DEEP DIVES

Flat, clear, and fragile, the glass pane is a staple of any build project. At the most basic utilitarian level, glass panes allow you to see Creepers lurking outside your front door before you open it, but at their most beautiful they can enable huge impressive stained glass creations.
玻璃板是一种平整、透亮且易碎的材料，不管什么建筑，都缺不了玻璃板。从最基本的实用角度讲，玻璃板能让你在开门之前就可以观察到潜伏在一旁的苦力怕。但是，只有当玻璃板染上色彩，组成壮阔的染色玻璃景观时，才能更极致地展现它们的美丽。

Glass panes first became a part of Minecraft in beta version 1.8, the Adventure Update, which also added melons, fence gates, and Endermen. They’ve been retextured a few times since, and at one point we accidentally made them totally opaque, but otherwise, they’ve been playing the same role since they were originally implemented.
玻璃板在 Beta 1.8 冒险更新中首次加入游戏，同时加入游戏的还有西瓜、栅栏门和末影人。在此之后，玻璃板又经历了几次材质调整，有段时间我们还不小心把玻璃板做成了不透明的方块。但不管怎么说，玻璃板的作用从始至终都没有改变过。

What is that role, you ask? The answer is “making prettier and more efficient windows”. Glass blocks are great but, when it comes to prettiness, sometimes it’s nice to have a bit of variation in the depth of a building’s walls. Panes do that job nicely.
你可能想问， 玻璃板的作用是什么？答案是“让窗户变得更加美观、高效”。玻璃方块虽好，但是如果要增加建筑的美观，有时候会需要在墙壁上加入一些深浅的变化。而玻璃板能很好地胜任这项工作。

The efficiency is notable too. While six glass blocks make six windows on their own, they can also be turned into a whopping 16 glass panes. One or two crafts is usually plenty for a smaller house, and if you’re making something larger then you’ll especially appreciate the efficiency gains.
高效也是一个非常重要的点。六个玻璃方块可以直接拿来做一块六格大小的窗户，也可以拿来做成多达 16 片的玻璃板。对于小房子，合成一到两次的玻璃板可能就足够了。然而如果要做一些更大型的建筑，玻璃板为你省下的时间将会赢得你的青睐。

Which leaves one question. How do you get panes of glass? Well, as noted above you can craft them out of six blocks of glass. You can also harvest them from villages and woodland mansions in different colours. But WAIT! Before you swing your pickaxe at some poor villager’s window, remember that glass shatters. You’ll need a silk touch enchantment on that pick to collect the panes.
那么问题来了，怎么获得玻璃板呢？那么就像刚才说的那样，六个玻璃方块可以合成玻璃板。同时在村庄和林地府邸里也有不同颜色的玻璃板。但是，等一下！在你朝那可怜的村庄窗户挥舞镐子之前，请记住玻璃是会碎裂的。你需要精准采集附魔镐，才能收集到那些玻璃板。

As I noted when I wrote about glass blocks a few years back, glass windows like **s we have today didn't become common in ordinary homes until the early 17th century. Before that, windows were made with panes of flattened animal horn or thin paper. They’d let light in, but it was hard to see through them.
一年多前，我在关于玻璃方块的文章里有提到，玻璃窗直到 17 世纪早期才像我们现在这般常见。在此之前，窗户都是用一片压平的动物角或是薄纸板来制作的。这些窗户能让光透进来，但很难看到窗户背后的东西。

Today, there are panes of glass everywhere – they cover most office buildings from top to bottom, they cover our mobile phone and laptop screens, and we look into them every day to when we do our hair or put on our makeup. Some of us even have panes of glass on our roofs, covering solar panels that generate electricity or heat water for our homes.
现在，玻璃板遍布每个地方——很多写字楼都从头到脚覆盖了玻璃板，在我们手机和电脑的屏幕上也有玻璃板，在我们做头发、化妆的时候，也会盯着玻璃板看。甚至有些人的家里房顶上也有被玻璃板覆盖着的太阳能板，利用太阳能产生电力或者是为家里烧热水。

Go to a window and count how many panes of glass you can see right now. Impressive, right? That’s thanks to the beauty and efficiency of the simple glass pane!
去找扇窗户，数一数自己能看到多少块玻璃板吧。真是令人震撼，对吧？毕竟，一块简简单单的玻璃板，就能兼顾美观与效率呢！


【KaNyon译自官网 2020 年 09 月 24 日发布的 Taking Inventory: Glass Pane；原作者 Duncan Geere】
【本文排版借助了：SPX】