[Linux] How to play console (ASCII) DCSS (Crawl) online

[twipley]

Here is a tutorial, aiming to teach how to configure for Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup online.

(for instructions on how to build Crawl for offline play, read viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17104 instead.)

This guide being for the common end-user, it is assumed either Ubuntu or Linux Mint is the OS. The font size (21) assumes one is sitting in front of a 1080p screen.

First off, for better colouring and refresh rate, both xterm and xtermcontrol are suggested over the default gnome-terminal. To install these, either the Software Manager (called Software Centre or Center on Ubuntu) or the terminal have to be fired up. In the latter case, Ctrl+Alt+t can be pressed, and the following command ran (pasted using Ctrl+Alt+v):

  Code:

sudo apt-get install xterm xtermcontrol

The remaining steps relate to connecting to the CAO server. Again, launch the terminal using Ctrl+Alt+t. Then, send:

  Code:

xterm -fa 'DejaVu Sans Mono' -fs 21 & exit

The alternative (xterm) terminal will be launched. Toggle full-screen mode using Alt+Enter. To connect to the server with improved (more-accurate) colouring, use the following line (paste it using Shift+Insert):

  Code:

xtermcontrol --color0=rgb:0000/0000/0000 --color1=rgb:cdcd/0000/0000 --color2=rgb:0000/cdcd/0000 --color3=rgb:cdcd/cdcd/0000 --color4=rgb:1e1e/9090/ffff --color5=rgb:cdcd/0000/cdcd --color6=rgb:0000/cdcd/cdcd --color7=rgb:e5e5/e5e5/e5e5 --color8=rgb:4c4c/4c4c/4c4c --color9=rgb:ffff/0000/0000 --color10=rgb:0000/ffff/0000 --color11=rgb:ffff/ffff/0000 --color12=rgb:4646/8282/b4b4 --color13=rgb:ffff/0000/ffff --color14=rgb:0000/ffff/ffff --color15=rgb:ffff/ffff/ffff && ssh -C -l joshua crawl.akrasiac.org

Statistics are available on the CAO web pages. For example: http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/twipley.html (replace with relevant user names).

[gammafunk]

Thanks for posting some information about using dcss console for people. You can also set up Xterm using your ~/.Xresources file to set the font, font size, and font colors. My ~/.Xresources is as follows:

  Code:

XTerm*faceName: DejaVu Sans Mono
XTerm*faceSize: 14
!black
XTerm*color0 : #000000
XTerm*color1 : #AA0000
!red
XTerm*color2 : #00AA00
XTerm*color3 : #EDD400
!green
XTerm*color4 : #5555FF
XTerm*color5 : #AA00AA
!yellow
XTerm*color6 : #00AAAA
XTerm*color7 : #D3D7CF
!blue
XTerm*color8 : #555753
XTerm*color9 : #EF2929
!magenta
XTerm*color10 : #55FF55
XTerm*color11 : #FFFF55
!cyan
XTerm*color12 : #597AFF
XTerm*color13 : #FF55FF
!white
XTerm*color14 : #55FFFF
XTerm*color15 : #FFFFFF


Since I only use Xterm for DCSS and use e.g. gnome-terminal for any terminal things, this works for me. I'm probably going to switch to using a vte-based terminal emulator like xfce4-terminal, since the only reason I don't use gnome-terminal is that it can't render the special block glyphs I like to use in my ~/.crawlrc:

  Code:

## Wall glyphs, requires a font and terminal that can render these.
feature += crystal wall {░}
feature += green crystal {░}
feature += stone wall {▒}
feature += metal wall {▓}
feature += unnaturally hard rock wall {█}


These glyphs don't look well-differentiated in that code block above, but they all look substantially different in a terminal that can render them. They don't work in gnome-terminal because it always uses its own special block glyphs for these characters, ignoring the font's characters. Other vte-based emulators like xfce4-terminal don't do this, so they work fine, and are easier to configure than Xterm. Xterm also has rendering issues, showing small rendering artifacts in numerous places, apparently because the block glyphs are a bit wider than the cell they occupy. This doesn't seem to be an issue with vte-based terminals.