Files
nethack/dat/optmenu
PatR 67513c96bb options help
Update the 'optmenu' data file to describe the simple options menu
(new paragraph containing just a one sentence) as well as the full
options menu (still several paragraphs).  Visible by choosing '?' in
the full options menu or the 'how to set options' choice in the main
help menu.

Add a line to the simple options menu about how to get the full
options menu.  Only shown if you type '?' to toggle on "show help";
taken away again if you use '?' to toggle back to "hide help".
2023-08-31 14:58:51 -07:00

44 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext

How dynamically setting options works:
The simple options menu shows a relatively small subset of options
and operates on each choice you make immediately, then is put back
up to allow further changes.
The full options menu shows the current value for all options and
lets you pick ones that you'd like to change. Picking them doesn't
make any changes though. That will take place once you close the
menu. For most of NetHack's interfaces, closing the menu is done
by pressing the <enter> key or <return> key; others might require
clicking on [ok]. Pressing the <escape> key or clicking on [cancel]
will close the menu and discard any pending changes.
The options menu is too long to fit on one screen. Some interfaces
paginate menus; use the '>' key to advance a page or '<' to back
up. They typically re-use selection letters (a-z) on each page.
Others use one long page and you need to use a scrollbar; once past
a-z and A-Z they'll have entries without selection letters. Those
can be selected by clicking on them.
For toggling boolean (True/False or On/Off) options, selecting them
is all that is needed. For compound options (which take a number,
a choice of several particular values, or something more complex,
and are listed in a second section after the boolean ones), you will
be prompted to supply a new value.
At the start of each of the two sections are the values of some
unselectable options which can only be set before the game starts.
After the compound section are some "other" options which take a set
of multiple values and tend to be more complicated to deal with.
Some changes will only last until you save (or quit) the current
game. Usually those are for things that might not be appropriate
if you were to restore the saved game on another computer with
different capabilities. Other options will be included in this
game's save file and retain their settings after restore. None set
in the options menu will affect other games, either already saved or
new ones. For that, you need to update your run-time configuration
file and specify the desired options settings there. Even then,
restoring existing games that contain saved option values will use
those saved ones.