Experiences with new Angband 4.2.5 and questions about Identifying and Variants

[Michaelyx]

THX! For your help!

... turn off the option to "Send the Keypad Modifier". ...

That was the solution!

[backwardsEric]

Hello! I need your advice again.

In the current Angband version of git, the following characters don't work: „=“, „*“ and „/“.

With the SDL2 front end and some keyboard layouts (the ones that have been trouble in the past are non-English layouts), you will need to turn off the option to "Send the Keypad Modifier". That is in menu for the SDL2 front end's primary window: move the mouse to hover over "Menu" in the upper right corner, then move the mouse down to hover over "Send the Keypad Modifier", and click the left mouse button to change that option. That option is remembered when you shut down the front end, so you should only have to reset it if it is the first time you run the game on a system or if you wiped out the sdl2init.txt file in Angband's user directory.

When that option is on, the SDL2 front end tries to distinguish between keypresses from the main keyboard and from the numerical keypad so that there's a larger number of keys available for keymaps. That process assumes an English layout (where '/', '*', and '=' can be entered either from the main keyboard or the numerical keypad).

[tangar]

Is there a good documentation on the differences between the variants of Angband?

https://tangaria.com/variants/ gives a comprehensive overview of features across all variants

[fruviad]

I just tried an SDL2 build of 4.2.5-389-g1b3978f8d on an Ubuntu 22.04 system and the "= / *" worked for me.

Do you have multiple installs on your system? If so, then is the latest build the only one exhibiting this behavior?

[Michaelyx]

Hello! I need your advice again.

In the current Angband version of git, the following characters don't work: „=“, „*“ and „/“.

The "=" key is particularly missing: So the „options menu“ aren't accessible via the "=" key. It is with Enter, Utility, Interact with Options...

Inscribing objects e.g. with "=g4," doesn't work either. If I press "=", nothing happens.

"Create a keymap" doesn't work either because the "=" character is missing for the closing.

Do you have any idea how to change this?

[Michaelyx]

No, this is the way the stat swap potions have worked since they were introduced; sustains don't work against the stat loss from them.

Thanks for the info! Then I remembered it wrong.

[Nick]

Hello!
I need your advice again.
Increasing stats with suitable potions is no longer as successful as I remember.
e.g. Sustain wisdom of objects does not protect. Was still reduced by a Potion of Toughness. Since all of my stats except Constitution are sustained, I was actually sure that I would only have the advantage of stat gain.
Since when has this been like this? Is this a bug?

No, this is the way the stat swap potions have worked since they were introduced; sustains don't work against the stat loss from them.

[Michaelyx]

Hello!
I need your advice again.
Increasing stats with suitable potions is no longer as successful as I remember.
e.g. Sustain wisdom of objects does not protect. Was still reduced by a Potion of Toughness. Since all of my stats except Constitution are sustained, I was actually sure that I would only have the advantage of stat gain.
Since when has this been like this? Is this a bug?

[Michaelyx]

Thanks for the tip!
I created a startup shortcut: With a script called “angband” in /usr/local/bin/ using an editor:
sudo gedit /usr/local/bin/angband

Contents:

#!/bin/sh
cd /home/michaelyx/Downloads/angband_28_01
./src/angband -c -msdl2

Then make this script executable: sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/angband

[PowerDiver]

2. To easily start from a new terminal: It was recommended to start from the installation directory with: src/angband -c -msdl2 What speaks against starting from an other directory with a link like this: ~/Downloads/angband_28_01/src/angband -c -msdl2

Perhaps things are better now, but in the old days there were relative paths in the code, so e.g. for the game to be able to find the "lib" directory you needed to be running in the directory above it. I continue to do it that way.

Assuming you have a personal bin directory that appears early in your $PATH, you could put the cd and options and whatever else into a script in your bin directory. E.g. there was a time I was tracking real time played, and I used

#! /bin/bash

cd ~/angband/Angband-4.2.5/
echo "" >> ../logs/log.4.2.5
date >> ../logs/log.4.2.5
./angband
date >> ../logs/log.4.2.5

The ./angband was a symlink to src/angband. Technically I had that file in a directory of shell scripts and a symlink to it from ~/bin

[Michaelyx]

THX for your help!

Two more questions:
1.With the current version of Angband from git installed in Ubuntu, Options are not accessible through the = command. The * key also has no function, e.g. when picking up objects - selecting: all. How can I change the keyboard layout?

2. To easily start from a new terminal: It was recommended to start from the installation directory with: src/angband -c -msdl2 What speaks against starting from an other directory with a link like this: ~/Downloads/angband_28_01/src/angband -c -msdl2

[PowerDiver]

The 1000 prefix is a userid specifier. By default, the first [non system] user created is 1000 in every linux distro I've used. If you ever have multiple different accounts on your box, or if you muck with userid numbers, there would be a different prefix on each savefile for other users.

[Michaelyx]

Thank you for your help!
Using the old save files now works for me - like this:
Before copying the save files, you should start Angband at least once and create your first character. Angband then creates the lib/save folder and in it an initial save file with the user name (not the chosen character name!). Each additional save file created this way will have the character name (which you enter during the birth process). Now the old backup files can be copied to the lib/save folder and selected in the window the next time you start “Angband -c”.
In the version of Angband installed via the package repository, all save files must also begin with the suffix “1000”. and the folder is there by default: /var/games/angband/save. Otherwise this worked straight away.

[PowerDiver]

lib/save is in the same directory as src, presumably /home/michaelyx/Downloads/Angband_git/angband_20_1/lib/save

[backwardsEric]

I recognised there is no way to open or load a character file in my installation. Once the birth process is complete, Angband will automatically start with that character every time you reboot.
Any idea how fix this so I can use personal save files?

If the save file you want to use is not already in the save folder, put it there. Then you can use

angband -u<name_of_the_save_file_to_use> -msdl2

(replace <name_of_the_save_file_to_use> with that save file's name) to load that save file rather than the one it defaults to.

angband -l

will list the save files that are available for use with the -u option.