Talk:Options

Should the options be listed in alphabetical order, or first split into booleans and compound options? (I know they're listed with booleans first in the game, but IMO that's a misfeature :) --Paxed 16:51, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Alphabetical order seems more useful. That's how the guidebook lists them. --Jayt 21:37, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

subkeyvalue

In the standard defaults.nh in the windows binary download, you can find an option called subkeyvalue. The numbers are ASCII codes (decimal).

# Finnish keyboards might need these modifications uncommented. 
# For  \, @, $, [, |
#OPTIONS=subkeyvalue:171/92
#OPTIONS=subkeyvalue:178/64
#OPTIONS=subkeyvalue:180/36
#OPTIONS=subkeyvalue:184/91
#OPTIONS=subkeyvalue:188/124

I wanted to substitute y with z because I've got an German keyboard layout (QERTZ). I tried

OPTIONS=subkeyvalue:121/122
OPTIONS=subkeyvalue:122/121

but it doesn't work.

Does anyone know something about that option? It isn't documented in the Guidebook. --217.80.113.242 17:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I just took a peek at the source code and I can't see why it wouldn't work, provided you're using the console version. I don't think it works with the tiled version. Key processing is wonky on Windows console programs and the subkeyvalue option was meant to fix that; see nhraykey.dll and W343-4 for a brief description of the issues.--Ray Chason 20:04, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Distro-specific stuff

Someone added this:

• /etc/nethack/nethackrc for system-wide settings on unix-like OS's, and ~/.nethackrc for individual users to override those settings.

But that seems to be a Debian-specific thing; vanilla NetHack compiled from source definitely doesn't do this. --paxed 16:51, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Missing options

The following options are missing from the article:

• Atari specific: font_message, font_map, font_status, font_menu, font_text, scroll_margin, ascii_map, align_message, align_status, vary_msgcount
• Win32 specific: font_menu (font_size_menu), font_status (font_size_status), font_message (font_size_message), font_text (font_size_text), scroll_amount, scroll_margin, map_mode, hilite_pet, align_message, vary_msgcount

The following aren't used with OPTIONS=, instead they're used like SOUNDDIR=/home/nick/nethacksounds/:

• SOUND, SOUNDDIR
• QtNetHack specific: QT_FONTSIZE, QT_COMPACT, QT_TILEHEIGHT, QT_TILEWIDTH
• Amiga specific: FONT, PATH, DEPTH, DRIPENS, SCREENMODE, MSGPENS, TEXTPENS, MENUPENS, STATUSPENS, OTHERPENS, PENS, FGPENS, BGPENS
• Others: HACKDIR, LEVELDIR (or LEVELS), SAVEDIR, BONESDIR, DATADIR, SCOREDIR, LOCKDIR, CONFIGDIR, TROUBLEDIR, RAMDISK, SAVE

--paxed 17:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm finding some of the options descriptions a bit unclear. What exactly is the "message window"? Is that just when you're looking at previous messages, or does it also include currently displayed messages?

I tried setting "OPTIONS=vary_msgcount:2", but nothing has changed in either behavior. What I want is to have the current messages:

You displaced your kitten. The large cat misses the fog cloud.--More-- (wait until you hit return)

The kitten misses the fog cloud. The large cat bites the fog cloud.--More-- (wait until you hit return)

The fog cloud swallows the large cat. The large cat is regurgitated!

turned into:

You displaced your kitten. The large cat misses the fog cloud.

The kitten misses the fog cloud. The large cat bites the fog cloud.--More-- (wait until you hit return)

The fog cloud swallows the large cat. The large cat is regurgitated!

With the current behavior, if you have several pets in a melee, say in the castle or the valley of the dead, the interface is painful: wield a weapon, then lean on the return key while six to fourteen non-actionable messages flash by. Move one square, then lean on the return key for a while. Displaying two lines would halve the number of times I hit return (and nearly eliminate it in the less-busy parts of the game). Is this what vary_msgcount is supposed to do? 66.124.70.110 19:04, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

After a quick look through the source I can't find much evidence of vary_msgcount actually doing anything, at least in the TTY version. The only advice I can give is to use a very wide terminal, which will at least increase the number of messages that can be displayed on one line. -- Killian 05:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

vary_msgcount seems to only work in the Atari GEM und Win32 GUI builld. --bhaak 10:17, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Help with Online NetHack options?

Hey guys, this is archmage84. I'm a mad player of NetHack, but I haven't been able to ascend. So I found this pretty cool site: http://alt.org/nethack/jta/ , and it's what I want. Only problem is: I can't use the arrow keys to move. Can someone help me, please? I'm really looking forward to playing online, and the only thing stopping me is moving.

Yeah, and I'm using a laptop, so I can't move with the number-pad. Only arrow keys and 1,3,7,9.

archmage84 "Long live Archmages!"

You can turn the numpad option off and learn to use the HJKL keys. 130.13.181.7 11:24, September 23, 2009 (UTC)

Can't find nethack defaults

I'm running my Nethack game in a Mac OS X Terminal, which means I should have a file named NetHack Defaults somewhere. Problem is, I can't find it anywhere. I checked the ~ directory, I checked the /usr/games directory (and respective subdirectories), and I've even poked around in my ~/Library directory. Help? 68.1.172.2 00:34, May 10, 2010 (UTC) Adalrik

Slashem Options?

There is a lot of outdated info about how to configure user options for Slashem. Specifically, how to choose alternate tileset options when playing in Linux. Can we get some clarity on the main page with regard to this matter?