1975: Right Click

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Right Click

Title text: "Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!"

NOTE: The above is the first panel of an interactive comic.
To experience the interactive content, click here.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Please add an explanation table of all functions This is an April Fools comic, so it'll take a while to get organized and much longer to fill out. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

In an additional fool it introduces the Unix XKCD as a reference to the Telenet.

Table - Main Context Menu

#	Menu Item	Explanation	Sub-Menu Items
1	Save	Only appears after successfully completing the ADVENT.EXE game.	Save image> Downloads this image. [1]
2	File	Needs Explanation	Close> Closes menu, does nothing. Open: A:\, C:\, / (See more below) Find: Where, When, How, (not usable) What, Why
3	Edit	Enables a mode allowing the user to draw on the webpage. Pressing Esc asks "Aw, that looks nice though. Really delete?" and the page returns to normal if OK is clicked.	None
4	System	Needs Explanation	Shut Down> Changes the only menu option to "Power on", then once that is used, system returns to normal. / (See below)
5	View	Needs Explanation	Cascade>Links to [2] Tile> Links to 245: Floor Tiles Minimize> Changes pointer to a smaller pointer. Full Screen> Enters full screen.
6	Utilities	Needs Explanation	Park drives> Nothing. Check space usage> (cannot click) Space usage: -Dark matter -Hydrogen -Helium -Scattered clumps of heavier elements -Stars -Rocks -Some space probes -Earth Spell check> English (links to 1069: Alphabet) and Colors (links to [3]) Train AI> links to 1838: Machine Learning Identify song> opens a long word-by-word menu for song lyrics. Advanced> several Unix commands, including that random string that breaks it for whatever reason. '); DROP TABLE Menus;-- links to 327: Exploits of a Mom
7	Games	Needs Explanation	Twenty Questions> A Twenty Questions interface that gets really confusing. Rock Paper Scissors> A Rock Paper Scissors game where the computer always matches your move. D&D> A complex Dungeons and Dragons interface. ADVENT.EXE> A text-based game. If played correctly, you can win, unlocking 'Save'>'Save image' from the beginning menu, which links to [4] Hoverboard> Links to 1608: Hoverboard. Mornington Crescent> This appears to be a list of locations in London surrounding Mornington Crescent. There are several nearby Subway stations sharing the names but not all stations on the map exist in this directory. Someone more familiar with the area may be able to discern a pattern. With enough looking, one may reach 'Vauxhaul'>'Easter basket'>'Take egg', also allowing you to save. It may be an homage to the game mornington crescent from the bbc radio show 'I'm sorry i haven't a clue' which is explained on Wikipedia.
8	Help	Contains various submenus, all of which, barring Credits, loop back recursively to this menu:	Tutorial Support Manual Troubleshooting FAQ Guide Q&A User forums Credits
9	Do Crimes	Contains several "crimes" that can be committed. This option is unlocked by File > Open > C:\ > Bookmarks/ > Secret > Enable Dark Web.	Steal Bitcoins > Grayed out. Say swears > Several clean swears that all link to 771: Period Speech. Hack > Three sub-options that link to various related comics. (Gibson: Nothing. Election: 1019: First Post. Planet: 1337: Hack.) Forge a Scrabble Tile > Several sub-options that don't do anything. (U, Z, <this menu option intentionally left blank>, and two special characters, one appearing like a reversed 'E' modeled on a 'C' and the second being crossed swords)

Table - Filesystems Menu

Drive	Menu Item	Explanation	Sub-Menu Items
A:\	Insert	Only appears before inserting a floppy disk.	Floppy disk> Unlocks other options for drive A:\, which are identical to drive C:\ Chip card> A long sequence of being told 'Please wait. Authorizing...' ending in 'Chip error! REMOVE CARD NOW!'
C:\	Documents/	Nothing.	None.
C:\	Music/	Hey now na now | Sing "This Corrosion" to me' inverts the webpage's color.
C:\	Bookmarks/	Similar to Music/, Bookmarks/> Comics leads to a chain from which many comics are titled and linked. Bookmarks/> Secret> Enable Dark Web adds the 'Dark Web' option to the initial menu.
C:\	Games/	Same as 'Games' from the initial menu.
C:\	Sequences/	Fill in, I have no clue.	After several single-option menus, it links to this Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWBEK8w_YY
/	home/	Nothing.	guest> links to [5] user> Same files as C:\ root> Displays 'You are not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.'
/	opt/	Does nothing.	None.
/	sbin/	Does nothing.	None.
/	usr/	Opens an infinite sequence of options, each similar to the last, but replacing the previous selection with another folder.
/	dev/	Nothing.	random/> links to a random xkcd comic. urandom/> links to 221: Random Number

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Empty frame with Cueball slightly right of center.]

[Caption]

Editor's Note: Today's comic is optimized for local viewing. To see the full version, just save a copy of the image!

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

Hi, I found a way to download the picture. First, you click "edit", then when you are in the edit screen, you right click, and then you can save the image.108.162.246.154 01:24, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

No more JS Source

It is working on address https://xkcd.com/1975/ and not working on https://www.xkcd.com/1975/. Urls to comics should be updated to exclude www part. 172.68.226.58 09:28, 26 March 2020 (UTC) tadej

I think there is no more JS source for it. I can only find it at archive.org. Biran4454 (talk) 14:29, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Has this stopped working for anyone else? I just went to the comic today and the right click menu that showed up was the normal one, rather than the altered one. Is this happening with anyone else? DanTheTransManWithoutAPlan (talk) 15:44, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah. I noticed this a while back, but accidentally put it at the bottom of the talk. When I go to the source, it says it can't find it. The last known code is the code I placed above. Biran4454 (talk) 16:58, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Can somebody explain why almost all of the April Fools Day comics stopped working, when 1110: Click and Drag and 1608: Hoverboard Still work as usual?108.162.242.5 16:09, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea. Maybe Randall has just stopped them - but that would be really annoying because they are still really cool. Biran4454 17:57, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

...but why though? What reason would he have for shutting them down?108.162.216.116 20:00, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

It seems to work fine now. I don't know when it started working again. Biran4454 11:51, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry if this has been found already, but I'm going to post it since I haven't seen it anywhere in here. If you input the konami code into https://uni.xkcd.com/ weird stuff happens. First time around, it puts all the letters in caps. Second time, it doesn't seem to do anything? Next, text gets highlighted in red. Another and the screen starts shaking. Another; the screen sort of flashes and a character with a beard holding two katanas/machetes with XK CD surrounding it appears faintly in the background. I've done the code maybe 20 more times and nothing else seems to happen. Tidepool (talk) 21:47, 24 May 2018 (UTC)Tidepool

That's probably Richard Stallman. 162.158.74.243 22:46, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I created this page manually. DgbrtBOT fail?

Also, notably, while the comic at xkcd.com works as intended (even from Chrome on Android, to a certain degree), the mobile site, m.xkcd.com, does not. It shows the standard system/browser-specific context menu. --Videblu (talk) 00:28, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

The BOT didn't fail, the comic just wasn't released on Mon, Wen, or Fri. And in the past there was no comic on 1. April when it didn't fit into that rule. And the release was LATE; it was already the 2. April in Europe.--Dgbrt (talk) 09:45, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

The mobile version at m.xkcd.com works fine in Android. --Dgbrt (talk) 10:56, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Untrue; going to m.xkcd.com on my Android devices brings up a non-interactive version of the comic, whereas going to xkcd.com (without setting the browser to present a Desktop client type) works fine. Viewing https://xkcd.com/1975 on mobile works fine for me; viewing https://m.xkcd.com/1975 does not work properly. I'm on Kit-Kat & Marshmallow, using the standard browsers; you? ProphetZarquon (talk) 16:04, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

You are right. I don't remember what I've tested before. It cannot work because the embedded JavaScript file doesn't exist. Maybe this will be fixed in the future. --Dgbrt (talk) 17:46, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

How are we going to handle submenus submenus and subitems etc? (Also Captcha outdated! Update immediately!) 162.158.238.34 01:46, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Um, I don't see a reCapatcha. Just saying...Fmccarthy (talk) 04:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

There is one when saving edits. I'm assuming this is the one they mean. Also, aside from a table with way too many columns I don't really know. 162.158.79.215 04:21, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Captchas only appear for guests and young accounts. I haven't seen one since roughly the day after I signed up, LOL! (I commented a lot my first day, "taking" ownership of all my previous anonymous comments) NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:44, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh my gosh this is incredible. The Games section, especially, is mind boggling. Entropy! Hameltion (talk) 00:30, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Whoever owns this site update ReCaptcha! Sizzilingbird (talk) 00:40, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

WOO!!! Unicode XKCD!!! Phoenix Up (talk) 00:44, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

2 hours later I'm done, and the save picture button wouldn't work... ripLinker (talk) 11:38, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

This (uni.xkcd.com) is not new, I remember using this months (perhaps years) ago :P PotatoGod (talk) 02:44, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

 Is there a second for easter eggs in there? Fork bombs ( :(){ :|: &};: ) work, I'm not sure what else. Waterlubber (talk) 02:52, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry if this is already well known, but there are a couple unlisted commands, e.g. you can delete things individually using rm -rf. It looks like auto-completion and * don't work. Power Factor (talk) 03:27, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Could be known already, but sending "hi" or "hello" (case indifferent) to uni.xkcd.com elicits a response of "Hi." and "Hello" respectively. Sending "xkcd" gives "Yes?" back. All of these are in all caps if the Konami/Contra code easter egg has been activated.

Reluctant to call it an Easter Egg, but Utilities / Identify Song / Hey Now / Hey now na now / Sing "This Corrosion" to me inverts the colours on the comic/background Maslink (talk) 02:02, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

He missed a chance for a Rick Roll there (For all we know there may be a Rick Roll in here) Phoenix Up (talk) 02:36, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

SPOILER:

I managed to save the image by playing ADVENT.exe, has anyone else found other ways? 162.158.75.172 00:54, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

COMIC MAY BE UNDER CONSTRUCTION I think one of the menu options change since the comic was first posted. Randall may still be changing things. --Videblu (talk) 01:15, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree. It's not just that menu items unlock. On a fresh refresh of the comic, items are there that weren't there before, such as file > find > who what etc., some that had been greyed out are no longer grey.

Actually it's that once you do some things others "unlock". For instance, accessing File > Open > A:\ > Insert > Floppy disk, and then File > Open > A:\ you get the Games, Music, and the really cool Bookmarks catalog of comics. Also, as said above, completing the game ADVENT.exe lets you go to save:

I made it hidden so that anyone who wants to explore on their own may still... Hameltion (talk) 02:01, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

How did you solve the maze? Is there a clue anywhere or just brute force? 141.101.98.196 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

When at the Well, maybe try wishing for wisdomSteampunkery (talk) 19:44, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

The Help menu changed after I refreshed the page (that is what I see at first glance), other things may have changed as well. Phoenix Up (talk) 02:29, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Ah - I don't recall it being different, but I may have missed an earlier version. Anyway here is another way to make the image available:

C-remover is a reference to the interactive fiction "Counterfeit Monkey". (Adding it for future restructure) 162.158.134.142 08:00, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I claimed earlier that it was a Counterfeit Monkey reference on the Reddit thread, but someone who worked on the comic pointed out on Twitter that it is actually a reference to "Leather Goddesses of Phobos", though Counterfeit Monkey also uses that mechanic. 172.69.90.52 16:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

This is really fun! (and there's this) --Hameltion (talk) 02:43, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I followed the "Land of 1000 dances" "na-na"s over 1000 times and didn't hit an end. It may be infinite. Jedi.jesse (talk) 02:45, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Doing System > / > home/ > guest (click) takes you to uni.xkcd.com which it pretty neat. Hameltion (talk) 02:53, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

List of D&D spells can be ported into explanation from here. And here is a path through Mornington Crescent to an easter egg. 162.158.134.142 07:52, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game) Mornington Crescent is a joke nonsensical game from an old British radio show. 141.101.98.142 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

You actually can install apt with brew. It can't actually install anything because it needs to create a package record during the initial operating system install, but you can do it if you want to. Not sure why you would though. EDIT: I can't find the package anymore, but I am pretty sure I was able to do this at one point. Might have been removed due to uselessness. 172.68.34.64 00:08, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Land of 1,000 Dances

This goes on forever. Or at least well over 1000 levels: [Media:https://i.imgur.com/iiHDE3e.png number of popups checked with jQuery]--MikeOShay (talk) 04:21, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Transscript

Is the transscript really unfinished? It transcribes the entirety of the comic image itself, and the menu part is in explanations. 162.158.238.142 05:36, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Release date

This comic was probably released on April 2, 00:00 UTC. But of course it was still April 1 in the US. I don't really care, but the release date here is probably wrong.--Dgbrt (talk) 11:31, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

More discussions

No effect for iOS. --162.158.138.88 05:37, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

If you quickly right click on the comic after refreshing the page, it is possible to save the comic. Unfortunately there is no easter egg for doing so. Baquea (talk) 12:26, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Added it to the page. ~~~~ 02:49, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Katamari in the music bit is a reference to this song --141.101.99.137 13:31, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

spell list (half of it, i didnt test spells with material components): --norill

172.68.110.52 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Recursive package managers are perfectly sane if the two package managers use different repositories, for example apt install python3-pip. The true hilarity arrives if you install a package manager for the sole purpose of installing another, or if they use the same repositories. But that's not unheard of either: apt install npm && npm install yarn -78.68.24.134 but your site thinks I'm 162.158.134.130 16:42, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Bing image search

Surprisingly, when you are playing 20 questions and get into the section with the animals, all of the image requests go to Bing.

I'm curious if anyone will look at the traffic of Bing and compare the normal traffic with the traffic from this comic. I want to see just how much of a spike Bing image search gets from this.

And by the way, "Bing" is actually a red underlined misspelling according to Firefox. Keybounce (talk) 19:48, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Is there a reason why UniXKCD is under comic 721? Also, there are significant things missing from it, especially the special ctrl- functions! ChunyangD (talk) 02:56, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I read the comic, tried to save, it saved. Check what saved, was the same comic. How boring. LOL! Guess Randall doesn't think people read XKCD on iPads (or maybe just that he doesn't think anybody is reading on an iPad 1 with iOS 5.1.1). :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:44, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Not your iOS 5.1.1's problem, basically all the interactive comics are like that with iPads, even if using iOS 10. (On my iPad, 1608: Hoverboard works but lags and controls are awful, 1663: Garden can't run, 1037: Umwelt refuses to appear, you can't do anything in 1193: Externalities, and as for this comic... *flips table* ) The only comic that works perfectly on my iPad is 1350: Lorenz. Herobrine (talk) 11:25, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, that's been my experience. I remember for Umwelt I got what looked like a black hole, which I think might have been the titular Umwelt. I seem to recall the description identified that as being some obscure set up I've never heard of, LOL! I also remember Garden didnt even do anything on my computer! I could change the lights, but that was it. I can't remember Externalities and Lorenz by name. But since my iPad CAN save images I hoped this would be different. Like saving it would, as promised, save a different comic (like Umwelt showed a different comic depending on your set up and connection). *sigh* NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:28, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

EDIT: Checking now, can't remember seeing Externalities, I've certainly never tried it on a computer (I think I just dismissed it as "Oh well" and moved on). Lorenz I did indeed try it a bit on a computer. Hoverboard I went literally everywhere reachable, LOL! NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:34, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Graph

This is what the whole network of menus looks like, minus the massive Comics tree. The big cluster near the center is the DnD game, and the single-file trail on the left is Who's on First. Blue circles are menus, red are links, purple are client-side JS calls, pinks are null (they just collapse the menu), and yellows are "tags" - client-side state variables that are set or unset by some menu options. The orphaned pair of grey dots at the top are the Save menu, which is only visible when a tag is set by the ADVENT.EXE or Mornington Crescent games. I'll try to make this some kind of interactive graph that people can explore - the actual DB I made contains more data than is visible in the image. Okofish (talk) 15:27, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I made a scraper that downloads all the jsons, and also makes a graphviz graph. Code: https://github.com/ad1217/xkcd1975scraper, Graph: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ad1217/xkcd1975scraper/master/out.svg (save the graph and open it in Inkscape or something, it is rather large). Ad1217 (talk) 19:58, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Where is the javascript source?

Where is the source file for this comic? I had trouble figuring out what was happening from opening my browser console. I can usually figure out things like e.g. kittens game, etc. Which file has the source for the right click menu in this comic? 108.162.210.130 17:41, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

It's here, but the interesting stuff happens server-side. You'll get more info by looking at the network tab in your browser's developer tools. Okofish (talk) 19:03, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

None of the "links to ___" things actually link to anything here. I guess they use window.open or something similarly silly that does not work in real browsers. 162.158.210.88 08:43, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

When you play the "Backup" noise, the audio quality isn't that great, it seems to be recorded from a device. Also, you can hear what seems to be a bird chirping and a mouse click. Can anyone else verify this? 625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8 (talk) 22:39, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

This morning I tried to follow the path in the cave again (in ADVENT.EXE) but found that it's changed, the cave leads me to a "grue" which ate me, now ADVENT.EXE just returns "you've been eaten by a grue" and doesn't let me go anywhere. 108.162.221.113 13:06, 5 April 2018 (UTC) Sam

Sooooo just FYI, any similarities to Ready Player One are 100% unintentional. (I can't speak for Randall but I worked on that bit and I haven't read/seen it.) It was just an Easter egg unlock because it was... literally Easter. And we put it there and in Mornington Crescent as the longest/most complicated paths. Apparently if you throw enough 80s/90s nerd references at the wall now, you get Ready Player One. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 172.68.141.232 18:46, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Why is this still incomplete? Nitpicking (talk) 16:47, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Because nobody is yet convinced enough (rightly or wrongly) that it is complete? And, given that there were fairly recent revisions (in January and February, with different tweaks that may be considered hovering around/near substantive), perhaps we comunally think there's room for improvement?

But if you think it is complete (and I'm not even saying that you should thoroughly rule out there being any more undocumented features to it, though I'd say that'd help - easier for a single-panel static comic than this, naturally) then you could take the plunge. Explanations can still change after being 'complete'.

Or leave it, because there's no harm in (official) Incompletedness even if it is factually complete. The mechanism of highlighting articles (originally those with no Explanation, that needed creation, before the one supposed to "fill in the details") is now much of a curiosity and a boilerplate thing that gives the community here a place to express our own single guaranteed spot of humour (the thing the BOT might get changed to).

That's the beauty of the wiki, you can do what you like and (so long as it isn't grossly against the group's expectations, and get bounceback) perhaps shift the centre of the common attitude to how these things should be conducted. And you're a good (nitpicking) editor, where I've rarely seen you edit with anything that I'd consider outright wrong (not claiming to be an authority on this; I'm clearly not, just my observation!) so I'm perfectly happy to let you think about this. And I couldn't ever stop you thinking/doing, anyway. ;) 141.101.99.159 22:40, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

How do you post screenshots here lol Psychoticpotato (talk) 16:02, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Unable to touch most options

On an iPad (Safari) I can't manage to touch any options apart from File, Edit, Close and Backup. Therefore I cannot experience the interactivity of the comic. Has this happened to you? 172.70.85.185 19:19, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Mornington Crescent

There is a programming language under the same name. ColorfulGalaxy (talk) 20:20, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, and it looks good fun, though I'm only presently running its potentialities through my own head (slightly distracted by having a copy of a very similar map currently up on my wall). Certainly the same source of inspiration, perhaps with a proper nod to the formalised rules as eventually brought together by Stovold, though no reference there to laterals, being in Nidd, etc... 172.70.85.175 20:50, 12 December 2022 (UTC)