Beta 1.7

Beta 1.7 is an update for Java Edition Beta that was released on June 30, 2011, adding pistons and shears, as well as other changes.

Additions

Blocks

Piston

• Can push blocks when powered by redstone.

Sticky Piston

• Can push and pull blocks when powered by redstone.

Items

Shears

• New tool.
• Used to pick up leaves.
• Used to obtain wool from a sheep without harming it.
  • Yields more wool than killing sheep.

Mobs

Sheep

• No longer drop wool from punching them, they must be either sheared or killed.

Silverfish

• Skin was added (for Beta 1.8).

Changes

Blocks

General

• The gray textures in the breaking animation have been replaced with opacity.

Cobwebs

• Now requires shears or a sword to be broken properly and drops one string when destroyed.

Textures

• Changed texture for bricks and cobblestone.

Fences

• Can now place any block on the top.

Redstone

• Now will connect to a redstone repeater.
• Now is required to trigger TNT.

Slabs

• Single slabs now use the bottom half of the full block's texture.

Items

Flint and Steel

• Now required to trigger TNT.

General

Controls

• When pressing F3 in-game, a value ("F") from 0 to 3 will appear to indicate direction.

Texture packs

• The bed side texture has been moved in the texture pack file, as well as the cake texture.

Fixes

2 bugs fixed

• Fixed clay generation.
• Squids can now despawn.

Subsequent updates

Beta 1.7_01

Released on June 30, 2011, Beta 1.7_01 fixed two bugs:

• Fixed piston bug
• Fixed right-clicking on a sheep empty-handed causing the game to crash.

Beta 1.7.2

Released on July 1, 2011, Beta 1.7.2 fixed crashed worlds, disappearing pistons, and pistons causing multiplayer servers to crash.

Beta 1.7.3

Released on July 8, 2011, Beta 1.7.3 fixed 10 bugs.