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.

Without tiles or any X resources.

Running on Kubuntu Linux 6.06.

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 ~/.Xdefaults, with one resource per line. You can then use xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults to make the resources active for your X session.

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*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 is a stub. Should you wish to do so, you can contribute by expanding this page.