Announcement Box

The Announcement Box is a special sign that, when powered, will announce (in the chat) what was written on the sign.

Formatting
Certain keywords will change the formatting of the text, for example color. Everything written here can also be applied in a normal chat with the same effect.

Color
To change the color of inputted text, type  with text after the colon and any hexadecimal ("hex" for short) color code in place of "XXXXXX".


 * Example: Inputting  will create the output " This text is blue. "
 * This website can be used to choose a Hexadecimal Color for the Announcement Box.

This is an incomplete list of the colors used by the game:


 * will create white, the color shown when a player types something in the chat.
 * By setting an Announcement Box up with  the text will be indistinguishable from an actual player's input.
 * will create the color shown when some events start - " The Blood Moon is rising... "; " Impending doom approaches... "
 * will create the color shown when an invasion starts or when a boss is summoned and defeated - " Skeletron has awoken! "
 * will create the color shown when a player dies - " &lt;Player name&gt; was slain. "
 * Note that this color is different from the one that is displayed when an NPC or a town pet dies.
 * will create the color shown when an NPC or a town pet dies - " &lt;Name of NPC&gt; the &lt;type of NPC&gt; was slain... "
 * Note that this color is different from the one that is displayed when a player dies.
 * will create the color shown when an NPC or a town pet arrives - " &lt;Name of NPC&gt; the &lt;type of NPC&gt; has arrived! "
 * will create the color shown by some general status messages, such as - " Spawn point set! "; " You are not close enough to a pylon to teleport with the pylon network "
 * will create the color shown when an NPC throws a Party - " Looks like  is throwing a party "

One can achieve a color shift/gradient by using many  back to back.


 * Example: Inputting  will create the output " R e d t o b l u e "
 * This website can be used to find the hex codes for gradients.

Item
It is possible to showcase an item in chat using Item IDs, similar to how Alt+Click works in normal chat. To show an item type , where "zXX" is a property of an item, and "ID" is an ID of an item".


 * Example: Inputting  will show a dirt block with item count 24 in chat
 * Example: Inputting  will show a Legendary Solar Flare Pickaxe in chat



All items in chat occupy the same height and width. Coupled with the fact that there can only be 10 lines of text in the chat at one time means that one can in theory create a rudimentary animation using mechanisms. Walls are very good for this purpose as they are big squares. Be aware that by doing animations, the messages are spamming the chat which can lead to the annoyance of other players as they can not communicate via chat. It can also make one miss status messages.

Valid item properties are (XX — a number):


 * sXX — items in stack.
 * pXX — prefix of an item.

The easiest way of getting an Item code is doing the following: first open the chat, Alt+Click needed item, press Ctrl+A to select all text in the chat, press Ctrl+C to copy it, and finally paste the code into Announcement Box.

Achievement
It is also possible to write a link to achievement into chat, for this type, with "NAME" being an Achievement name.


 * Example: Inputting  will put a message into chat: "Star Power", one can click on it to open achievement menu at this achievement's position.
 * Achievements with an exclamation at the end will be written without it. For example,   will show the "Timber!!" achievement.

Glyphs
Controller buttons can be displayed using the  tag, where # corresponds to one of the following functions:


 * Example: The following sequence could be used to display the classic Konami Code:

Note that this outputs literal button glyphs, and the output may not match functions assigned in the player's current control scheme. While minor, this could limit the usefulness in custom world designs.

Trivia

 * The Announcement Box was a suggestion by Master Geass, a user on the Official Terraria Forums. The original post can be found here.