Menucolors allows players to set the color and formatting of menu entries according to textual patterns, expressed with regexps or NetHack's globbing syntax. Challenges/thoughts:
Regexps require external library support, making it that much harder to work on Windows or constrained platforms.
NitroHack distinguishes normal menus from object menus; the latter includes object appearance, BUCness (if available), weight (if available) and a flag stating whether the object is equipped or in use. Will a single regexp be enough, or will more sophisticated rules be needed?
What about the accelerator? How will multi-field menus be handled?
NitroHack already does some coloring for object menus based on BUCness and whether it's equipped or in use. How will that interact with menucolors? Can/should they be expressed as default menucolors settings instead?
Menucolors for object menus expresses game knowledge that differs between players. However, menucolors for most text-based menus is because NetHack does a poor job coloring them itself, e.g. coloring skills based on level or spells based on failure rate. Should menucolors cater to non-object menus? Excluding it somewhat simplfies the menucolors options UI, but may exclude legitimate use cases, e.g. coloring finger of death in the spell menu.
Are there any ways to ease migration of existing menucolors settings blocks? What about players who share or want to borrow other people's settings?
Sometimes, the purpose of menucolors lines aren't immediately obvious, so should it support something like comments?
A menu test pattern would be really useful for testing the rules without having to have a game live. Is such a thing possible?
Menucolors allows players to set the color and formatting of menu entries according to textual patterns, expressed with regexps or NetHack's globbing syntax. Challenges/thoughts: