Notice Board

Overview

I built Notice Board because every survival world I joined eventually ended up with a wall of signs at spawn, half of them outdated and the rest impossible to read. This addon replaces all of that with one organized place where players can write announcements, trades, rules, and event notes directly from an in-game menu.

It's designed for survival servers, realms, and shared worlds. Posts live in the world's dynamic properties so they survive restarts. Everything runs through the Script API with no experimental features required, and the addon is fully achievement-safe.

Key features:

• One central board for community notices, with multi-block standing and wall variants
• Player-created posts with title, body, category, expiration, and optional location stamp
• 5 built-in categories plus unlimited custom categories with 21 icons to pick from
• Pin up to 4 posts to the top of any scope
• Per-post comments with cooldowns and length limits
• Personal Saved Posts list, kept across sessions
• Multi-keyword search across every visible post
• Optional admin approval queue for player posts
• Archive system with optional 14-day auto-delete
• Per-board "Local mode": each board can carry its own posts, categories, pins, and templates

Installation

Both the Behavior Pack and the Resource Pack must be enabled on the world. The wall and floor block models live in the RP, so the board will look broken if only the BP is applied. Both packs ship in the single .mcaddon import.

Notice Board requires Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.100 or newer. No experimental toggles are required, and posts persist in world dynamic properties so they survive restarts and pack updates.

Getting the Board

Crafting Recipe

The Notice Board item is crafted at any Crafting Table using the shaped pattern below:

S S S      S = Cobblestone
L P L      P = Plank (any type)
L L L      L = Log  (any type)

Total ingredients: 3 cobblestone, 1 plank, and 5 logs. The recipe outputs 1 Notice Board item, found in the creative inventory under the Items tab. The item stacks to 16.

Placing the Board

The Notice Board is a multi-block structure that auto-builds when you place it. Where you click decides which variant you get:

Standing boards auto-orient to face the player. Wall boards face out from whichever wall they were placed against. The full footprint must be clear. If any of the 6 or 9 destination blocks are obstructed, placement fails silently and the item is not consumed. Wall boards can only attach to vertical block faces (north, south, east, or west) — you can't hang one from a ceiling or place one on the floor.

Breaking the Board

Breaking any block of a notice board removes the entire structure and drops one Notice Board item. All posts, categories, pins, archive, templates, and the activity log for that board are preserved, since the data is keyed to dimension, position, and board type rather than to the blocks themselves. Placing a new board at the same coordinates will restore the same dataset.

Use the in-menu Reset Board option (under Board Controls) to wipe a board's data without breaking it.

Opening the Menu

Right-click (or long-press on touch) any block of a notice board to open the Main Menu UI. The board UI uses Script API forms, so closing a form has no effect on the world and you can browse freely without committing changes.

The title bar of every menu shows the current scope: Notice Board (Global) or Notice Board (<your local label>) (default Local).

Main Menu

The main menu has two parts: categories at the top, and actions below. Non-admins only see categories where visibility is on. Admins see every category, with hidden ones marked (Not visible to non-admins).

After the category buttons, the actions appear in this order:

If Allow player posts is OFF in settings, the Add Notice button only appears for admins. Category buttons show an unread badge [N Unread] when new posts have been added since you last viewed that category.

Categories

Tapping a category opens a paged list (15 posts per page). Pinned posts always appear first. Each post button shows the post title, or the first ~44 characters of the body if no title was set. Pinned entries display [Pinned] underneath, and pagination appears only when there is more than one page.

The category page also shows an Add Notice / Add Admin Notice button at the top, scoped to that category.

Search

A modal text field accepts multi-keyword input. The search is an AND match across post title, body, author name, and category name, with results sorted by most recently posted or edited. Tap any result to read it, and use Search Again on the results page to run another query.

Saved

Your personal bookmarks list. You can save up to 200 posts per player; older entries are dropped FIFO when the cap is hit. Saved entries are looked up in both the active post list and the archive, so anything you've bookmarked stays accessible after it expires (until it's permanently deleted).

Addon Info

The in-game info screen has three sub-pages:

• How To: quick guide for posting, formatting, saving, editing, and expirations
• Recipes: visual recipe for the board item
• Admin Control Info: full admin reference (the same notes I'd type in chat to an OP)

Add Notice

Opens the post composer for the current scope. Admins also see Add Admin Notice, which tags the resulting post as admin and skips the approval queue. See Creating a Post for the full form.

Creating a Post

Post Fields

Each line field accepts the literal sequence \n to insert a manual line break inside that line. The full message body is normalized and capped at 1000 characters on save.

Expiration durations

The composer offers 8 expiration choices. Time is real-time, so posts expire even when no players are online.

If admins disable infinite posts via the Allow infinite posts setting, the Infinite option is rejected at submit time with an error message.

Templates

Admins create templates under Board Controls → Post Templates. When at least one template exists for the current scope, the post composer first shows a "Choose a template or start blank" picker. Picking a template pre-fills the title, category, and body. Players only see templates whose category they're allowed to post in.

Approval queue

When the admin setting Require approval queue is ON, every player post is sent to the Pending Queue instead of going live. Admins review it via Board Controls → Pending Queue and choose Approve or Deny. Admin posts always go live immediately and skip the queue.

Reading a Post

Tapping any post button opens its detail view. The body shows the title in bold, an info line of <category> · <age> · <author>, the full message text, the location (if attached), an Edited: Xh Xm ago stamp if the post was edited, and an Expires in: Xd Xh line if the post has an expiration set.

Action buttons vary by permission and post state:

Comments

• Each comment is up to 30 characters
• Each post can hold up to 20 comments total
• Each player has a 60-second cooldown between comments
• Comments display as <author>: <text> - <age>
• You can delete your own comments; admins can delete any comment
• If a post is locked, or comments are disabled at the category or global level, the comment screen explains why

Saved Posts

Saved entries are stored per-player in the world database (not on the player's account). The list caps at 200 entries per player, with the oldest dropped first when the cap is hit. Saved posts are looked up in both the active and archive lists, and the list is personal: only you see your own saved items.

Categories

Default categories

The board ships with 5 built-in categories:

The Admin Notices category always sorts to the bottom of the list. To make it visible to players, an admin can toggle it on under Manage Categories → Toggle visibility.

Each category supports the following per-category flags:

• Visible: controls whether non-admins see it
• Admin-only posting: only admins can post here (great for "Rules")
• Comments off: disables comments on every post in the category
• Custom icon: pick from 21 built-in icons (see Reference Tables)
• Description: optional text shown at the top of the category page

New / unread badges

The board tracks per-player "last seen" timestamps for each scope+category pair. When new posts are added after you last viewed the category, the category button shows a green [N Unread] badge. The seen list caps at 250 entries per player and drops the oldest entries when full.

Admin Guide

Admin access

A player is treated as a board admin if any of these are true:

1. They are an Operator (/op <name>) - recommended
2. Their command permission level is GameDirectors or higher
3. They have the admin tag - backup

To grant admin access via tag (useful when OP detection isn't available):

/tag <player> add admin

To revoke:

/tag <player> remove admin

Admin Notices

• Posted via Add Admin Notice on the main menu, or from inside any category
• Tagged as admin in the database, so they get the admin icon and can only be edited or deleted by admins
• Admin posts always skip the approval queue, even when it's enabled
• Use the hidden Admin Notices category for staff-only messages

Pinning posts

Each scope (the global feed and each local board) has 4 pin slots. From a post, tap Pin and choose Slot 1–4. Pinned posts are listed first in their category. Pinning a post in slot N replaces whatever was in that slot. Tapping Unpin (slot N) clears the slot.

Locking posts

Locking a post prevents anyone (including the author) from editing it. Comments on a locked post are also locked. Admins can still edit or delete a locked post. The post detail view shows the lock icon and the Comments (Locked) label.

Editing & deleting any post

Admins can edit or delete any player post and any admin post. Players can only edit or delete their own posts. Editing a post stamps it with editedAt and shows "Edited: Xh ago" in the body.

Board Controls

Menu path: Notice Board → Board Controls. The Board Controls hub is admin-only and shows these buttons in order:

1. Settings (Global/Local)
2. Pending Queue (only when Require approval queue is ON)
3. Manage Categories
4. Post Templates
5. Activity Log
6. Archive (only when Enable post archiving is ON)
7. Reset Board (Defaults)
8. Main Menu

Each button shows the current board mode label in parens, e.g. Manage Categories (Global).

Settings (Global/Local)

A single ModalForm with all toggles, in this exact order. Note the Scope column: most toggles affect every board in the world.

Pending Queue

• Lists all pending posts for the current scope, newest first
• Tap any post to open the standard detail view
• Inside, admins see Approve (publishes the post) and Deny (discards it)
• The activity log records who approved or denied what

Manage Categories

This menu has 8 actions, in order:

Post Templates

Admin-only screen with 3 actions: Add template, Edit template, and Remove template. Each template has a name, default category, and body text. When templates exist, the post composer shows a "Choose a template or start blank" picker before the post form. Players only see templates whose category they're allowed to post in.

Common uses: pre-formatted Trade Listings, Event templates, Rule announcements.

Activity Log

• Shows the last 20 entries for this scope, newest first
• Tracks posts, edits, deletes, approvals/denials, pins/unpins, locks, comment activity, category changes, template changes, and archive deletions
• Capped at 50 stored entries internally (oldest dropped)
• A Clear log button sits at the bottom of the screen

Archive

• Lists expired posts for the current scope, sorted by most recently expired
• Only available when Enable post archiving is ON
• Tap any archived post to view it (read-only)
• Inside an archived post, admins can permanently Delete it
• Delete all at the bottom clears the entire archive
• If Auto-delete archived notices after 14 days is ON, the sweep runs whenever any player opens any notice board, as long as at least one player is online. Expired posts older than 14 days are removed scope-by-scope — opening a Global board sweeps the global archive, and opening a Local board sweeps that Local board's archive.
• Archive caps at 250 entries per scope (oldest dropped beyond that)

Reset Board (Defaults)

• Local-mode reset: Clears this board's local posts, pins, pending queue, archive, templates, and any local category overrides. The board returns to Global mode.
• Global-mode reset: Wipes the entire global feed (every board using Global mode), resets settings to defaults, and resets the category list to defaults.

Global vs Local Mode

This is the most important conceptual feature in the addon, so it's worth a careful read.

Global mode (default):

• All Global-mode boards share the same posts, pins, categories, archive, and templates
• Posting on one Global board makes the post visible on every other Global board in the world
• Use this for a single server-wide notice feed

Local mode:

• Each Local-mode board has its own independent posts, pins, archive, pending queue, templates, and category overrides
• Use this for per-region notice boards: a town board, a market board, a spawn board, etc.
• Each Local board can have a custom title (e.g. Notice Board (Town)) via the Local label setting

Important behaviors:

• Mode is set per-board under Board Controls → Settings → Board mode
• Switching from Global to Local does not copy global posts; the new local board starts empty
• Switching back from Local to Global hides the local data but does not delete it; switching to Local again restores the same data
• Local categories start as a copy of the current global categories the first time you switch a board to Local mode; after that, edits on a local board only affect that board

Limits & Caps

DB storage notes:

• The full board database is stored in world dynamic properties
• Single-key cap is 32,767 chars; when exceeded, data spills into 4 chunked keys
• A world-level lock prevents two players from writing simultaneously (TTL ~2.5s)
• If the DB grows too large to fit even in chunks, the oldest archived/pending/active posts are aggressively trimmed to make room

Troubleshooting & FAQ

"The board looks broken / blocks are missing textures"

The most common cause of any problem with this addon is that only one of the two packs is enabled. Notice Board needs both the Behavior Pack and the Resource Pack applied to the world, and both should be at v1.0.4. Check the world's pack list before anything else.

"I can't see Add Notice"

An admin has turned off Allow player posts in Settings. Either ask an admin to enable it, or be added as an admin yourself.

"I can't see Board Controls"

You aren't an admin. Either get OP'd (/op <name>) or have an admin run /tag <name> add admin.

"My post didn't appear, it says 'Submitted'"

The board has Require approval queue turned on. An admin needs to open Board Controls → Pending Queue and approve your post.

"I can't pin, lock, or approve a post"

These actions are admin-only. See Admin access for how to get admin status.

"Categories on this board don't match another board"

You're looking at a Local-mode board. Each Local board has its own categories. Switch the board to Global mode under Board Controls → Settings → Board mode to share categories with the rest of the world.

"My post got auto-deleted"

Posts have an expiration timer. After expiration, posts are moved to the Archive (if archiving is on) and permanently deleted after 14 days (if auto-delete is on). Use the Infinite expiration option for posts you want to keep forever, and make sure infinite posts haven't been disabled in Settings.

"Someone else is updating the board"

Two players tried to write to the board at the same time. Wait a second and try again; the lock auto-clears in under 3 seconds.

"How do I run a debug report?"

Operators can run any of these to print a diagnostic report (version, event wiring, DB status, settings, nearby cores, and a pass/fail health check):

/function jm_nb/debug
/function jm_nb/debug_verbose

When asking for help on Discord, please include the output of /function jm_nb/debug_verbose.

Reference Tables

Available category icons

There are 21 icons available in the icon picker. They're sorted alphabetically in the in-game picker. The internal IDs are:

bed, bell, book_and_quill, bread, brick_block, bundle, campfire, chest, clock, command_block, compass, diamond_chesplate, diamond_hoe, knowledge_book, locations, nether, news, pin, sign, sword, trade

The default icon for new categories (if none is picked) is the pin icon.

Note: diamond_chesplate is a known misspelling of "chestplate" in the source code. The ID reproduced here matches what you'll see in-game, and the spelling will be corrected in the next addon update.

Default category assignments

Comment system

Activity events tracked

• Player posted / deleted / edited a post
• Admin approved / denied a pending post
• Admin pinned / unpinned a post (slot N)
• Admin locked / unlocked a post
• Player commented on / deleted a comment
• Admin set category visibility / posting lock / comments off
• Admin created / edited / removed a template
• Auto-delete sweep removed N archived posts
• Admin deleted an archived post / cleared the archive

Compatibility

• Bedrock version: 1.21.100 or newer (from manifest min_engine_version)
• Script API modules used: @minecraft/server 2.1.0, @minecraft/server-ui 2.0.0
• No experiments needed: works on vanilla worlds and realms
• Achievements: Safe. Using this addon does not disable achievements
• Cheats: Not required. Board functions work in worlds with cheats off
• Multiplayer: Designed for it. Concurrent writes are protected by a world-level lock.
• Other JM addons: No known conflicts. Notice Board uses the jm_nb: namespace exclusively for item IDs, block IDs, and dynamic properties.
• Custom blocks: Notice Board adds 15 block IDs (9 standing + 6 wall). None overlap with vanilla.
• Worlds: Posts and settings persist across world saves and restarts via dynamic properties.