Minecraft: Education Edition – How to add a custom skin on android mobile phone

Minecraft: Education Edition – How to add a custom skin on android mobile phone

by | Jan 1, 2024 | Minecraft

NOTE: if you don’t download the FX File Explorer app and follow the steps below, then this won’t work. The android phone file browser won’t do anything with the MCPACK file. 

Every gamer wants to have their own player skin – here’s how you can set your custom skins for Minecraft Education Edition on an Android mobile device. There are hundreds of thousands of people using Minecraft Education on their phones particularly in the Philippines where schools are using Minecraft Education Edition in learning.

Minecraft Education Edition – set a custom skin on an Android mobile phone

What you will need:

  • Android phone
  • a PNG file of a Minecraft skin (download free from Skindex) for this demo I’m using a skin called Red Hagelskin
  • a free android file management app called – FX File Explorer – without this app the following steps will not work for you)

 

Installing a Custom Skin on android phone – Minecraft: Education Edition

From the Android Play Store install the app FX File Explorer – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nextapp.fx&hl=en_AU&gl=US

custom skin android minecraft education edition (9)

Go to Skindex (minecraftskins.net) and choose a skin to download – save the download to your Android mobile

Skindex Custom skin minecraft education cdsmythe 1
Skindex Custom skin minecraft education cdsmythe 2
Skindex Custom skin minecraft education cdsmythe 3

 

Go to Minecraft MCPACK creator – https://cdsmythe.com/2020/minecraft-skin-mcpack-creator/

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

Complete the mcpack creator Form on the webpage

– Name for Skin – just what you want to call it eg. Red Hagels
– Template name – just any name for the pack eg. Red Hagels
– Version number – any number eg. 1.0
– Browse to and upload your downloaded Skin png file downloaded from Skindex

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe1
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe2

Click Download Pack and the MCPACK creator form will create the mcpack and offer it to download – save this to your Android mobile phone

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

Now to install the new skinpack into Minecraft: Education Edition

 

 

 

Open the FX File Explorer app and browse to where the recent downloaded MCPACK file is saved (probably the Downloads folder)

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

 

“Long press” the downloaded file ending with mcpack.zip, click the More Options (3 vertical dots) and select Rename

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

 

delete the last 4 characters from the name – .ZIP so the file just ends in “.mcpack”

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

Tap the mcpack file to open it, choose to open with Minecraft Education Edition

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

The Minecraft Education Edition app will open on your android mobile phone and start importing the custom skin

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

Click the coathanger on the front screen of Minecraft: Education Edition to change your skin – scroll to the bottom of the list to see your new custom Minecraft Education skin imported for your android mobile phone

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

Remember if you didn’t download the FX File Explorer app and follow the steps above, then this won’t work. The android phone file browser wont do anything with the MCPACK file. 

Minecraft: Education Edition – How to add a custom skin on Apple iPhone

Minecraft: Education Edition – How to add a custom skin on Apple iPhone

by | Oct 31, 2023 | Minecraft

There are now hundreds of thousands of gamers around the world using their iPhones for Minecraft Education Edition. Every gamer wants to have their own player skin – here’s how you can set your custom skin in Minecraft Education Edition using an iPhone.

Minecraft Education Edition – set a custom skin on an iPhone

What you will need:

  • iPhone
  • a PNG file of a Minecraft skin (download free from Skindex) for this demo I’m using a skin called The Knight
  • a free app called – Documents (download and install to your iPhone) without this app the following steps will not work for you)

 

Installing a Custom Skin on iPhone – Minecraft Education Edition

from the App Store install the app – Documents – File & Media Manager

Documents app Minecraft Education custom skin iphone cdsmythe-600

Go to Skindex and choose a skin to download – save the download to your iPhone

Skindex Custom skin minecraft education cdsmythe 1
Skindex Custom skin minecraft education cdsmythe 2
Skindex Custom skin minecraft education cdsmythe 3

 

Go to Minecraft MCPACK creator – https://cdsmythe.com/2020/minecraft-skin-mcpack-creator/

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

Complete the mcpack creator Form on the webpage

– Name for Skin – just what you want to call it eg. The Knight
– Template name – just any name for the pack eg. The Knight
– Version number – any number eg. 1.0
– Browse to and upload your downloaded Skin png file downloaded from Skindex

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe1
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe2
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

The MCPACK creator form will create the mcpack and offer it to download – save this to your iPhone

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

Now to install the new skinpack into Minecraft Education Edition

Open the Documents app and browse to where the recent downloaded MCPACK file is saved (probably Files – Downloads)

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

Choose to Open the File in another app choose Minecraft Education Edition

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

The Minecraft Education Edition app will open on your phone and start importing the custom skin

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

Click the coathanger to change your skin – scroll to the bottom of the list to see your new custom Minecraft Education skin for your phone

create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3
create mcpack minecraft education custom skin cdsmythe3

Remember if you didn’t download the Documents app and follow the steps above, then this won’t work. The native Apple Files browser wont do anything with the MCPACK file. 

SharePoint – Site Pages trick to convert Pages to News Posts and News Posts to Pages

SharePoint – Site Pages trick to convert Pages to News Posts and News Posts to Pages

by | Sep 18, 2023 | SharePoint

Changing the promoted state of SharePoint Pages and News Posts

I needed a solution which would make it easy for our intranet team to make changes to the Promoted State of Pages and News Posts in SharePoint.

We needed to quickly convert Pages to News Posts from the Site Pages Library, but also to change some News Posts promoted in error by intranet authors back to Pages.

In the Site Pages library, there is a Promoted State column. Depending on the value stored in this column, you can identify whether it is a site page or a news post. The relationship between the Promoted State value and page type is as follows.

 Promoted State and Page Type

        • 0            Site page
        • 1            News Post not yet published
        • 2            News Post

Once a page is created as news post, it cannot easily be demoted to a site page because the Promoted State column is read only.

Forget about creating views to show the Promoted State of a Page – doesn’t work, you cant edit the cell the promoted state is in.

 

Here’s how to set it up:

  1. In the Site Pages library view click Add column
  2. click Show or Hide columns
  3. choose Promoted State
  4. click Apply

 

 

Now format the Promoted State column so we can add the code to change the SharePoint News Post back to a standard SharePoint Page.

  • Hover of the heading of the Promoted State column
  • select Column Settings
  • select Format this column
  • on the formatting pane that opens select Advanced mode

Delete the default code displayed in the formatting box shown above and paste the code shown below there.

Select all the code shown below then Paste into the Advanced formatting box

{
“$schema”: “https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/v2/column-formatting.schema.json”,
“elmType”: “div”,
“style”: {
“flex-wrap”: “wrap”,
“display”: “flex”,
“flex-direction”: “row”
},
“children”: [
{
“elmType”: “div”,
“txtContent”: “=if(@currentField == 0 ,’0 : Page’ , if(@currentField == 1, ‘1 : News (Unpublished)’ , if(@currentField == 2 , ‘2 : News Post’,”) ) )”,
“style”: {
“box-sizing”: “border-box”,
“padding”: “4px 8px 5px 8px”,
“display”: “flex”,
“border-radius”: “16px”,
“height”: “27px”,
“align-items”: “center”,
“white-space”: “nowrap”,
“overflow”: “hidden”,
“margin”: “4px 4px 4px 4px”,
“border”: “1px solid”
},
“attributes”: {
“class”: “=if(@currentField == 0 ,’ms-fontColor-themePrimary ms-borderColor-themePrimary ms-bgColor-white’ , if(@currentField == 1, ‘ms-fontColor-themePrimary ms-borderColor-themePrimary ms-bgColor-themeLighter’ , if(@currentField == 2 , ‘ms-fontColor-white ms-borderColor-themePrimary ms-bgColor-themePrimary’,”) ) )”
}
},
{
“elmType”: “div”,
“style”: {
“font-size”: “18px”,
“cursor”: “pointer”,
“padding”: “10px”,
“border-radius”: “50%”,
“display”: “=if(@currentField == 0 , ‘none’ ,”)”
},
“attributes”: {
“iconName”: “MoreVertical”,
“class”: “ms-fontColor-themePrimary ms-bgColor-themeLighter–hover”
},
“customCardProps”: {
“openOnEvent”: “click”,
“directionalHint”: “rightCenter”,
“isBeakVisible”: true,
“formatter”: {
“elmType”: “div”,
“txtContent”: “Demote (Change to 0:Page)”,
“style”: {
“padding”: “10px 20px 10px 20px”,
“cursor”: “pointer”
},
“attributes”: {
“class”: “ms-bgColor-themeLighter–hover”
},
“customRowAction”: {
“action”: “setValue”,
“actionInput”: {
“PromotedState”: “0”
}
}
}
}
},
{
“elmType”: “div”,
“style”: {
“font-size”: “18px”,
“cursor”: “pointer”,
“padding”: “10px”,
“border-radius”: “50%”,
“display”: “=if(@currentField == 2 , ‘none’ ,”)”
},
“attributes”: {
“iconName”: “MoreVertical”,
“class”: “ms-fontColor-themePrimary ms-bgColor-themeLighter–hover”
},
“customCardProps”: {
“openOnEvent”: “click”,
“directionalHint”: “rightCenter”,
“isBeakVisible”: true,
“formatter”: {
“elmType”: “div”,
“txtContent”: “Promote (Change to 2:News Post)”,
“style”: {
“padding”: “10px 20px 10px 20px”,
“cursor”: “pointer”
},
“attributes”: {
“class”: “ms-bgColor-themeLighter–hover”
},
“customRowAction”: {
“action”: “setValue”,
“actionInput”: {
“PromotedState”: “2”
}
}
}
}
}
]
}

Now that you have the Site Pages list view showing the Promoted State column you can see the options available to convert Pages and News Posts.

Simply click the more options dots next to the Promoted State and choose to Demote or Promote the Page or News Post

Last step – Remember to Republish your page!

How to Fix the “List” Issue in PowerBI when Using SharePoint People Picker Fields

How to Fix the “List” Issue in PowerBI when Using SharePoint People Picker Fields

by | Sep 1, 2023 | Office 365, Power BI, SharePoint

What is this List and Record issue you get when connecting a SharePoint list to Power BI?

We have connected our company intranet (SharePoint Modern) to Power BI to gather data and present it using a number of reports. Reports are used to support our management of Content, our Intranet Authors and our Page Owners. Through Power BI we can quickly drill into live data from our SharePoint intranet Site Pages libraries and Document libraries.

Power BI allows us to connect to these libraries, but when we do – the People Picker field just returns the word “List” (or maybe you see Record), rather than the person’s name.

Columns such as: Modified By, Created By, Content Owner – only returned the word “List” when we wanted to see the staff member’s name.  Surprisingly, it was difficult to find a solution – hence this post……..

The steps below will help you to expand and choose different items when you see the List/Record content from a SharePoint column cell being displayed in a Power BI query table. For example we also see it when in a choice column, and Expand to New Rows, then choose Label to display the content from the SharePoint list.

 

How to resolve People Picker/Person or group columns not displaying the username in Power BI

Step 1: Connect Your SharePoint List to PowerBI

Open PowerBI and click on Home > Get Data > More > Online Services > SharePoint Online List.

 

STep 1 connect to sharepoint online list for power bi site pages library

 

Paste the URL of your SharePoint site, and click OK.

 

Step 2 - connect to SharePoint site

 

 

The available resources on your SharePoint site will be listed – choose Site Pages. Notice in the preview window if you slide across to a Person or Group column, that the field displays “List” not the persons name. This is what we want to change.

Click Transform Data

 

Step 3 - connect to SharePoint site pages library transform data

 

 

Scroll across to the Column where the Persons name should be displayed – notice it has the word List in every field instead of the user name from the SharePoint list.

Click the icon showing the two arrows and select Expand to New Rows.

 

expand new rows - Problem solved - power bi table shows list not persons name

The column will change and now show the word Record in each cell instead of the word List. Now we can choose from the List of details available to show the title of our person (or whatever other field we want displayed). To view the contents of the list click on some space next to the word Record and a preview will be shown.

Record is displayed - power bi table shows list not persons name

The column will change and now show the word Record in each cell instead of the word List. Now we can choose from the List of details available to show the title of our person (or whatever other field we want displayed). To view the contents of the list click on some space next to the word Record and a preview will be shown.

To select the field we want click again on the icon with the two arrows and make sure only the title (for our demo) is displayed and click OK.

person column Problem solved - power bi table shows list not persons name

To select the field we want displayed in our column, click again on the icon with the two arrows and make sure only the title (for our demo) is displayed and click OK.

choose title - power bi table shows list not persons name

Now to tidy up the column we can rename it by double clicking on the column heading and changing it to simply Page Content Owner.

rename column by double clicking - power bi table shows list not persons name

 

 

 

If that guide was helpful for you please help us by sharing it 🙂

Minecraft: Education Edition – Create your own Skins

Minecraft: Education Edition – Create your own Skins

by | Sep 1, 2023 | Minecraft

In Minecraft the appearance your character has is referred to as your Skin. Like most gamers, players in Minecraft love to change their characters skin from the default to something else either known or uniquely created by them.

This article will introduce you to some free resources for downloading and creating Minecraft skins for Minecraft Education Edition.

Add Custom skins to Minecraft Education Edition – See this other article on how to get your Character Skins into Minecraft Education Edition once they have been created.

NEW POST – YouTube Hacks for Students and Teachers

minecraftskins.net

Minecraftskins.net is a good starting point where you can browse and download a Minecraft skin but also edit a skin and create your own. All the necessary editing tools are available and I like that you can change the pose of your character so see more fully what you have created.

The Skindex

The Skindex is similar but has a cleaner looking Skin Editor. This one may appeal to students more as it has less clutter and perhaps an easier editing interface to work with. Easily switch between Slim and Classic skins. It has a better colour picking tool than MinecraftSkins giving you many more options.

Minecraft Education edition skins

Nova Skin has a great interface to work with, bright and colourful for students – almost feels like you’re in Minecraft designing this character. Change the editor background to a number of available Minecraft images. All the creative tools expected are available with addition of a couple of tools I like – the Camera to take a snapshot of your skin and also a GIF tool to create an animated GIF of your creation which you can also download.

Nova Skin provides a number of pre-created features you can easily apply to your skin – eg. clothing, hair, shadow, outfits.

Minecraft Education edition skins

When you first open Blockbench you might think you’ve opened a professional photo editing program, it just has that appearance. But do not hesitate to start using it. You will find it very intuitive and before long you will have the skills to not only create character skins for Minecraft Education Edition but also other models and items for Minecraft. You are really creating from scratch here – there are no user created catalogues to access other than your own.

Blockbench is available to access for free online and also on your device. Download it for Windows, MacOS or Linux.

Those are the editing tools I’d recommend for creating skins for Minecraft Education Edition. Remember it’s not easy to get these created skins into Minecraft so check out my guide on how to do that here.

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