Xref: utzoo rec.games.hack:9386 comp.windows.ms:4553
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!yale!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!mcdchg!chinet!patrickd
From: patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Deupree)
Newsgroups: rec.games.hack,comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: nethack and mswindows
Message-ID: <1990Aug24.150251.7077@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 24 Aug 90 15:02:51 GMT
References: <150245@felix.UUCP> <1990Aug22.214636.9812@chinet.chi.il.us> <936@helens.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: The Whitewater Group, Evanston, IL
Lines: 35

In article <936@helens.Stanford.EDU> gyugyi@rascals.stanford.edu (Paul Gyugyi) writes:
>
>Patrick,
>When you port the game to Windows, please consider keeping the
>interface seperate from the game, perhaps by putting a DDE link
>between two programs, one being the use interface and the other
>being a set of stubs compiled with the source code. That way mere
>mortals like me :) can make a new front end with fonts and menu
>selections and note pads and tear off status displays, etc. without
>having to hack the nethack source code.  I don't mind if it slows
>the game down, I run nethack on super fast risc machines at school,
>so I'm used to slow jerky response (ah the benifits of multiuser
>systems).
>It would also be the most advanced dde demo that I've seen.

Actually, my thoughts were this.  I might create my own font for the game
(I might have to) that will include cute characters for monsters, people,
and so on.  This being the case it should be easy to change the font if
one wants to (as long as I don't resource compile it into the program).
As far as menu selections go, you could use the Resource Toolkit to change
the wording of the menu selection, but you're going to have to dive into
the source code if you want to change any functionality.

I'd actually thought of creating a "net hack server" at one point, but
there are some impractical things about this.  If I do create a "server"
version it will be after I create the direct port.  As a side note,
though, in order to create this so that the nethack "people" can keep
my code with all the existing port code, I have to isolate the Windows
code from the nethack guts.  That's the way all the user interfaces are
handled currentl
-- 
"Organized fandom is composed of a bunch of nitpickers with a thing for
 trivial pursuit."  -Harlan Ellison

Patrick Deupree ->	patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us