LazyNethack

A Screensaver for MacOS which let's you watch live nethack games

Installation

Option 1: Download

1. Download from https://github.com/tessi/LazyNethack/releases
2. Unpack the LazyNethack-x.x.zip file.
3. Double-click (Open) the LazyNethack.saver file and choose to install it.
4. Open up System Preferences > Desktop and Screen Saver > Screen Saver
5. Select "LazyNethack" (It'll be at the bottom of the Screen Savers list.)

Option 2: Build it yourself

• Clone the repository
• Open in Xcode and build the LazyNethack target
• In the "Products" folder, right click on LazyNethack.saver and choose Open with External Editor
• Follow the instructions on screen

Gotchas

• It needs internet to connect to alt.org (the place where nethack people play online). If things don't load, chances are you're firewall blocks requests.
• If you want to install a new version of this screensaver, please follow these exact steps (to avoid a MacOS bug which caches the old binary):
  • remove the old version of the screensaver
  • close the settings app
  • install the new version

Development and Contribution

Feel free to contribute by adding issues or opening pull requests. 🌷

Architecture

The screensaver consists of two parts:

• A Swift part which hooks into the MacOS screensaver app and opens a WebView . Find the source in Source or open the project in XCode.
• and a web page which is opened in that WebView. Find it in App/Ressources/index.html. It creates a terminal (hterm) and opens a websocket connection to a nethack server. gameControl.js is responsible to orchestrate that and contains the logic how to join nethack games and when to switch to new games.

Thanks

• Alastair Tse - His screen saver project WebViewScreensaver helped me a lot with getting a web view to run.
• Mattias Jahnke - His screen saver project WorldClock was my go to source for a nice SWIFT setup for screensavers.
• alt.org/nethack - A place where fellow nethack'ians play nethack online for the viewing pleasure of the world. They have their own page where people can watch the game. This page heavily inspired me and my approach to base this screensaver on a WebView component.
• The Nethack developers - Nethack is developed as open source. This allowed me to use the Nethack logo without inventing my own.

License

MIT licensed, the nethack logo is under the NETHACK GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE