Re: [NetHack/NetHack] Prompts can overwrite copyright notice on the

starting screen (Issue #783)

On 2022-06-01 12:22 p.m., NetSysFire wrote:
> Steps to reproduce:
>
>1. Get any prompt and answer it. In my case it was a horribly old
>   save I forgot about or when I wiztested something and forgot
>   about that save, too.
>2. See that the copyright information got overwritten by the prompt:
>
>There is already a game in progress under your name. Destroy old game? [yn] (n)
>         By Stichting Mathematisch Centrum and M. Stephenson.
>         Version 3.7.0-59 Unix Work-in-progress, built May 31 2022 12:28:31.
>         See license for details.
>
>
> Shall I pick character's race, role, gender and alignment for you? [ynaq]
>
> Expected behavior:
>
> Redraw after a prompt was answered, so the prompt vanishes and the
> entirety of the starting screen will be shown.
>
> NetHack, Copyright 1985-2022
>          By Stichting Mathematisch Centrum and M. Stephenson.
>          Version 3.7.0-59 Unix Work-in-progress, built May 31 2022 12:28:31.
>          See license for details.
>
>
> Shall I pick character's race, role, gender and alignment for you? [ynaq]
>
> Proposed severity: low. Not gamebreaking, it is cosmetic only and does
> not have any other consequences.
>

The Copyright notice is placed by tty internal routines writing onto
the BASE_WINDOW fairly early in the startup sequence.

The prompt to "Destroy old game? [yn] (n)" is using the in-game
routine to write to the message window at the top of the screen and
prompt there, just like in-game prompts and messages.

If the player answered 'y' to that, the prompt for
"Shall I pick character's race, role, gender and alignment..."
appeared immediately after. That one, however, is written using
the BASE_WINDOW routines in tty, like the copyright notice.

This change does the following:

It moves the copyright lines down a little bit leaving room for the
"Destroy.." prompts.

It places the "Shall I pick characters's..." prompt further down the
screen by default, leaving some room for about 3 raw_print startup
messages after the copyright notice, just in case there are any.
The "Shall I pick character's..." prompt will still appear immediately
if there is a prompt such as "Destroy old game?..."

There were a couple of other issues around raw_print startup messages
too. Those are delivered using a raw_print mechanism to ensure they
are written even if the window-port is not fully operational. However,
they were only on the screen for the blink of an eye. This call
sequence in restore.c made them disappear almost immediately:
     docrt() -> cls()

Put in a mechanism to detect the presence of raw_print messages
from the early startup, and if there were some, wait for a
keypress before obliterating the unread notifications.

src/decl.c

@@ -693,6 +693,7 @@ const struct instance_globals g_init = {
 
     /* per-level glyph mapping flags */
     0L,     /* glyphmap_perlevel_flags */
+    0,      /* early_raw_messages */
 
     IVMAGIC  /* used to validate that structure layout has been preserved */
 };

src/pline.c

@@ -462,6 +462,8 @@ raw_printf(const char *line, ...)
     va_start(the_args, line);
     vraw_printf(line, the_args);
     va_end(the_args);
+    if (!g.program_state.beyond_savefile_load)
+        g.early_raw_messages++;
 }
 
 DISABLE_WARNING_FORMAT_NONLITERAL
@@ -489,6 +491,8 @@ vraw_printf(const char *line, va_list the_args)
 #if defined(MSGHANDLER)
     execplinehandler(line);
 #endif
+    if (!g.program_state.beyond_savefile_load)
+        g.early_raw_messages++;
 }
 
 void

src/restore.c

@@ -870,6 +870,17 @@ dorecover(NHFILE* nhfp)
 
     run_timers(); /* expire all timers that have gone off while away */
     g.program_state.restoring = 0; /* affects bot() so clear before docrt() */
+
+    if (g.early_raw_messages && !g.program_state.beyond_savefile_load) {
+        /*
+         * We're about to obliterate some potentially important
+         * startup messages, so give the player a chance to see them.
+         */
+        g.early_raw_messages = 0;
+        wait_synch();
+    }
+    g.program_state.beyond_savefile_load = 0;
+
     docrt();
     clear_nhwindow(WIN_MESSAGE);