DESCRIPTION

Real  Mah  Jongg  is a social game that originated in
China thousands of years ago. Four players, named
after the four winds, take tiles from a wall in turn.
The best tiles  are made  of  ivory  and  wood; they click pleasantly when you knock them together. Computer
Solitaire Mah Jongg (xmahjongg being one of the sillier examples) is nothing  like  that
but  it's  fun, or it must be, since there are like 300 shareware versions available for
Windows.  This is for X11 and it's free.

HOW TO PLAY

The object is to remove all Mah Jongg tiles from the playing field by taking one  match‐
ing  pair  at a time. Generally, two tiles match if they have identical pictures on top.
There are some exceptions: any season tile (spring, summer, autumn, or  winter)  matches
any  other  season,  and any flower tile (bamboo, orchid, plum, or chrysathemum) matches
any other flower. There are 144 tiles in all -- one of each season and flower, and  four
copies  of each of the following: 1 to 9 dots; 1 to 9 bamboo sticks; characters for 1 to
9; the four winds (north, south, east, and west); and three  dragons  (red,  green,  and
white).
Only  free  tiles  can be removed. A tile is free if its entire top face is unobstructed
and either its left or its right edge is open. (When  looking  at  the  left  and  right
edges, only tiles on the same level count.)

The rules are simple, but winning, it turns out, can be pretty hard. It's easy to make a
move that causes a stalemate thirty or more moves later.  What's worse, the --any-boards
option lets xmahjongg create boards that cannot be solved at all!

CONTROLS AND APPEARANCE

To  select a free tile, simply click/touch it with the left mouse button and it will light up.
Click/Touch it again to deselect it.To  remove  a matched pair, 
just select one of the pair and click on the other one.
The number in the upper left corner tells you how many tiles you have left. This is
all you really need to know to play the game.

Xmahjongg  comes  with  several features that may dismay purists, but make the game more
pleasant to play. First is the match count, an array of small gold coins  in  the  upper
middle. Each coin represents one potential match on the board. (If three mutually match‐
ing tiles are free, it counts as three  matches,  and  if  four  are  free,  that's  six
matches.)  This  will let you know when the game is over (no gold coins means no matches
...a dead end) and when you're getting close.

The five buttons along the top right have the following functions:

New (keystroke: n)
Start a new game.

Quit (keystroke: q)
Quit xmahjongg.

Undo (keystroke: u)
Undoes your last move. You can undo multiple moves by clicking multiple  times.  If
you change your mind about undoing a move, hold down Shift while you click the Undo
button (or press r) to redo it.

Hint (keystroke: h)
Gives you a hint by flashing a set of free matching tiles. You  can  cycle  through
all  existing  matches  by  clicking  multiple times. If you select a tile and then
click Hint, xmahjongg will flash any free tiles that match that tile,  or  beep  if
there aren't any.

Clean (keystroke: c)
Cleans  the  board by automatically removing obvious matches. A match is obvious if
it involves all the remaining tiles of a given type. (For example, if there  are  2
green dragons left and they are both free, they form an obvious match; but if there
are 4 left and only 3 are free, they don't.) Cleaning the board is  guaranteed  not
to cause a stalemate later.

NOTE!:  Not implemented yet in Kindle Edition

Solve (no button; keystroke: s)
If  you  get  stuck,  press  the s key. After the board is restored to its original
state, xmahjongg will show you one way to solve it by removing tiles two at a time.
Press  s  again  to speed up the solution, or press Esc to stop. This won't work if
you gave the --any-boards option (see below).

KEYBOARD TRAVERSAL

You can use the arrow keys and the spacebar to play xmahjongg without using  the  mouse.
These  keys  control  the cursor, which is shown as a flashing tile. The arrow keys move
the cursor around on the board in the obvious directions. The spacebar is like  clicking
the  mouse  button  on the cursor tile: it either selects the tile or removes a matching
pair.

The hint key, `h', is also useful for playing without the mouse.  Experiment  with  `h',
the  spacebar,  and  the  Return  key  to see how this works. When a hint is active, the
spacebar is like clicking on one of the flashing hint tiles, while  the  Return  key  is
like  clicking on two of them (so it removes the tiles in one stroke). This method gives
the fastest playing speed.

OPTIONS

If you get bored with xmahjongg's original layout and appearance, never fear:  it  comes
with  several  tilesets  (tile  images)  and layouts (tile arrangements). In addition to
these, xmahjongg can read layout files from the original xmahjongg,  KDE  Mahjongg,  and
Kyodai  Mahjongg, and tilesets in KDE Mahjongg, Gnome Mahjongg, and Kyodai Mahjongg for‐
mat. (However, tilesets must be converted to GIF format before xmahjongg can read them.)
See the [-l] and [-t] options.

Long option names can be abbreviated to their unique prefixes.

--number N
-n N Start with board number N.
-l layout
--layout layout
Use  the  specified  game layout.  xmahjongg comes with several layouts. The normal
layout is called default; to see the other ones'  names,  run  `xmahjongg  --list'.
You  can  also  use an arbitrary layout by giving its filename.  Xmahjongg can read
layouts in its own simple format, in KDE kmahjongg format, or  in  Kyodai  Mahjongg
format.  (Kyodai  Mahjongg  is  one of the more popular Windows Mah Jongg solitaire
games. It's got 3D tiles and all sorts of stuff. See http://www.kyodai.com for more
information.  You  can download a zip archive with more than 100 different layouts,
mostly usable with xmahjongg, from http://www.kyodai.com/.)

--tileset tileset
Use the specified tileset to draw the Mah Jongg tiles.  Xmahjongg comes  with  sev‐
eral  extra  tilesets,  particularly small (perfect for smaller screens). There are
others too; run `xmahjongg --list' for a complete listing.

--background image
--bg image
The background image is set to image.  Run `xmahjongg  --list'  to  see  the  back‐
grounds  that come with xmahjongg, or use an arbitrary GIF as a background image by
giving its filename.

[--list]
Lists all the layouts, tilesets, and backgrounds that  came  with  xmahjongg,  then
exits.

--solvable-boards
Always create solvable boards. This is the default.

--any-boards
Allow any legal board, some of which will be solvable and some of which won't.

--display display
Sets the X display to display.

--name name
Specifies  the  application  name  under which resources are found, rather than the
default ``xmahjongg''. Since xmahjongg itself does not use the  resource  database,
this is mostly useful for communication with your window manager.

--geometry geometry
This  standard X option specifies the preferred size and position for the xmahjongg
window.

[--help]
Prints usage information and exits.

[--version]
Prints the version number and some quickie warranty information and exits.

HISTORY

xmahjongg  version  3  is  a  complete rewrite by Eddie Kohler <eddietwo@lcs.mit.edu> of
xmahjongg versions 1 and 2 by Jeff S. Young <jsy@cray.com>.

The default tileset was originally created in color by Dorothy  Robinson  <mokuren@tele‐
port.com>  with  Mark A. Holm <markh@aracnet.com>. The publicly available version was in
black-and-white. Holm copyrighted the tiles in 1988, giving permission to copy and  dis‐
tribute for non-profit purposes. The significantly altered color version that comes with
xmahjongg was created by Eddie  Kohler  in  1993.  The  `small'  tileset  was  found  at
http://www.mahjongg.com/,  and  is  presumably by Berrie Bloem. The `gnome' and `gnome2'
tilesets were created by Jonathan Buzzard and Max Watson. The `dorothys' and  `dorwhite'
tilesets  were  made  by Dorothy Robinson <mokuren@teleport.com>. The `real' tileset was
scanned by Mark Sanctuary <sanctuary@jps.net>.

Many of the layouts are based on layouts designed for Kyodai Mahjongg, a fun Windows Mah
Jongg game. In particular, `arena', `ceremonial', `deepwell', `farandole', and `theater'
are by Naoki  Haga,  and  `hourglass'  and  `papillon'  are  by  Vincent  Krebs.  Kyodai
Mahjongg's Web homepage is http://www.kyodai.com/.

AUTHOR

Eddie Kohler, eddietwo@lcs.mit.edu
http://www.pdos.lcs.mit.edu/~eddietwo/

http://www.lcdf.org/~eddietwo/xmahjongg/
The xmahjongg home page.

Version 3.7                                5 Jan 2000                              XMAHJONGG(6)


BACKGROUNDS
New kindle background additions are public domain from pixabay.com
