In the community, the Java Edition of Minecraft was the old world—powerful, chaotic, limitlessly modifiable. Bedrock Edition, the .mcaddon realm, was the new world—sleek, cross-platform, but surrounded by high walls of proprietary formatting.
"format_version": 2, "header": "name": "Converted Ores - Behavior", "description": "Port of the More Ores JAR mod.", "uuid": "aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeeee", "version": [1, 0, 0], "min_engine_version": [1, 20, 0] , "modules": [
They are two completely different codebases written in different programming languages (Java vs. C++). So, can you convert a .jar file directly into a .mcaddon file?
If you are attempting to port a mod, the following steps and tools are commonly used by the community:
| Feature | Java Edition (.jar) | Bedrock Edition (.mcaddon) | |--------|-------------------|---------------------------| | | Java | JSON (data) + JavaScript (behavior) | | Modding API | Forge, Fabric, or Mixins (full code injection) | Official Add-on system (sandboxed, limited) | | Rendering | Custom OpenGL calls allowed | Restricted to built-in components | | Block/Entity IDs | Numeric + namespaced (e.g., 1234:my_block ) | String-based (e.g., custom:my_block ) | | World Gen | Full terrain control (BiomeTweaker, OTG) | Very limited (structure files only) |