forcecraft 0.2.3 installed.

What is the recommended way to run Forcecraft today on MacOS Big Sur? Is there a legacy Forcecraft jar available that works with 1.6.4?