59 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
59 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
Depending upon hardware or operating system or NetHack's interface,
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some keystrokes may be off-limits.
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For example, ^S and ^Q are often used for XON/XOFF flow-control,
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meaning that ^S suspends output and subsequent ^Q resumes suspended
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output. When that is the case, neither of those characters will
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reach NetHack when it is waiting for a command keystroke. So they
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aren't used as commands, but 'whatdoes' might not be able to tell
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you that if they don't get passed through to NetHack.
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^M or <return> or <enter> is likely to be transformed into ^J or
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<linefeed> or 'newline' before being passed to NetHack for handling.
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So it isn't used as a command, and 'whatdoes' might seem as if it
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is reporting the wrong character but will be operating correctly if
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it describes ^J when you type ^M.
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A NUL character, which is typed as ^<space> on some keyboards,
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^@ on others, and maybe not typeable at all on yet others, is not
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used as a command, and will be converted into ESC before reaching
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'whatdoes'. Unlike ^M, this transformation is performed within
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NetHack. But like ^M, if you type NUL and get feedback about ESC,
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the situation is expected.
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ESC itself is a synonym for ^[, and is another source of oddity.
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Various function keys, including cursor arrow keys, may transmit
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an "escape sequence" of ESC + [ + other stuff, confusing NetHack
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as to what command was intended since the ESC will be processed
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and then whatever follows will seem to NetHack like--and be used
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as--something typed by the user. (If you press a function key and
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a menu of the armor your hero is wearing appears, what happened
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was that an escape sequence was sent to NetHack, its ESC aborted
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any pending key operation, its '[' was then treated as a command
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to show worn armor, and the "other stuff" probably got silently
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discarded as invalid choices while you dismissed the menu.)
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If you have NetHack's 'altmeta' option enabled, meaning that the
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<alt> or <option> key, when used as shift while typing some other
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character, transmits ESC and then the other character so NetHack
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should treat that other character as a meta-character, then ESC
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takes on added potential for confusion. Implicit in the handling
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of a two character sequence ESC + something is the fact that when
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NetHack sees ESC, it needs to wait for another character before
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it can decide what to do. So if you type ESC manually, you'll
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need to type it a second time or NetHack will sit there waiting.
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(It will then be treated as if you typed ESC rather than M-ESC.)
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On some systems, typing ^\ will send a QUIT signal to the current
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process, probably killing it and possibly causing it to save a
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core dump. It is not used for any NetHack command, so don't type
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that character.
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One last note: characters shown as ^x mean that you should hold
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down the <control> or <ctrl> key as a shift and then type 'x'.
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Control characters are all implicitly uppercase, but you don't
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need to press the shift key while typing them. The opposite is
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true for meta-characters: they can be either case, so you need
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to use shift as well as <meta> or <alt> to generate an uppercase
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letter meta-character.
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