4 The newest version of this document is available at
5 http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/mc/FAQ?raw=1
8 + 1.1 What is Midnight Commander?
9 + 1.2 Does it run on my machine?
10 + 1.3 Does it work with my terminal?
11 + 1.4 What else do I need to run MC?
12 + 1.5 Is GNU Midnight Commander Public Domain? Copyrighted?
13 + 1.6 Where can I get GNU Midnight Commander?
14 + 1.7 I don't have FTP access. Where can I get MC?
16 + 2.1 What does documentation mean with the C-?, M-? and F?
18 + 2.2 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
19 + 2.3 How do I use function keys F11 to F20?
20 + 2.4 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
21 + 2.5 How can I add the plus sign (+) on the command line?
22 + 2.6 C-o doesn't work!
23 + 2.7 What 'keys' are the "a1" and "c1" keys mentioned in the
25 + 2.8 How do I change the key bindings?
27 + 3.1 How do I enable mouse support?
28 + 3.2 How do I cut and paste text with mouse?
29 + 3.3 How do I get the extension dependent pop-up menu to
32 + 4.1 Why do I keep getting "Terminal not powerful enough for
33 SLang" or "Terminal not powerful enough for SLsmg"?
34 + 4.2 Why don't line drawing characters work?
35 + 4.3 Can one use latin-1 characters without losing the lines?
36 + 4.4 I have problems with entering/viewing national
38 + 4.5 How can I get colors?
39 + 4.6 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
40 + 4.7 Where can I get xterm or rxvt?
41 + 4.8 I got colors working with MC but the other programs don't
43 + 4.9 Why are there both terminfo and termcap? Wouldn't one
45 * 5 Graphical user interface
46 + 5.1 Xview, Tk and Gnome editions?
47 * 6 Command line problems
48 + 6.1 How do I stay in the last directory when I exit Midnight
50 + 6.2 How can I access command line history?
51 + 6.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names
53 + 6.4 I am using ksh. Can I use functions defined in the .kshrc
55 + 6.5 Is there any way to include additional options or hot
57 * 7 Virtual file systems
58 + 7.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
59 + 7.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
60 + 7.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
61 + 7.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
62 + 7.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
63 + 7.6 Why aren't the contents of ftp panel updated?
64 + 7.7 What kind of proxy server works with Midnight Commander?
65 * 8 Other common problems
66 + 8.1 How do I get the internal editor to work?
67 + 8.2 Is there any way to 'bookmark' favorite ftp-fs links?
68 + 8.3 Why I keep getting: "There is no disk in the drive.
69 Please insert a disk into drive D:"?
70 + 8.4 When I start Midnight Commander, nothing happens!
72 + 9.1 Who has written Midnight Commander?
73 + 9.2 Do I dare to use a development version?
74 + 9.3 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
75 + 9.4 How can I join the development?
77 + 10.1 This document didn't answer my question. Where else can
79 + 10.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
80 + 10.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
81 + 10.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
84 + 11.2 Feedback is invited
85 + 11.3 Disclaimer and copyright
89 1.1 What is Midnight Commander?
91 GNU Midnight Commander is a user-friendly yet powerful file manager
92 and visual shell, useful to novice and guru alike. It provides a
93 clear, user-friendly, and somewhat protected interface to a Unix
94 system while making many frequent file operations more efficient and
95 preserving the full power of the command prompt. You will wonder how
96 you could ever live without it.
98 For more thorough description take a look at the announcement of
99 Midnight Commander 4.0.
101 1.2 Does it run on my machine?
103 Yes, Midnight Commander can run on almost any machine, including Unix
104 clones, Windows 95/NT and OS/2. Midnight Commander does not run on
107 Midnight Commander uses GNU Autoconf which can automatically
108 configure Midnight Commander for use on almost any (if not every)
109 Unix clone. Following configurations have been tested:
110 * i386-*-linux1.x, 2.x
112 * sparc-linux-linux2.x
113 * sparc64-linux-linux2.1
114 * mips-sgi-irix5.x, 6.x
116 * rs6000-ibm-aix3.2.5
118 * sparc-sun-solaris2.3, 2.4, 2.5
119 * sparc-sun-netbsd1.0
124 * mc88110-aviion-dgux5.4R2.01
127 * i386-*-windows-nt-3.51, 4.0
131 Windows 95/NT port can be compiled with Microsoft Visual C++, Borland
132 C++, RSX and Mingw32.
134 1.3 Does it work with my terminal?
138 Because Midnight Commander is a full screen program it doesn't run on
139 dummy terminals but anything more advanced will do (like vt100). If
140 your terminal works with vi, emacs, elm or pine it will work with
143 1.4 What else do I need to run MC?
145 You need an Unix compatible operating system. Support for Windows 95/NT
146 and OS/2 is incomplete - you should be prepared to fix things.
148 To compile any edition you need to have GLib installed. It's available
149 at ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/. Only GLib versions 1.2.x will be
152 If you want to use mouse on the Linux console you need the gpm daemon
153 from ftp://ftp.systemy.it/pub/develop/. You need nothing extra to use
156 If you do not want to use the S-Lang library you could try using
157 ncurses (we recommend only version 4.1 and above).
159 1.5 Is GNU Midnight Commander Public Domain? Copyrighted?
161 Midnight Commander is under GNU Public License which basically means
162 that you may freely copy, change and distribute it, but that you may
163 not impose any restrictions on further distribution, and that you must
164 make the source code available. This is not the same as Public Domain.
165 For details, the GNU license is included in GNU Midnight Commander
166 source distribution (the COPYING file).
168 Midnight Commander is now officially a part of the GNU project.
169 All the authors of GNU Midnight Commander have given all their rights
170 on the program to the Free Software Foundation.
172 1.6 Where can I get GNU Midnight Commander?
174 The main site is ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/stable/sources/mc/
176 1.7 I don't have FTP access. Where can I get MC?
178 Most GNU/Linux distributions include GNU Midnight Commander. For
179 example, Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware and SuSE.
183 2.1 What does documentation mean with the C-?, M-? and F? keys?
185 GNU Midnight Commander documentation uses emacs style names for
188 C stands for the Ctrl key. For example, C-f means that you should hold
189 down the Ctrl key and press the f key.
191 M stands for the Meta key. Your terminal might call it Alt or Compose
192 instead of Meta. For example, M-f means that you should hold down the
193 Meta/Alt/Compose key and press the f key. If your terminal doesn't
194 have Meta, Alt or Compose or they don't work you can use Esc. For M-f
195 press the Esc key and then press the f key.
197 F? stands for a function key. If your terminal doesn't have function
198 keys or they don't work you can use Esc. For example, for F3 press the
199 Esc key and then press the 3 key.
201 2.2 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
203 Your terminfo or termcap database has missing or incorrect definitions
204 for function keys. Type "mc -V" to see what terminal database is being
205 used. If the result is "using the S-Lang library with terminfo
206 database" you should install one of the enhanced terminfo databases
207 included in GNU Midnight Commander source distribution. For example,
208 if you are using xterm type "tic xterm.ti".
210 If the result is "using the S-Lang library with termcap database" you
211 should fix your /etc/termcap database.
213 Better termcap and terminfo databases are available here:
215 http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/terminfo/
216 ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses/
218 You can force Midnight Commander to use the termcap database by
219 giving --with-termcap option to the configure script. The default
222 If you don't have permissions to edit terminal databases you can use
223 Learn keys feature of Midnight Commander instead. Press Esc 9 o k and
226 If all else fails you can emulate function keys by first pressing the
227 ESC key and then one of the number keys. For example, if you want to
228 produce F9, press ESC, then 9. If you don't have a ESC key on your
229 keyboard you can try alt-9 or meta-9.
231 2.3 How do I use function keys F11 to F20?
233 These can mapped to function keys F1 to F10 with Shift held. e.g.
234 function key F13 can be activated by pressing Shift-F3. You can define
235 the keys this way in the Options menu. The convention for PC keyboards
236 is that F11-20 always means Shift with F1-10
238 Note! Windows 95/NT and OS/2 ports use F11 and F12 keys to change the
239 current disk drive. In this case F11 and F12 mean the real F11 and F12
240 keys, not shift-F1 and shift-F2.
242 2.4 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
244 Midnight Commander uses the ESC key as a prefix for simulating the
245 Meta and Alt keys (for terminals which don't have Meta or Alt, see the
246 three previous questions). For example, pressing ESC-a is the same as
247 pressing Meta-a. In addition most terminals use ESC for internal
248 representation of arrow keys, function keys and other enhanced keys.
249 If you want to use ESC to cancel things you have to press it twice i.
250 e. ESC-ESC. If you find this cumbersome you can generally use F10 to
251 cancel. Alternatively turn on the old_esc_mode setting in the
252 ~/.mc.ini file. The old_esc_mode setting makes ESC work as a prefix
253 only if another key is pressed within 0.5 seconds. After 0.5 seconds
254 the ESC key cancels. There is no way to make ESC cancel immediately
255 (if we want to be able to use arrows keys and function keys).
257 2.5 How can I add the plus sign (+) on the command line?
259 Press C-q first, then press the + sign.
261 The plus key is the hotkey for the select files command. If you want
262 to add a literal plus on to the command line you must quote it by
265 Another common key which needs the C-q prefix is backslash "\".
267 2.6 C-o doesn't work!
269 Maybe C-o is a stty control character on your terminal. See man stty
270 for details on how to list and change stty control characters.
272 2.7 What 'keys' are the "a1" and "c1" keys mentioned in the manual?
274 The "a1" key is the key which has the "a1" caption on it.
276 The "c1" key is the key which has the "c1" caption on it.
278 If you have to ask what these two keys are your keyboard hasn't
279 probably got them. Actually, I have never seen a keyboard which has
282 2.8 How do I change the key bindings?
284 There is no generic way to reconfigure the key bindings. You can use
285 the "Learn Keys" dialog to assign keys to some actions listed in that
286 dialog. However, most actions cannot be redefined to use different
291 3.1 How do I enable mouse support?
293 Invoke mc like this (without quotes): "mc -x". If this doesn't work
294 upgrade to a terminal which compatible with the Xterm mouse sequences.
296 Alternatively, on Linux console you can use gpm.
298 3.2 How do I cut and paste text with mouse?
300 Hold down shift key while using mouse to cut and paste.
302 3.3 How do I get the extension dependent pop-up menu to pop up?
304 It was developed for the GNOME edition. The text-mode edition doesn't
305 support this feature yet.
309 4.1 Why do I keep getting "Terminal not powerful enough for SLang" or
310 "Terminal not powerful enough for SLsmg"?
312 This means that your terminfo databases do not contain the correct
313 definitions for your terminal.
315 You could try using a different terminal setting. If you use csh or
320 or if you use sh, bash, ksh or zsh:
324 If this doesn't help you can recompile MC to use termcap instead of
327 ./configure --with-termcap
330 4.2 Why don't line drawing characters work?
332 Since version 4.0.13 there's the command line option -a to force use of
333 +, |, - for line drawing (only available when compiled with S-Lang).
334 Use this -a option if any of the suggestions below doesn't help.
336 In general, there are three cases:
337 * Lines are shown as ASCII characters like this
343 This also happens when you use the -a option. Other than that
344 possible reason is 1 or 2 (see below).
346 * Lines are shown as lower case characters like this
352 Possible reason is 1 or 2 (see below).
354 * Lines are shown as blanks or missing characters. Possible reason
355 is 2 or 3 (see below).
357 The reason for the problem is one of following:
359 1. Your terminal might not support line drawing characters. Vt100
360 compatible terminals, rxvt, xterm and color_xterm do support them.
361 2. Your terminfo or termcap database might have missing or incorrect
362 definitions for line drawing characters. Set the acsc variable in
363 the terminfo database like this:
364 acsc=a\376k\277l\332m\300j\331n\305w\302v\301u\264t\303q\304x\263h
366 Don't forget issue 'tic' command. This supposes you are using PC
367 character set. The octal values might be different for other
368 character sets. If you are using termcap instead of terminfo, you
369 should modify above solution appropriately.
370 3. Your terminal font might not support line drawing characters. Try
373 Here is Miguel's answer to Torben on this subject.
377 When I load consolefonts/iso01.f16, I get perfectly right national
378 characters, but the line drawing characters in mc get wrong. Is it
379 a mc problem, or is it a problem with the font? (I guess it is).
385 First of all, we should determine whether the font has line drawing
388 If it has line drawing characters, then a new terminfo entry should
389 be written for this specific case. Let's call this linux-iso01. The
390 acsc variable should be modified to reflect which characters are
391 used to do the line drawing.
393 If it does not have line drawing characters, then we should get rid
394 of the switch to acsc sequences and make the acsc sequence be just
395 a mapping to the ugly +, -, |, - characters.
397 You can get your terminfo definition by running the infocmp
398 program, making the proper changes and running the tic program to
399 compile your new terminfo database.
401 4.3 Can one use latin-1 characters without losing the lines?
403 Yes, you need a correct font and a correct termcap/terminfo database.
405 For font, if you use xterm try "xterm -fn fixed".
407 For termcap/terminfo database, change the acsc capability in the
410 4.4 I have problems with entering/viewing national characters!
412 Upgrade to version 4.0.12 or newer.
414 From the Options - Display Bits dialog select Full 8 bits or ISO
415 8859-1. In addition, select 8 bit input from the same dialog.
417 4.5 How can I get colors?
419 Invoke mc like this (without quotes): "mc -c".
421 If you get colors, be happy.
423 If your terminal stays black and white, your terminal doesn't support
424 color. You might want to upgrade to a terminal which compatible with
425 the ANSI color sequences.
427 If your terminal goes completely black, see the next question.
429 More detailed answer:
431 Check that your terminal supports color. color_xterm, rxvt and Linux
432 console do support, most other terminals don't. You can test color
433 support with following simple C program:
438 printf ("\033[32m Hello world! \033[m\n");
442 Compile and run it. If you see "Hello world!" text in green your
443 terminal supports color, otherwise not (however, for color_xterm see
444 also the next question).
446 Check whether you are using Ncurses or the S-Lang library (type
447 "mc -V" to find out).
449 With S-Lang library you can force color support by setting the
450 environment variable COLORTERM to any value.
452 If you use ncurses library, check that your terminfo database supports
453 color. If not, you should install one of the enhanced terminfo
454 databases included in GNU Midnight Commander source distribution.
456 You might want to set the TERM environment variable so that you are
457 using the correct terminfo database or termcap entry.
459 If you use color_xterm (or rxvt) the correct value might be
460 xterm-color, xtermc or simply xterm.
462 If you use Linux console the correct value for TERM is linux or
465 4.6 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
467 Some color_xterm terminals define all colors as black instead of the
468 standard ANSI colors. This makes them go completely black when you try
469 to use Midnight Commander with colors.
471 You will have to override the defaults. Create a file "color.defaults"
472 which has the following contents:
474 color_xterm*color0: Black
475 color_xterm*color1: Red
476 color_xterm*color2: Green
477 color_xterm*color3: Yellow
478 color_xterm*color4: Blue
479 color_xterm*color5: Magenta
480 color_xterm*color6: Cyan
481 color_xterm*color7: White
482 color_xterm*background: White
483 color_xterm*foreground: Black
485 (replace color_xterm with the name of your color_xterm, color_xterm
486 mentions its name in its title bar)
490 xrdb -merge color.defaults
492 Alternatively you can add the suggested contents of the color.defaults
493 file to your .Xdefaults or .Xresources file (or what ever the name of
494 your X configuration file is). Or you can replace your non-ANSI
495 color_xterm with an ANSI color_xterm.
497 4.7 Where can I get xterm or rxvt?
499 xterm is included with the X Window System, so you probably already
500 have it if you have X. This version is not actively maintained, but
501 Thomas Dickey maintains his more advanced version of xterm at
502 ftp://dickey.his.com/xterm/
504 rxvt has its own site http://www.rxvt.org/ - get the latest version
507 4.8 I got colors working with MC but the other programs don't work at all
510 Midnight Commander uses terminfo database (if available) but many
511 other programs use termcap database. If you set the TERM environment
512 variable to a value which has no corresponding entry in termcap
513 database those programs stop working. You should add the new value of
514 TERM to the termcap database.
516 Example: If you have set TERM to xterm-color locate from /etc/termcap
517 the line which starts:
519 xterm|vs100|xterm terminal emulator
523 xterm|xterm-color|vs100|xterm terminal emulator
525 4.9 Why are there both terminfo and termcap? Wouldn't one database be
528 You might want to read the Unix-Haters Handbook at
529 http://catalog.com/hopkins/unix-haters/handbook.html. It lists many
530 more reasons why Unix sucks.
532 You can configure which terminal database you want to use with the
533 "--with-termcap" and "--with-terminfo" flags of configure. If you
534 don't specify them, the configure script will try to use terminfo if
535 available otherwise it will use termcap.
537 5 Graphical user interface
539 5.1 Xview, Tk and Gnome editions?
541 Xview and Tk and GNOME editions have been removed from the sources.
543 6 Command line problems
545 6.1 How do I stay in the last directory when I exit Midnight Commander?
547 See the description of the -P option in the Options section of the
550 6.2 How can I access command line history?
552 You can browse previous commands with M-p and M-n. Alternatively, you
553 can summon the command history listbox by pressing F9 c h.
555 Since version 4.1.15 all the input widgets have permanent history. You
556 can summon the history listbox by pressing M-h.
558 6.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names and so on?
560 Just press M-Tab. Press M-Tab again to get a listbox if there are
561 multiple possible completions.
563 6.4 I am using ksh. Can I use functions defined in the .kshrc within MC?
565 Sorry, MC only supports bash, tcsh and zsh functions. Ksh functions
566 are not supported because ksh lacks the necessary hooks needed for
567 subshell integration.
569 Switch to bash or zsh. They are both quite compatible with ksh. Your
570 ksh functions should work as such or after minimal changes.
572 6.5 Is there any way to include additional options or hot keys to MC?
574 Yes, F2 invokes an user menu which fully configurable. You can add
575 any shell commands to the user menu. See the mc(1) man page for more
578 Another way to add functionality is the external panelize feature.
579 See the mc(1) man page for more info.
581 And finally, you can code any feature you want yourself. MC source
582 code is free which means you can change it anyway you want. There are
583 some limitations to make sure MC stays free. See GNU General Public
586 7 Virtual file systems
588 Note! Virtual file systems are supported by Unix ports only. The
589 Windows 95/NT and OS/2 ports do NOT support virtual file systems. This
590 means you haven't got ftp, zip or tar support on Windows 95/NT and
593 This chapter describes the behavior of the 4.1.x versions of the
594 Midnight Commander. The behavior of the 4.5.x versions is somewhat
595 different. More on that when the 4.5.x versions get more stable.
597 7.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
599 If you use keyboard just move the selection bar on the tar file and
602 If you use mouse just double-click on the tar file.
604 If these procedures don't work, your .mc.ext file is faulty. Replace
605 it with one from the MC source distribution.
607 You can also enter a tar archive by typing "cd tar:filename.tar.gz"
608 where filename.tar.gz is the name of the archive.
610 The recognized suffixes for tar archives are .tar, .tar.gz and .tgz.
611 If your tar archive uses different suffix you have to rename it.
613 7.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
615 Just press enter on the toplevel ".." file or chdir to a non-tar
616 directory. Just typing "cd" with no parameters is enough (it will take
617 you to your home directory).
619 7.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
621 Just type "cd ftp://hostname" where hostname is the name of the host
622 you want to connect. Alternatively, select FTP link from the Left or
623 Right menu and type the name of the host you want to connect.
625 7.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
627 Non-anonymous ftp works just like the anonymous ftp but you give the
628 login name with the host name. For example, type "cd
629 ftp://username@hostname".
631 7.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
633 Just chdir to a non-ftp directory. Just typing "cd" with no parameters
634 is enough (it will take you to your home directory).
636 Internally Midnight Commander closes ftp connection only after a
637 timeout. This isn't visible to the end user.
639 7.6 Why aren't the contents of ftp panel updated?
641 Update is skipped because there would be a serious performance
642 penalty. Constantly updating directory panels through a ftp connection
643 would take too much time.
645 You can use C-r to force an update.
647 7.7 What kind of proxy server works with Midnight Commander?
649 There are two kinds of ftp proxies: proxies for ftp clients and
650 proxies for web browsers.
652 Midnight Commander only supports ftp proxies which are meant for ftp
653 clients. Common WWW proxies (like Squid) are not supported. A rule of
654 thumb is that if a ftp proxy works with a web browser, it won't work
655 with Midnight Commander.
657 8 Other common problems
659 8.1 How do I get the internal editor to work?
661 The F4 key used to default to an external editor because that was what
662 most people were used to. The newer versions use internal editor by
665 To use the internal editor with an old version, select Configuration
666 from the Options menu and check the 'use internal edit' option.
668 Alternatively add the line
671 under the [Midnight-Commander] section in your .mc.ini file (which is
672 in your home directory).
674 To make the editor work all the time, go to the default/* section in
675 the file lib/mc/mc.ext file and remove the line
677 Edit=%var{EDITOR:vi} %f
679 The internal editor will now be invoked for anything not specified
680 elsewhere in the mc.ext file.
682 Make sure that you edit the correct mc.ext file. The Midnight
683 Commander first checks the existence of $HOME/.mc.ext. If this file is
684 missing MC will use $prefix/lib/mc/mc.ext instead ($prefix can be
685 changed with configure before compilation and it defaults to
688 When you run `F9/Command/Extension file edit' for the very first time
689 Midnight Commander copies the system-wide mc.ext from $prefix/lib/mc
690 into your home directory because you need write access in order to
693 And please don't forget that "make install" overwrites
694 $prefix/lib/mc/mc.ext.
696 8.2 Is there any way to 'bookmark' favorite ftp-fs links?
698 Use the directory hotlist. Just press control-backslash. If your
699 national keyboard layout doesn't have backslash key, just press the
700 control key with the key which is the backslash key in the English
703 8.3 Why I keep getting: "There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk
706 This is a known bug of the Windows 95/NT and OS/2 ports. MC looks its
707 configuration files from the D:\MC directory and if the D: drive is a
708 removable drive (like a CD ROM drive) and there is no disk in drive
709 you get this message every time you try to do anything.
711 Since version 4.0.6 you can specify the actual location of the
712 Midnight Commander configuration files with the MCHOME environment
715 8.4 When I start Midnight Commander, nothing happens!
717 First, invoke MC without subshell support: "mc -u". If this helps
718 check the shell you are using. Subshell support works best with bash
719 although tcsh and zsh are also supported. You might want to upgrade
720 your shell to a newer version. If you use something else than bash,
721 tcsh or zsh, subshell support is disabled automatically.
723 If disabling subshell doesn't help, try to reconfigure MC with
724 "--with-included-slang" and "--with-termcap" options and recompile.
725 If this helps, there is something wrong with your terminfo database
726 or shared S-Lang library. For better terminfo databases see chapter
727 4. For a better S-Lang library, upgrade to a newer version or keep
728 using the "--with-included-slang" option.
730 This problem can also be caused by gpm as noted by Luis Espinoza:
732 In regards to why Midnight Commander does nothing when invoked. I
733 recently had the same problem. At the same time gpm was not loading
734 properly with my patched kernel (now 2.0.33 from 2.0.30).
735 Downloading version 1.13 of gpm, and got it working :-) MC still
736 appeared locked.... However moving the mouse, brought MC to life.
737 The mouse I am using is a Kensington Expert Mouse (Trackball).
741 9.1 Who has written Midnight Commander?
743 Midnight Commander was started by Miguel de Icaza and he is the
744 maintainer of the package. Other authors have joined the project
746 * Mauricio Plaza (early releases)
747 * Janne Kukonlehto (joined Sep 27 1994)
748 * Radek Doulik (joined Oct 30 1994)
749 * Fred Leeflang (joined Nov 2 1994)
750 * Dugan Porter (joined Dec 1 1994)
751 * Jakub Jelinek (joined Feb 8 1995)
752 * Ching Hui (joined Jun 27 1995)
753 * Andrej Borsenkow (joined Jul 1996)
754 * Paul Sheer (joined Nov 1 1996)
758 Alessandro Rubini has been specially helpful with debugging and
759 enhancing of the mouse support. John E. Davis has made his S-Lang
760 library available to us and answered many questions about it.
762 Many people have contributed bug reports, feature suggestions and
763 small code bits (alphabetical order):
765 * Juan Jose Ciarlante
766 * Alexander Dong (OS/2 port, NT port updates)
768 * Torben Fjerdingstad
770 * Juan Grigera (NT port)
772 * Sergey Ya. Korshunoff
775 * Antonio Palama (old DOS port)
783 9.2 Do I dare to use a development version?
785 I am afraid you have to answer to this question yourself. Development
786 versions seldom cause data loss but they have usually got many bugs.
787 It's up to you to judge whether new features outweigh the bugs.
789 9.3 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
791 You might first want to get the newest development version to see if
792 the bug is fixed or the feature is added already.
794 Send your report/request to mc-devel@gnome.org or mc@gnome.org. These
795 mailing lists are the most certain way to contact the
796 developers. Remember to mention if you are not on the mailing list
797 to make sure that you will receive a copy of replies.
799 Give as much details as possible. A too long message is a lot better
800 than a too short message.
802 For segmentation faults a stack backtrace is appreciated. You can
803 produce stack backtrace as follows:
804 * If segmentation fault produced a core file:
805 1. Load the core file by typing "gdb mc core" or "dbx mc core".
807 3. Cut and paste the results to your message.
808 * If segmentation fault didn't produce a core file:
809 1. Load mc by typing "gdb mc" or "dbx mc".
810 2. Start mc by typing "run".
811 3. Try to reproduce the segmentation fault by doing whatever you
812 did last time when the segmentation fault occurred.
814 5. Cut and paste the results to your message.
815 6. For the future you might want to check out what is the
816 command in your shell to allow producing of the core files.
817 Usually it is "limit coredumpsize unlimited" or "ulimit
818 coredumpsize" or "ulimit -c unlimited".
820 9.4 How can I join the development?
822 To join the development just code the feature you want to add and send
823 your patch for inclusion. Email address is mc-devel@gnome.org.
824 Before you start coding check the latest development version. It might
825 be that your feature has already been implemented.
827 Note that the authors of GNU Midnight Commander have given all their
828 rights on the program to the Free Software Foundation. You will have
829 to do the same if you contribute non-trivial patches. Otherwise we
830 have to reject your patches in order to avoid copyright problems.
834 10.1 This document didn't answer my question. Where else can I look for an
837 Read messages from the Discussion (mailing list archive) or read the
840 Upgrade to a newer version of Midnight Commander. Many problems are
841 fixed in the new versions.
843 If you still can't find an answer, post your question to the Midnight
844 Commander mailing list. Its address is mc@gnome.org.
846 10.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
848 Following mailing lists discuss about Midnight Commander:
851 General discussion of GNU Midnight Commander
853 http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc/
856 Technical development discussion
858 http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc-devel/
860 10.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
862 There is a WWW page for Midnight Commander. The URL is:
864 http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/
866 10.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
868 The mc and mc-devel lists are archived on the World Wide Web. There are
869 links to the archives on the mailing list pages (see 10.2).
875 Questions and Answers was written by Janne Kukonlehto. Parts of it
876 originate from Ian Jackson, Miguel de Icaza, Dugan Porter, Norbert
877 Warmuth and Paul Sheer.
879 11.2 Feedback is invited
881 Send your comments about this document and GNU Midnight Commander to
884 11.3 Disclaimer and copyright
886 Note that this document is provided as is. The information in it is
887 not warranted to be correct; you use it at your own risk.
889 You can use Questions and Answers according to GNU Public License (see
890 the COPYING file in GNU Midnight Commander source distribution).
891 Questions and Answers is not public domain.