Dvorak

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Hello, I'm a newbie to nethack, but the local Linux User Group seems to
think it's essential I play it. However, I use the Dvorak keyboard
layout, which scatters the movement keys all over my keyboard, and I
have no numpad.

(well I do have a sort of numpad that uses a Fn key, but it refuses to
actually use numbers instead of home/end commands and the arrow keys)

What I'd like to ask is if it's possible to change the keys for
commands in nethack. The "nethack-lisp" package lists this as one of
its features, but there is nothing in the readme about how to do it.

It looks like a very enjoyable game, and it would be a lot more
playable for me if I could set my own controls in it.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

No, my number keys wont work either. It says "Count:" and echos the
numbers I press instead. I don't know much about this game yet, so I
doubt I could write a patch. I agree, it would be a good feature.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

David Damerell wrote:

> Quoting <tiglionabbit@gmail.com>:
>> Hello, I'm a newbie to nethack, but the local Linux User Group seems to
>> think it's essential I play it. However, I use the Dvorak keyboard
>> layout, which scatters the movement keys all over my keyboard, and I
>> have no numpad.
>
> I think you will find it easiest to revert to QWERTY for the duration of
> play, but prepare your own reference card which lists all the commands in
> terms of the visible keycaps...

I would not relish specifying wishes in such a scenario, even if I were
completely fluent in both layouts.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

tiglionabbit@gmail.com wrote:
> No, my number keys wont work either. It says "Count:" and echos the
> numbers I press instead. I don't know much about this game yet, so I
> doubt I could write a patch. I agree, it would be a good feature.
>
If you get "Count:" without typing "n" first, that probably means you
didn't enable "number_pad" mode in nethack. The number line works for
me, and it doesn't seem to matter if numlock is on.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

tiglionabbit@gmail.com writes:

> Hello, I'm a newbie to nethack, but the local Linux User Group seems to
> think it's essential I play it. However, I use the Dvorak keyboard
> layout, which scatters the movement keys all over my keyboard, and I
> have no numpad.

What I did for my laptop was to simply switch to the number
line above the alphabetical keys. It took me much less time
than I imagined to adapt to this, and I can switch now
easily from numpad to the number line. But I don't know
if you can get your keyboard to accept the numline as
a numpad (for me, I just had to hit numlock, IIRC).

> It looks like a very enjoyable game, and it would be a lot more
> playable for me if I could set my own controls in it.

Weeeell, in theory you could write a patch, but I think it
would actually be a great feature if you could re-define
key controls within the game.

Best,
Jakob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Quoting <tiglionabbit@gmail.com>:
>Hello, I'm a newbie to nethack, but the local Linux User Group seems to
>think it's essential I play it. However, I use the Dvorak keyboard
>layout, which scatters the movement keys all over my keyboard, and I
>have no numpad.

I think you will find it easiest to revert to QWERTY for the duration of
play, but prepare your own reference card which lists all the commands in
terms of the visible keycaps...
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Tuesday, June.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

tiglionabbit@gmail.com writes:

> No, my number keys wont work either. It says "Count:"

Ah, you have to enable the number_pad option first. Either
you do this in your config file, or you just open the options
menu by hitting O, then looking for the number_pad option
(could be X, but I don't know for sure).

Best,
Jakob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

I don't know how it works but their are some options related to key
handaling in the windows version:

>From defaults.nh:
"# Keyboard handling
# Different keyboard handlers can be loaded.
# Default is nhdefkey.dll but you can override that." and it gives an
alternet *.dll I don't know if this helps....

 

[James]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

In article <1117542714.397743.182910@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
<tiglionabbit@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>Hello, I'm a newbie to nethack, but the local Linux User Group seems to
>think it's essential I play it. However, I use the Dvorak keyboard
>layout, which scatters the movement keys all over my keyboard, and I
>have no numpad.
>
>(well I do have a sort of numpad that uses a Fn key, but it refuses to
>actually use numbers instead of home/end commands and the arrow keys)
>
>What I'd like to ask is if it's possible to change the keys for
>commands in nethack. The "nethack-lisp" package lists this as one of
>its features, but there is nothing in the readme about how to do it.
>
>It looks like a very enjoyable game, and it would be a lot more
>playable for me if I could set my own controls in it.
>

This is a tough one. The rationale for some of the keys, is positional,
and those should be mapped to the same position regardless of what
symbols they are. But other keys are mapped according to a mnemonic
device for their function. And still others seem to have been assigned
because they were available.

So I'd think "dhtn" should be mapped to the "hjkl" movement keys,
likewise "fgbm" to the diagonal movement keys. But if you do that,
you've got a few conflicts, and some of them would lead to some pretty
poor compromises. In particular, "d", "t", and "f" are among the keys
that are abbreviations for their commands; and it wouldn't make much
sense to map, "d" to "e" just to keep it's position.

Perhaps someone with the motivation and patience could work out a
best-fit compromise dvorak mapping. I get no further than "dhtn" *MUST*
map to "hjkl". Same would apply to the vi editor on dvorak.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

fishbowl@conservatory.com (james) writes:

> Perhaps someone with the motivation and patience could work out a
> best-fit compromise dvorak mapping. I get no further than "dhtn" *MUST*
> map to "hjkl". Same would apply to the vi editor on dvorak.

May I instead suggest that htns map to hjkl and finally get rid of the
off by one feature of the vi key bindings? (I do not have the
motivation: switching to qwerty for playing nethack works fine --
except that I sometimes #name things very strangely.)

-- Johan

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

> What I'd like to ask is if it's possible to change the keys for
> commands in nethack. The "nethack-lisp" package lists this as one of
> its features, but there is nothing in the readme about how to do it.

I'm not a console junkie, but a dvorak user myself.
At the moment I'm switching to qwertz (german layout) for nethack even though I
find it uncomfortable that X is inferior to MS Windows in that regard (where
every window can have its own keymap, independend from the rest).

Would it be possible to crank up something like:
dvorak-to-qwertz | nethack ?
IE, a program that reads from console bytewise, translates the key to qwertz and
then pushes it to nethack?

Greetings,
Benjamin
--
_ _ _ _ _
| \| |___| |_| |_ __ _ __| |__
| .` / -_) _| ' \/ _` / _| / /
|_|\_\___|\__|_||_\__,_\__|_\_\
| | (_)_ _ _ ___ __
| |__| | ' \ || \ \ /
|____|_|_||_\_,_/_\_\
Play Nethack anywhere with an x86 computer:
http://www.crash-override.net/?nethacklinux

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

heh

I struggled at first but now I just play straight dvorak,
the key locations seem strange at first ( but didn't vi seem so at first
aswell ). One used to it, it fits well

Clive Crous