X11
X11 is a GUI of NetHack, mainly used on unix-type operating systems. If your copy of NetHack has that compiled in, you can enable it by setting OPTIONS=windowtype:X11 in your config file.
X11 can do both tile-graphics and ASCII.
If you do not have any X11 resources set for NetHack, all windows will be black text on white background, and this makes playing almost impossible, unless you turn off color.
You can define the X resources in a text file, for example NetHack.ad in the playground or ~/.Xdefaults, with one resource per line. You can then use xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults to make the resources active for your X session.
The configuration file that comes with NetHack sources, win/X11/NetHack.ad, contains extensive documentation about the file and what you can change in it. This file is copied to the nethack playground when compiling and installing from source.
List of some of the X resources NetHack accepts:
| Resource string | Value | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| NetHack*font | font | Sets the font for all NetHack windows. Must be fixed-width font! |
| NetHack.tile_file | filename | What file contains the tiles used for the map? The file must reside in the NetHack playground. If NetHack was compiled with USE_XPM, then this can be a normal xpm-bitmap, otherwise it must be NetHack's custom format. |
| NetHack.pet_mark_bitmap | filename | File to use to annotate pets in tile mode. Same restrictions as with tile_file above, except this one must be a two color, black and white, image; the white will be transparent and black will be replaced with pet_mark_color, see below. |
| NetHack.pet_mark_color | color | Color of the pet annotation mark. |
| NetHack*message_lines | number | The number of lines the message window will show without scrolling. |
| NetHack*message_line | boolean | If True, the message window has a line that separates old and new messages. |
| NetHack*autofocus | boolean | If True, force keyboard focus to attach to popup windows. |
| NetHack*slow | boolean | If True, the default, a popup for single character prompts such as y/n is not used. |
| NetHack*background | color | Sets the background color of all NetHack windows |
| NetHack*foreground | color | Sets the foreground color of all NetHack windows |
| NetHack*map*background | color | Sets the background color of the map |
| NetHack*map*black | color | Sets the color 'black' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*red | color | Sets the color 'red' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*green | color | Sets the color 'green' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*brown | color | Sets the color 'brown' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*blue | color | Sets the color 'blue' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*magenta | color | Sets the color 'magenta' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*cyan | color | Sets the color 'cyan' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*gray | color | Sets the color 'gray' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*orange | color | Sets the color 'orange' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*bright_green | color | Sets the color 'bright_green' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*yellow | color | Sets the color 'yellow' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*bright_blue | color | Sets the color 'bright_blue' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*bright_magenta | color | Sets the color 'bright_magenta' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*bright_cyan | color | Sets the color 'bright_cyan' in map to some other color |
| NetHack*map*white | color | Sets the color 'white' in map to some other color |
- 'boolean' can be either True or False.
- 'color' can be defined either with a named color, or a hexadecimal RGB number, such as #00ff00.
- 'font' can be any font string the X11 server knows about. Use xlsfonts or xfontsel or some such program to see the fonts.
Some good values would be, for example
! Lines beginning with ! are comments and are ignored. NetHack*font: vga NetHack*background: black NetHack*foreground: grey NetHack*map*background: black NetHack*map*black: grey25 NetHack*map*red: red3 NetHack*map*green: green3 NetHack*map*brown: DarkOrange3 NetHack*map*blue: blue3 NetHack*map*magenta: magenta3 NetHack*map*cyan: cyan3 NetHack*map*gray: gray70 NetHack*map*orange: yellow NetHack*map*bright_green: green NetHack*map*yellow: yellow NetHack*map*bright_blue: blue NetHack*map*bright_magenta: magenta NetHack*map*bright_cyan: cyan NetHack*map*white: white
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
