Welcome to the NAO comic DIY page. This page contains a powerful interactive editor to help you write comics. The following document attempts to explain the controls present on this page in the order in which they appear.

THE EDIT PANE

Editing the comic is as simple as clicking in the edit pane. As you hover your mouse over the pane, you'll notice a red cursor following your mouse pointer, highlighting the map tile that will be affected. When you click on this tile, it will be replaced with the current contents of the "drawing pen". The drawing pen is simply a glyph comprised of character and color that can be placed on the map. You can see the symbol that the pen is currently set to in a display beneath the text box; by default it's set to "." (period). By holding the 'ctrl' key while clicking, you can instead fill a tile with an alternate pen — by default " " (a blank space — solid rock or an unseen area) — handy for an erase function, but you can use it for any purpose you wish. To switch the normal and alternate pens, press the 'x' key.

To edit the panel's caption text, click in the text box below the edit pane and type. There is no limit to the amount of text you can enter; the panel layout will adjust to accomodate it. HTML is allowed, including links and images. Unusual characters can be pasted in or alt-coded. When you're done editing, click anywhere outside the text box to update the editor; you can then scroll down to the preview pane (below) to see the effects of your changes.

The insert pen will insert the current pen character into the panel's caption text box.

CONTROLS

Input modes

• Draw mode: This is the default mode, in which clicking on a map tile replaces it with the current contents of the drawing pen. To switch to this mode, click the draw button or press the 'd' key.
• Color picker: This mode allows you to set the pen to a symbol already present on the map. To use it, press the 'c' key or click the colorpicker button, then click anywhere in the map window. The pen will change to the symbol in that tile, and you will be returned to draw mode. You can also press 'z' key while hovering the mouse over the map pane to instantly get the symbol under cursor into the current pen.
• Flood fill: This mode allows you to replace a continuous region of the panel (all one symbol) with another symbol (the drawing pen). To use it, press the 'f' key or click the floodfill button. As you hover the mouse over the edit pane, the region that will be filled will be highlighted in red. Click on the panel to fill it.
• Line drawing: This mode allows you to create a line of a particular symbol. To use it, press the 'g' key or click the lines button. As you hover the mouse over the edit pane, the tiles that will be filled will be highlighted in red; the line will start at the last tile edited and end at the tile you click on. To change the line's starting position, hover the mouse over the new starting position and press the 's' key. (This will work in any input mode.)
• Rectangle drawing: This mode allows you to create an unfilled rectangle of a particular symbol; the tiles within the rectangle will be unchanged. To use it, click the rect button; you can also use the 'v' key to cycle between draw, unfilled rectangle, and filled rectangle modes. As you hover the mouse over the edit pane, the tiles that will be filled will be highlighted in red; the rectangle will have one corner at the last tile edited, and the opposite corner at the tile you click on. To change the anchored corner, hover the mouse over the new corner position and press the 's' key. (This will work in any input mode.)
• Filled rectangle drawing: This mode is identical to unfilled rectangle drawing, except the tiles within the rectangle will be filled with the chosen character as well. To use it, click the fillrect button or cycle to it with the 'v' key.
• Room rectangle drawing: This mode is similar to rectangle drawing, but it uses | for vertical and - for horizontal parts of the rectangle. To use it, click the roomrect button.

Panel actions

• Generate: This places a random (believable) NetHack map in the chosen panel. Hovering over this will reveal several buttons, which allows you to define what kind of map to generate:
  • Random: Randomly chooses one of the available generators.
  • Dungeon room: A room in the Dungeons.
  • Field: A field with no vision obstacles, possibly with a building on it.
  • Splatterfield: Mostly walkable field, with some interesting terrain feature in the middle.
  • Reverse Splatterfield: Like Splatterfield, but reversed terrains.
  • Dug Randwalk: As if a drunk dwarf dug in the walls.
  • Mines: Gnomish Mines-style.
  • Maze: A Maze.
• Remove colors: This removes all color tags from the panel; every tile becomes gray.
• Fill: This fills the entire panel with the contents of the drawing pen.
• Clear: This fills the entire panel with " " (the glyph for solid rock or an unseen region — blank space.)
• Replace: This replaces all symbols matching the contents of the drawing pen with those matching the contents of the alternate pen — replacing "." (period) with " " (blank space) by default, for instance.
• Scatter: This places five glyphs matching the contents of the drawing pen randomly on the map. Useful for adding random monsters.
• Shift: Hovering over this will reveal four buttons: up, left, right and down. Those buttons will shift the contents of the current pane to the direction, wrapping contents around the border, so no information is lost.
• Move syms: Hovering over this will reveal 6 buttons: to cursor, randomly, up, left, right and down. Those buttons will move all symbols that match the current pen like monsters trying to reach the designated place. The ctrl-pen is considered as the floor-symbol, and the "monsters" will walk on those only. Does not consider symbol color, only the character.
• Maze: This creates a maze layout using the current contents of the drawing pen (usually '.'). This is overlaid on the panel; if you don't clear it first, it can result in some strange effects.
• Wallify: This automatically replaces all empty tiles (' ') bordering floor tiles ('.') with wall tiles ('-' and '|') — use with the 'maze' button to create a wallified maze.
• Gravestone: This replaces the contents of the current panel with a tombstone image suitable for the 'game over' screen, including Dudley's name — all it lacks is his killer's.
• Copy: This copies the contents of the current panel (but not its caption text) into a temporary buffer, for use with the 'paste' button.
• Paste: This pastes the contents of the temporary buffer into the current panel, allowing you to replicate panels. Note that the resulting panel's size is that of the copied panel.
• Add: This adds a new panel to the comic, copying the current panel's contents to fill it (including caption text). Note that it does not copy into the same buffer as the copy command — you can't paste what you just added.
• Del: This deletes the current panel from the comic. The previous panel becomes the new current panel.
• Undo: This will undo most changes done to the panel, including resizing. Does not undo changes to the panel text. Each panel has a separate undo stack.

The Pen

The first line is mostly devoted to saved pens. By default eleven symbols are saved here for quick access — the floor tile, solid rock, walls, closed and open doors, corridor, human, cat, and dog (. |-+|-#@fd respectively). Clicking one one of these will place it in the drawing pen for immediate use; the first ten can also be selected by use of the number keys. To change the alternate pen, hold 'ctrl' while clicking. Hovering the mouse over one of the saved pens will show a dialog allowing you to move it around in the list, remove it, or change its access key. (Note that moving a pen resets its access key to the default — its own default, not the one for its current position.) Click the 'save' button to save the current drawing pen for quick access. The saved pens are stored in a cookie, and will persist across multiple editing sessions.

The one button on that line that has nothing to do with saved pens is 'random'. This button will place a random glyph in the drawing pen — not necessarily one that has any meaning in NetHack.

The next line is devoted to colors. Here you will see the character currently in the drawing pen, repeated in every color the editor supports. Click on one of these to change the color appropriately. (The alternate pen cannot be changed with this control.) You can also click the "no color" button to remove the color tag from the current character (it will become gray), or the "random" button to have the drawing color selected at random when you draw on the panel.

The next line shows all the characters the editor recognizes, in the currently selected color. Click on one of these to place it in the drawing pen; or ctrl-click to place it in the alternate pen. (Note that you *can* use characters not listed here in the comic, but you must edit the code directly to do so.)

TABLE OF SYMBOLS

STRIP DATA

• Author: This box sets the author name that will be displayed in the upper right corner of the comic. There is no limit on the name length, although a very long name will cause the comic to stretch horizontally. Spaces are allowed; line breaks are not, unless you use the <br> tag. HTML is allowed, including links and images; the author name is bold by default, but this can be overridden with </b>. When you're done, press enter or click anywhere outside the box to update the editor, then scroll down to the preview pane to see the effects of your changes. The author name defaults to "Unknown" if you're not logged in; otherwise it will default to your login name.
• Footnote: If you want to display a footnote under the comic, you can enter it in this box. There is no limit on the length of the footnote, although a long one will cause the comic to stretch horizontally. HTML is allowed, including links and images; again, line breaks can be accomplished with the <br> tag. When you're done, press enter or click anywhere outside the box to update the editor, then scroll down to the preview pane to see the effects of your changes.
• Strip panel size: This allows you to control the dimensions of the panels. The dimensions are expressed as (width, height), in map tiles, and default to 20 tiles wide by 9 tiles high. To resize a panel, select the panel, then click the change button; enter the new dimensions in the boxes, and then click OK (or cancel to discard the changes). You can check the "Resize all panels" box to apply the new dimensions to the entire comic, including any panels subsequently added. Shrinking the panel will simply truncate any part of the map that doesn't fit; the editor will warn you whenever you do so.
• Strip width: This allows you to control the number of panels per row. To change this, click "change", enter a number in the box, and then click "OK"; or click "cancel" to discard the changes. The default setting, 'automatic', causes the editor to choose dimensions such that there are an equal number of panels on each row (no blank spaces). Setting this to '0' returns it to 'automatic'. Attempting to set it to a number higher than the number of panels in the strip, or something that is not a number, results in no change.

PREVIEW PANE

Clicking the "popup preview" check box will cause a preview to pop up in a separate window, allowing you to look at it without the clutter of the editor; leaving this box checked will cause a preview window to pop up every time a change to the comic is made.

CODE PANE

When you're finished editing the comic strip, you can press the download button to download the comic code to your computer, or you can press the submit button to submit the strip directly for publication. If you have logged in, you will see text that says so, otherwise you will need to input your username and password into the fields next to the submit-button.

The submitted strip will show up after the admins have approved it.

Best of luck in your efforts!

Keys

The default keys can be changed in the configuration window. The pen quick keys override the other key bindings.

Dudley D-I-Y by paxed. Last update on 2011.09.20.
Thanks to Antheridium for writing this doc.