Navigation

Opening a World

When opening MCA Selector, it at first shows an empty map with a region and chunk grid. To see a world, use File --> Open World and select the world folder of the world you would like to open. The world folder always contains a region folder (and some other folders, e.g. a poi and since Minecraft 1.17 an entities folder). If the world is a single player world and the Nether and / or the End have been explored, it will ask for which dimension to be opened.

Navigating the Map

As soon as a world or dimension has been opened, the map can be navigated using the following methods:

• Pressing and holding the middle mouse button and dragging the map (On Mac and Windows).
• Pressing and holding Cmd and the left mouse button and dragging the map (On Mac).
• Using WASD or the arrow keys to move the map (hold Shift to go faster).
• Using the Scroll wheel of the mouse or the "zoom" gestures of the trackpad to zoom in or out of the map.
• Using the + and - keys to zoom in or out of the map. The zoom level can be reset using Ctrl+0 (or Cmd+0 on Mac).
• Using View --> Goto to jump to a specific location.

Grids and Layers

When zoomed in, MCA Selector shows the chunk grid and enables chunk selection. A chunk contains all blocks in a 16x16 area.
When zoomed out, MCA Selector switches to region selection mode. A region is an area of 512x512 blocks (32x32 chunks).
MCA Selector renders the topmost block by default. In The Nether, this is usually the Nether ceiling which is not particularly helpful. To start rendering at a lower Y-level, the height slider at the top-right corner can be adjusted to start rendering below the Nether ceiling.

Additional options for rendering can be found in File --> Render Settings (Shortcut E), e.g. for changing the background pattern, cave mode and different kinds of shading.