2 .TH MC 1 "August 2009" "MC Version 4.7.0\-pre1" "GNU Midnight Commander"
5 mc \- Visual shell for Unix\-like systems.
9 [\-abcCdfhPstuUVx] [\-l log] [dir1 [dir2]] [\-e [file]] [\-v file]
12 GNU Midnight Commander is a directory browser/file manager for
13 Unix\-like operating systems.
18 .I \-a, \-\-stickchars
19 Disable usage of graphic characters for line drawing.
22 Force black and white display.
25 Force color mode, please check the section
31 .I \-C arg, \-\-colors=arg
32 Specify a different color set in the command line. The format of arg is
40 Specify a name of skin in the command line. Technology of skins is
48 Disable mouse support.
50 .I \-e [file], \-\-edit[=file]
51 Start the internal editor. If the file is specified, open it on
56 Display the compiled\-in search paths for Midnight Commander files.
59 Reset softkeys to their default from the termcap/terminfo
60 database. Only useful on HP terminals when the function keys don't work.
62 .I \-l file, \-\-ftplog=file
63 Save the ftpfs dialog with the server in file.
65 .I \-P file, \-\-printwd=file
66 Print the last working directory to the specified file. This option is
67 not meant to be used directly. Instead, it's used from a special shell
68 script that automatically changes the current directory of the shell to
69 the last directory the Midnight Commander was in. Source the file
70 .B @prefix@/share/mc/bin/mc.sh
71 (bash and zsh users) or
72 .B @prefix@/share/mc/bin/mc.csh
73 (tcsh users) respectively to define
75 as an alias to the appropriate shell script.
78 Set alternative mode drawing of frameworks.
79 If the section [Lines] is not filled, the symbol for the pseudographics
80 frame is a space, otherwise the frame characters are taken from follow params.
82 .B You can redefine follow variables:
112 default horizontal line
115 default vertical line
124 Used only if the code was compiled with Slang and terminfo: it makes
125 the Midnight Commander use the value of the
127 variable for the terminal information instead of the information on
128 the system wide terminal database
130 .I \-u, \-\-nosubshell
131 Disable use of the concurrent shell (only makes sense if the Midnight
132 Commander has been built with concurrent shell support).
135 Enable use of the concurrent shell support (only makes sense if the
136 Midnight Commander was built with the subshell support set as an
139 .I \-v file, \-\-view=file
140 Start the internal viewer to view the specified file. See also
144 Display the version of the program.
147 Force xterm mode. Used when running on xterm\-capable terminals (two
148 screen modes, and able to send mouse escape sequences).
150 If specified, the first path name is the directory to show in the
151 selected panel; the second path name is the directory to be shown in
155 The screen of the Midnight Commander is divided into four parts.
156 Almost all of the screen space is taken up by two directory panels.
157 By default, the second line from the bottom of the screen is the
158 shell command line, and the bottom line shows the function key labels.
159 The topmost line is the
163 The menu bar line may not be visible, but appears if you click the
164 topmost line with the mouse or press the F9 key.
166 The Midnight Commander provides a view of two directories at the same
167 time. One of the panels is the current panel (a selection bar is in
168 the current panel). Almost all operations take place on the current
169 panel. Some file operations like Rename and Copy by default use the
170 directory of the unselected panel as a destination (don't worry, they
171 always ask you for confirmation first). For more information, see the
179 .\"Left and Right Menus"
185 You can execute system commands from the Midnight Commander by simply
186 typing them. Everything you type will appear on the shell command line,
187 and when you press Enter the Midnight Commander will execute the
188 command line you typed; read the
191 .\"Shell Command Line"
196 sections to learn more about the command line.
197 .\"NODE "Mouse Support"
199 The Midnight Commander comes with mouse support. It is activated
200 whenever you are running on an
202 terminal (it even works if you take a telnet, ssh or rlogin connection to
203 another machine from the xterm) or if you are running on a Linux
206 mouse server running.
208 When you left click on a file in the directory panels, that file is
209 selected; if you click with the right button, the file is marked (or
210 unmarked, depending on the previous state).
212 Double\-clicking on a file will try to execute the command if it is
213 an executable program; and if the
216 .\"Extension File Edit"
217 has a program specified for the file's extension, the specified
220 Also, it is possible to execute the commands assigned to the function
221 key labels by clicking on them.
223 If a mouse button is clicked on the top frame line of the directory panel,
224 it is scrolled one page up. Likewise, a click on the bottom frame line
225 will cause scrolling one page down. This frame line method works also
235 The default auto repeat rate for the mouse buttons is 400
236 milliseconds. This may be changed to other values by editing the
240 file and changing the
244 If you are running the Midnight Commander with the mouse support, you
245 can get the default mouse behavior (cutting and pasting text) by holding
250 Some commands in the Midnight Commander involve the use of the
252 (sometimes labeled CTRL or CTL) and the
254 (sometimes labeled ALT or even Compose) keys. In this manual we will
255 use the following abbreviations:
258 means hold the Control key while typing the character <chr>.
259 Thus C\-f would be: hold the Control key and type f.
262 means hold the Meta or Alt key down while typing <chr>.
263 If there is no Meta or Alt key, type
265 release it, then type the character <chr>.
268 means hold the Shift key down while typing <chr>.
270 All input lines in the Midnight Commander use an approximation to
271 the GNU Emacs editor's key bindings.
273 There are many sections which tell about the keys. The following are
280 section documents the keyboard shortcuts for the commands appearing in
281 the File menu. This section includes the function keys. Most of these
282 commands perform some action, usually on the selected file or the
289 section documents the keys which select a file or tag files as a
290 target for a later action (the action is usually one from the file
296 .\"Shell Command Line"
297 section list the keys which are used for entering and editing command
298 lines. Most of these copy file names and such from the directory
299 panels to the command line (to avoid excessive typing) or access the
300 command line history.
305 are used for editing input lines. This means both the command line and
306 the input lines in the query dialogs.
307 .\"NODE " Miscellaneous Keys"
308 .SH " Miscellaneous Keys"
309 Here are some keys which don't fall into any of the other categories:
312 if there is some text in the command line (the one at the bottom of
313 the panels), then that command is executed. If there is no text in the
314 command line then if the selection bar is over a directory the
315 Midnight Commander does a
317 to the selected directory and reloads the information on the panel;
318 if the selection is an executable file then it is executed. Finally,
319 if the extension of the selected file name matches one of the
323 .\"Extension File Edit"
324 then the corresponding command is executed.
327 repaint all the information in the Midnight Commander.
334 command on a file or on the tagged files.
341 command on the current file or on the tagged files.
344 run the link command.
347 run the symbolic link command.
350 set the other panel display mode to information.
353 set the other panel display mode to quick view.
359 .\"External panelize"
365 add directory to hotlist
370 executes the Filtered view command, described in the
373 .\"Internal File Viewer"
390 when the program is being run in the Linux or FreeBSD console or under
391 an xterm, it will show you the output of the previous command. When ran
392 on the Linux console, the Midnight Commander uses an external program
393 (cons.saver) to handle saving and restoring of information on the
396 When the subshell support is compiled in, you can type C\-o at any time
397 and you will be taken back to the Midnight Commander main screen, to
398 return to your application just type C\-o. If you have an application
399 suspended by using this trick, you won't be able to execute other
400 programs from the Midnight Commander until you terminate the suspended
402 .\"NODE " Directory Panels"
403 .SH " Directory Panels"
404 This section lists the keys which operate on the directory panels. If
405 you want to know how to change the appearance of the panels take a
406 look at the section on
408 Left and Right Menus\&.
409 .\"Left and Right Menus"
412 change the current panel. The old other panel becomes the new current
413 panel and the old current panel becomes the new other panel. The
414 selection bar moves from the old current panel to the new current
418 to tag files you may use the Insert key (the kich1 terminfo sequence).
419 To untag files, just retag a tagged file.
422 to change charset of panel you may use C\-t (Control\-t).
423 Recoding is made from selected codepage into system codepage. To
424 cancel the recoding you may select "directory up" (..) in active panel.
425 To cancel the charsets in all directories, select "No translation " in
426 the dialog of encodings.
428 .B Alt\-g, Alt\-r, Alt\-j
429 used to select the top file in a panel, the middle file and the bottom one,
433 start a filename search in the directory listing. When the search is
434 active, the user input will be added to the search string instead of
435 the command line. If the
437 option is enabled the search string is shown on the mini\-status
438 line. When typing, the selection bar will move to the next file
439 starting with the typed letters. The
443 keys can be used to correct typing mistakes. If C\-s is pressed
444 again, the next match is searched for.
447 toggle the current display listing to show the next display listing
449 With this it is possible to quickly switch to brief listing, long
450 listing, user defined listing mode, and back to the default.
452 .B C\-\\\\ (control\-backslash)
457 and change to the selected directory.
460 this is used to select (tag) a group of files.The Midnight Commander
461 will prompt for a selection options. When
463 checkbox is on, than files only will be selected. If
465 is off, as files as directories will be selected.
468 checkbox is on, the regular expression is much like the filename globbing
469 in the shell (* standing for zero or more characters and ? standing
470 for one character). If
472 is off, then the tagging of files is done with normal regular
473 expressions (see ed (1)). When
475 checkbox is on, the selection will be case sensitive characters.
478 is off, the case will be ignored.
481 use the "\\" key to unselect a group of files. This is the opposite of
485 move the selection bar to the previous entry in the panel.
488 move the selection bar to the next entry in the panel.
491 move the selection bar to the first entry in the panel.
494 move the selection bar to the last entry in the panel.
497 move the selection bar one page down.
499 .B prev\-page, Alt\-v
500 move the selection bar one page up.
503 If the currently selected file is a directory, load that directory on
504 the other panel and moves the selection to the next file. If the
505 currently selected file is not a directory, load the parent directory
506 on the other panel and moves the selection to the next file.
509 make the current directory of the current panel also the current
510 directory of the other panel. Put the other panel to the listing mode
511 if needed. If the current panel is panelized, the other panel doesn't
514 .B C\-PageUp, C\-PageDown
515 only when supported by the terminal: change to ".." and to the currently
516 selected directory respectively.
519 moves to the previous directory in the history, equivalent to clicking
525 moves to the next directory in the history, equivalent to clicking the
529 .B Alt\-Shift\-h, Alt\-H
530 displays the directory history, equivalent to depressing the 'v' with
532 .\"NODE " Shell Command Line"
533 .SH " Shell Command Line"
534 This section lists keys which are useful to avoid excessive typing when
535 entering shell commands.
538 copy the currently selected file name to the command line.
541 same a Alt\-Enter. May not work on remote systems and some terminals.
544 copy the full path name of the currently selected file to the command
545 line. May not work on remote systems and some terminals.
548 does the filename, command, variable, username and hostname
555 copy the tagged files (or if there are no tagged files, the selected
556 file) of the current panel (C\-x t) or of the other panel (C\-x C\-t) to
560 the first key sequence copies the current path name to the command
561 line, and the second one copies the unselected panel's path name to
565 the quote command can be used to insert characters that are otherwise
566 interpreted by the Midnight Commander (like the '+' symbol)
569 use these keys to browse through the command history. Alt\-p takes you
570 to the last entry, Alt\-n takes you to the next one.
573 displays the history for the current input line.
574 .\"NODE " General Movement Keys"
575 .SH " General Movement Keys"
576 The help viewer, the file viewer and the directory tree use common
577 code to handle moving. Therefore they accept exactly the same
578 keys. Each of them also accepts some keys of its own.
580 Other parts of the Midnight Commander use some of the same movement
581 keys, so this section may be of use for those parts too.
584 moves one line backward.
587 moves one line forward.
589 .B Prev Page, Page Up, Alt\-v
592 .B Next Page, Page Down, C\-v
596 moves to the beginning.
601 The help viewer and the file viewer accept the following keys in
602 addition the to ones mentioned above:
604 .B b, C\-b, C\-h, Backspace, Delete
611 moves one half of a page up or down.
614 moves to the beginning or to the end.
615 .\"NODE " Input Line Keys"
616 .SH " Input Line Keys"
617 The input lines (they are used for the
620 .\"Shell Command Line"
621 and for the query dialogs in the program) accept these keys:
624 puts the cursor at the beginning of line.
627 puts the cursor at the end of the line.
630 move the cursor one position left.
633 move the cursor one position right.
636 moves one word forward.
639 moves one word backward.
642 delete the previous character.
645 delete the character in the point (over the cursor).
648 sets the mark for cutting.
651 copies the text between the cursor and the mark to a kill buffer and
652 removes the text from the input line.
655 copies the text between the cursor and the mark to a kill buffer.
658 yanks back the contents of the kill buffer.
661 kills the text from the cursor to the end of the line.
664 Use these keys to browse through the command history. Alt\-p takes you
665 to the last entry, Alt\-n takes you to the next one.
667 .B Alt\-C\-h, Alt\-Backspace
668 delete one word backward.
671 does the filename, command, variable, username and hostname
679 The menu bar pops up when you press F9 or click the mouse on the top
680 row of the screen. The menu bar has five menus: "Left", "File",
681 "Command", "Options" and "Right".
686 .\"Left and Right Menus"
687 allow you to modify the appearance of the left and right directory
694 lists the actions you can perform on the currently selected file or
701 lists the actions which are more general and bear no relation to the
702 currently selected file or the tagged files.
708 lists the actions which allow you to customize the Midnight Commander.
709 .\"NODE " Left and Right Menus"
710 .SH " Left and Right (Above and Below) Menus"
711 The outlook of the directory panels can be changed from the
715 menus (they are named
719 when the horizontal panel split is chosen from the
724 .\"NODE " Listing Mode..."
725 .SH " Listing Mode..."
726 The listing mode view is used to display a listing of files, there are
727 four different listing modes available:
733 The full directory view shows the file name, the size of the file and
734 the modification time.
736 The brief view shows only the file name and it has two columns
737 (therefore showing twice as many files as other views). The long view
738 is similar to the output of
740 command. The long view takes the whole screen width.
742 If you choose the "User" display format, then you have to specify
745 The user display format must start with a panel size specifier. This
746 may be "half" or "full", and they specify a half screen panel and a
747 full screen panel respectively.
749 After the panel size, you may specify the two columns mode on the
750 panel, this is done by adding the number "2" to the user format
753 After this you add the name of the fields with an optional size
754 specifier. This are the available fields you may display:
757 displays the file name.
760 displays the file size.
763 is an alternative form of the
765 format. It displays the size of the files and for directories it just
766 shows SUB\-DIR or UP\-\-DIR.
769 displays a one character wide type field. This character is similar to
770 what is displayed by ls with the \-F flag \-
772 for executable files,
780 for character devices,
786 for symbolic links to directories and
788 for stale symlinks (links that point nowhere).
791 an asterisk if the file is tagged, a space if it's not.
794 file's last modification time.
797 file's last access time.
800 file's status change time.
803 a string representing the current permission bits of the file.
806 an octal value with the current permission bits of the file.
809 the number of links to the file.
818 the owner of the file.
821 the group of the file.
824 the inode of the file.
826 Also you can use following keywords to define the panel layout:
829 a space in the display format.
832 add a vertical line to the display format.
834 To force one field to a fixed size (a size specifier), you just add
836 followed by the number of characters you want the field to have. If the
837 number is followed by the symbol
839 then the size specifies the minimal field size \- if the program finds
840 out that there is more space on the screen, it will then expand that
845 display corresponds to this format:
847 half type name | size | mtime
851 display corresponds to this format:
853 full perm space nlink space owner space group space size space mtime
856 This is a nice user display format:
858 half name | size:7 | type mode:3
860 Panels may also be set to the following modes:
863 The info view display information related to the currently
864 selected file and if possible information about the current file
868 The tree view is quite similar to the
872 feature. See the section about it for more information.
875 In this mode, the panel will switch to a reduced
878 .\"Internal File Viewer"
879 that displays the contents of the currently selected file, if you
880 select the panel (with the tab key or the mouse), you will have access
881 to the usual viewer commands.
882 .\"NODE " Sort Order..."
884 The eight sort orders are by name, by extension, by modification time,
885 by access time, and by inode information modification time, by size,
886 by inode and unsorted. In the Sort order dialog box you can choose
887 the sort order and you may also specify if you want to sort in reverse
888 order by checking the reverse box.
890 By default directories are sorted before files but this can be changed
896 .BR "Mix all files" ).
899 The filter command allows you to specify a shell pattern (for example
901 which the files must match to be shown. Regardless
902 of the filter pattern, the directories and the links to directories
903 are always shown in the directory panel.
906 The reread command reload the list of files in the directory. It is
907 useful if other processes have created or removed files. If you
908 have panelized file names in a panel this will reload the directory
909 contents and remove the panelized information (See the section
912 .\"External panelize"
913 for more information).
916 The Midnight Commander uses the F1 \- F10 keys as keyboard shortcuts
917 for commands appearing in the file menu. The escape sequences for the
918 function keys are terminfo capabilities kf1 trough kf10. On terminals
919 without function key support, you can achieve the same functionality by
920 pressing the ESC key and then a number in the range 1 through 9 and 0
921 (corresponding to F1 to F9 and F10 respectively).
923 The File menu has the following commands (keyboard shortcuts in parentheses):
927 Invokes the built\-in hypertext help viewer. Inside the
931 you can use the Tab key to select the next link and the Enter key to
932 follow that link. The keys Space and Backspace are used to move
933 forward and backward in a help page. Press F1 again to get the full
934 list of accepted keys.
942 The user menu provides an easy way to provide users with a menu and
943 add extra features to the Midnight Commander.
945 .B View (F3, Shift\-F3)
947 View the currently selected file. By default this invokes the
950 .\"Internal File Viewer"
951 but if the option "Use internal view" is off, it invokes an external
952 file viewer specified by the
954 environment variable. If
958 environment variable is tried. If
960 is also undefined, the "view" command is invoked. If you use Shift\-F3
961 instead, the viewer will be invoked without doing any formatting or
962 preprocessing to the file.
964 .B Filtered View (Alt\-!)
966 This command prompts for a command
967 and its arguments (the argument defaults to the currently selected
968 file name), the output from such command is shown in the internal file
973 Press F4 to edit the highlighted file. Press F14 (usually Shift\-F4)
974 to start the editor with a new, empty file.
975 Currently they invoke the
977 editor, or the editor specified in the
979 environment variable, or the
982 .\"Internal File Editor"
983 if the use_internal_edit option is on.
987 Press F5 to pop up an input dialog to copy the currently selected file (or
988 the tagged files, if there is at least one file tagged) to the
989 directory/filename you specify in the input dialog. The destination
990 defaults to the directory in the non\-selected panel. During this
991 process, you can press C\-c or ESC to abort the operation. For details
992 about source mask (which will be usually either * or ^\\(.*\\)$ depending
993 on setting of Use shell patterns) and possible wildcards in the destination
999 F15 (usually Shift\-F5) is similar, but defaults to the directory in the
1000 selected panel. It always operates on the selected file, regardless of
1003 On some systems, it is possible to do the copy in the background by
1004 clicking on the background button (or pressing Alt\-b in the dialog
1009 is used to control the background process.
1013 Create a hard link to the current file.
1017 Create a symbolic link to the current file. To those of you who don't
1018 know what links are: creating a link to a file is a bit like copying
1019 the file, but both the source filename and the destination filename
1020 represent the same file image. For example, if you edit one of these
1021 files, all changes you make will appear in both files. Some people call
1022 links aliases or shortcuts.
1024 A hard link appears as a real file. After making it, there is no way of
1025 telling which one is the original and which is the link. If you delete
1026 either one of them the other one is still intact. It is very difficult
1027 to notice that the files represent the same image. Use hard links when
1028 you don't even want to know.
1030 A symbolic link is a reference to the name of the original file. If
1031 the original file is deleted the symbolic link is useless. It is quite
1032 easy to notice that the files represent the same image. The Midnight
1033 Commander shows an "@"\-sign in front of the file name if it is a
1034 symbolic link to somewhere (except to directory, where it shows a tilde (~)).
1035 The original file which the link points to is shown on mini\-status line if the
1036 .I "Show mini\-status"
1037 option is enabled. Use symbolic links when you want to avoid the
1038 confusion that can be caused by hard links.
1040 .B Rename/Move (F6, F16)
1042 Press F6 to pop up an input dialog to copy the currently selected file (or
1043 the tagged files, if there is at least one file tagged) to the
1044 directory/filename you specify in the input dialog. The destination
1045 defaults to the directory in the non\-selected panel. For more details
1046 look at Copy (F5) operation above, most of the things are quite similar.
1048 F16 (usually Shift\-F6) is similar, but defaults to the directory in the
1049 selected panel. It always operates on the selected file, regardless of
1052 On some systems, it is possible to do the copy in the background by
1053 clicking on the background button (or pressing Alt\-b in the dialog
1058 is used to control the background process.
1062 Pop up an input dialog and creates the directory specified.
1066 Delete the currently selected file or the tagged files in the
1067 currently selected panel. During the process, you can press C\-c or
1068 ESC to abort the operation.
1070 .B Quick cd (Alt\-c)
1075 command if you have full command line and want to cd somewhere.
1079 This is used to select (tag) a group of files. The Midnight Commander
1080 will prompt for a selection options. When
1082 checkbox is on, than files only will be selected. If
1084 is off, as files as directories will be selected.
1087 checkbox is on, the regular expression is much like the filename globbing
1088 in the shell (* standing for zero or more characters and ? standing
1089 for one character). If
1091 is off, then the tagging of files is done with normal regular
1092 expressions (see ed (1)). When
1094 checkbox is on, the selection will be case sensitive characters.
1097 is off, the case will be ignored.
1099 .B Unselect group (\\\\)
1101 Used to unselect a group of files. This is the opposite of the
1105 .B Quit (F10, Shift\-F10)
1107 Terminate the Midnight Commander. Shift\-F10 is used when you want to
1108 quit and you are using the shell wrapper. Shift\-F10 will not take you
1109 to the last directory you visited with the Midnight Commander, instead
1110 it will stay at the directory where you started the Midnight Commander.
1113 This command is useful if you have a full command line and want to
1116 .\"The cd internal command"
1117 somewhere without having to yank and paste the command line. This command
1118 pops up a small dialog, where you enter everything you would enter after
1120 on the command line and then you press enter. This features all the things
1121 that are already in the
1123 internal cd command\&.
1124 .\"The cd internal command"
1125 .\"NODE " Command Menu"
1131 command shows a tree figure of the directories.
1137 command allows you to search for a specific file.
1139 The "Swap panels" command swaps the contents of the two directory panels.
1141 The "Panels on/off" command shows the output of the last shell command.
1142 This works only on xterm and on Linux and FreeBSD console.
1144 The Compare directories (C\-x d) command compares the directory
1145 panels with each other. You can then use the Copy (F5) command to make
1146 the panels identical. There are three compare methods. The quick method
1147 compares only file size and file date. The thorough method makes a
1148 full byte\-by\-byte compare. The thorough method is not available if the
1149 machine does not support the mmap(2) system call. The size\-only
1150 compare method just compares the file sizes and does not check the
1151 contents or the date times, it just checks the file size.
1153 The Command history command shows a list of typed commands. The
1154 selected command is copied to the command line. The command history
1155 can also be accessed by typing Alt\-p or Alt\-n.
1159 Directory hotlist (C\-\\)
1161 command makes changing of the current directory to often used directories
1167 .\"External panelize"
1168 allows you to execute an external program, and make the output of that
1169 program the contents of the current panel.
1173 .\"Extension File Edit"
1174 command allows you to specify programs to executed when you try to
1175 execute, view, edit and do a bunch of other thing on files
1176 with certain extensions (filename endings). The
1180 command may be used for editing the user menu (which appears by
1182 .\"NODE " Directory Tree"
1183 .SH " Directory Tree"
1184 The Directory Tree command shows a tree figure of the directories. You
1185 can select a directory from the figure and the Midnight Commander will
1186 change to that directory.
1188 There are two ways to invoke the tree. The real directory tree command
1189 is available from Commands menu. The other way is to select tree view
1190 from the Left or Right menu.
1192 To get rid of long delays the Midnight Commander creates the tree
1193 figure by scanning only a small subset of all the directories. If the
1194 directory which you want to see is missing, move to its parent
1195 directory and press C\-r (or F2).
1197 You can use the following keys:
1200 General movement keys
1201 .\"General Movement Keys"
1205 In the directory tree, exits the directory tree and changes to this
1206 directory in the current panel. In the tree view, changes to this
1207 directory in the other panel and stays in tree view mode in the
1210 .B C\-r, F2 (Rescan).
1211 Rescan this directory. Use this when the tree figure is out of date:
1212 it is missing subdirectories or shows some subdirectories which don't
1216 Delete this directory from the tree figure. Use this to remove clutter
1217 from the figure. If you want the directory back to the tree figure
1218 press F2 in its parent directory.
1220 .B F4 (Static/Dynamic).
1221 Toggle between the dynamic navigation mode (default) and the static
1224 In the static navigation mode you can use the Up and Down keys to
1225 select a directory. All known directories are shown.
1227 In the dynamic navigation mode you can use the Up and Down keys to
1228 select a sibling directory, the Left key to move to the parent
1229 directory, and the Right key to move to a child directory. Only the
1230 parent, sibling and children directories are shown, others are left
1231 out. The tree figure changes dynamically as you traverse.
1240 Make a new directory below this directory.
1243 Delete this directory from the file system.
1246 Search the next directory matching the search string. If there is
1247 no such directory these keys will move one line down.
1250 Delete the last character of the search string.
1252 .B Any other character.
1253 Add the character to the search string and move to the next directory
1254 which starts with these characters. In the tree view you must first
1255 activate the search mode by pressing C\-s. The search string is shown
1256 in the mini status line.
1258 The following actions are available only in the directory tree. They
1259 aren't supported in the tree view.
1262 Invoke the help viewer and show this section.
1265 Exit the directory tree. Do not change the directory.
1267 The mouse is supported. A double\-click behaves like Enter. See
1272 .\"NODE " Find File"
1274 The Find File feature first asks for the start directory for the
1275 search and the filename to be searched for. By pressing the Tree
1276 button you can select the start directory from the
1282 The contents field accepts regular expressions similar to egrep(1). That
1283 means you have to escape characters with a special meaning to egrep with "\\",
1284 e.g. if you search for "strcmp (" you will have to input "strcmp \\("
1285 (without the double quotes).
1287 Option \"Whole words\" Allow select only those files containing matches that
1288 form whole words. Like grep -w
1290 You can start the search by pressing the OK button.
1291 During the search you can stop from the Stop button and continue from
1294 You can browse the filelist with the up and down arrow keys. The Chdir
1295 button will change to the directory of the currently selected
1296 file. The Again button will ask for the parameters for a new
1297 search. The Quit button quits the search operation. The Panelize
1298 button will place the found files to the current directory panel so
1299 that you can do additional operations on them (view, copy, move,
1300 delete and so on). After panelizing you can press C\-r to return to the
1301 normal file listing.
1303 It is possible to have a list of directories that the Find File command
1304 should skip during the search (for example, you may want to avoid
1305 searches on a CD\-ROM or on a NFS directory that is mounted across a slow
1308 Directories to be skipped should be set on the variable
1312 section of your ~/.mc/ini file.
1314 Directory components should be separated with a colon, here is an
1319 find_ignore_dirs=/cdrom:/nfs/wuarchive:/afs
1322 You may consider using the
1325 .\"External panelize"
1326 command for some operations. Find file command is for simple queries
1327 only, while using External panelize you can do as mysterious searches
1329 .\"NODE " External panelize"
1330 .SH " External panelize"
1331 The External panelize allows you to execute an external program, and
1332 make the output of that program the contents of the current panel.
1334 For example, if you want to manipulate in one of the panels all the
1335 symbolic links in the current directory, you can use external
1336 panelization to run the following command:
1339 find . \-type l \-print
1342 Upon command completion, the directory contents of the panel will no
1343 longer be the directory listing of the current directory, but all the
1344 files that are symbolic links.
1346 If you want to panelize all of the files that have been downloaded
1347 from your FTP server, you can use this awk command to extract the file
1348 name from the transfer log files:
1351 awk '$9 ~! /incoming/ { print $9 }' < /var/log/xferlog
1354 You may want to save often used panelize commands under a descriptive name,
1355 so that you can recall them quickly. You do this by typing the command on
1356 the input line and pressing Add new button. Then you enter a name under
1357 which you want the command to be saved. Next time, you just choose that
1358 command from the list and do not have to type it again.
1361 The Directory hotlist command shows the labels of the directories
1362 in the directory hotlist. The Midnight Commander will change to the
1363 directory corresponding to the selected label. From the hotlist dialog,
1364 you can remove already created label/directory pairs and add new ones.
1365 To add new directories quickly, you can use the Add to hotlist command
1366 (C\-x h), which adds the current directory into the directory hotlist,
1367 asking just for the label for the directory.
1369 This makes cd to often used directories faster. You may consider using the
1370 CDPATH variable as described in
1373 .\"The cd internal command"
1375 .\"NODE " Extension File Edit"
1376 .SH " Extension File Edit"
1377 This will invoke your editor on the file
1378 .IR ~/.mc/bindings .
1379 The format of this file following:
1381 All lines starting with # or empty lines are thrown away.
1383 Lines starting in the first column should have following format:
1386 i.e. everything after the slash until new line is
1395 is an extension (no wildcards). File matches it its name ends
1406 is a regular expression. File matches if its name matches the regular
1412 is a regular expression. File matches if it is a directory and its name
1413 matches the regular expression.
1418 is a regular expression. File matches if the output of
1420 without the initial "filename:" part matches regular expression
1424 \- matches any file.
1429 \- denotes a common section.
1431 is the name of the section.
1433 Other lines should start with a space or tab and should be of the format:
1435 (with no spaces around =), where
1439 (invoked on Enter or double click),
1445 (to add rules from the common section).
1447 is any one\-line shell command, with the simple
1449 macro substitution\&.
1450 .\"Macro Substitution"
1452 Rules are matched from top to bottom, thus the order is important. If
1453 the appropriate action is missing, search continues as if this rule
1454 didn't match (i.e. if a file matches the first and second entry and View
1455 action is missing in the first one, then on pressing F3 the View action
1456 from the second entry will be used).
1458 should match all the actions.
1459 .\"NODE " Background jobs"
1460 .SH " Background Jobs"
1461 This lets you control the state of any background Midnight Commander
1462 process (only copy and move files operations can be done in the
1463 background). You can stop, restart and kill a background job from
1465 .\"NODE " Menu File Edit"
1466 .SH " Menu File Edit"
1467 The user menu is a menu of useful actions that can be customized by
1468 the user. When you access the user menu, the
1469 file .mc.menu from the current directory is used if it exists,
1470 but only if it is owned by user or root and is not world\-writable.
1471 If no such file found, ~/.mc/menu is tried in the same way,
1472 and otherwise mc uses the default system\-wide menu
1473 @prefix@/share/mc/mc.menu.
1475 The format of the menu file is very simple. Lines that start with
1476 anything but space or tab are considered entries for the menu (in
1477 order to be able to use it like a hot key, the first character should
1478 be a letter). All the lines that start with a space or a tab are the
1479 commands that will be executed when the entry is selected.
1481 When an option is selected all the command lines of the option are
1482 copied to a temporary file in the temporary directory (usually
1483 /usr/tmp) and then that file is executed. This allows the user to put
1484 normal shell constructs in the menus. Also simple macro substitution
1485 takes place before executing the menu code. For more information, see
1487 macro substitution\&.
1488 .\"Macro Substitution"
1490 Here is a sample mc.menu file:
1493 A Dump the currently selected file
1496 B Edit a bug report and send it to root
1497 I=`mktemp ${MC_TMPDIR:\-/tmp}/mail.XXXXXX` || exit 1
1499 mail \-s "Midnight Commander bug" root < $I
1508 H Call the info hypertext browser
1511 J Copy current directory to other panel recursively
1512 tar cf \- . | (cd %D && tar xvpf \-)
1514 K Make a release of the current subdirectory
1515 echo \-n "Name of distribution file: "
1517 ln \-s %d `dirname %d`/$tar
1519 tar cvhf ${tar}.tar $tar
1521 = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n
1522 X Extract the contents of a compressed tar file
1526 .B Default Conditions
1528 Each menu entry may be preceded by a condition. The condition must
1529 start from the first column with a '=' character. If the condition is
1530 true, the menu entry will be the default entry.
1533 Condition syntax: = <sub\-cond>
1534 or: = <sub\-cond> | <sub\-cond> ...
1535 or: = <sub\-cond> & <sub\-cond> ...
1537 Sub\-condition is one of following:
1539 y <pattern> syntax of current file matching pattern?
1540 (for edit menu only)
1541 f <pattern> current file matching pattern?
1542 F <pattern> other file matching pattern?
1543 d <pattern> current directory matching pattern?
1544 D <pattern> other directory matching pattern?
1545 t <type> current file of type?
1546 T <type> other file of type?
1547 x <filename> is it executable filename?
1548 ! <sub\-cond> negate the result of sub\-condition
1551 Pattern is a normal shell pattern or a regular expression, according
1552 to the shell patterns option. You can override the global value of
1553 the shell patterns option by writing "shell_patterns=x" on the first
1554 line of the menu file (where "x" is either 0 or 1).
1556 Type is one or more of the following characters:
1571 For example 'rlf' means either regular file, link or fifo. The 't'
1572 type is a little special because it acts on the panel instead of the
1573 file. The condition '=t t' is true if there are tagged files in the
1574 current panel and false if not.
1576 If the condition starts with '=?' instead of '=' a debug trace will be
1577 shown whenever the value of the condition is calculated.
1579 The conditions are calculated from left to right. This means
1581 = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n
1585 ( (f *.tar.gz) | (f *.tgz) ) & (t n)
1588 Here is a sample of the use of conditions:
1591 = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n
1592 L List the contents of a compressed tar\-archive
1593 gzip \-cd %f | tar xvf \-
1596 .B Addition Conditions
1598 If the condition begins with '+' (or '+?') instead of '=' (or '=?') it
1599 is an addition condition. If the condition is true the menu entry will
1600 be included in the menu. If the condition is false the menu entry will
1601 not be included in the menu.
1603 You can combine default and addition conditions by starting condition
1604 with '+=' or '=+' (or '+=?' or '=+?' if you want debug trace). If you
1605 want to use two different conditions, one for adding and another for
1606 defaulting, you can precede a menu entry with two condition lines, one
1607 starting with '+' and another starting with '='.
1609 Comments are started with '#'. The additional comment lines must start
1610 with '#', space or tab.
1611 .\"NODE " Options Menu"
1613 The Midnight Commander has some options that may be toggled on and
1614 off in several dialogs which are accessible from this menu. Options
1615 are enabled if they have an asterisk or "x" in front of them.
1621 command pops up a dialog from which you can change most of settings of
1622 the Midnight Commander.
1628 command pops up a dialog from which you specify a bunch of options how mc
1629 looks like on the screen.
1635 command pops up a dialog from which you specify which actions you want to
1642 command pops up a dialog from which you may select which characters is your
1643 terminal able to display.
1649 command pops up a dialog from which you test some keys which are not working
1650 on some terminals and you may fix them.
1656 command pops up a dialog from which you specify some VFS related options.
1662 command saves the current settings of the Left, Right and Options
1663 menus. A small number of other settings is saved, too.
1664 .\"NODE " Configuration"
1665 .SH " Configuration"
1666 The options in this dialog are divided into three groups:
1667 Panel Options, Pause after run and Other Options.
1671 .I Use SI size units.
1672 If this option is set, Midnight Commander will use SI units (powers of 1000)
1673 when displaying any byte sizes. The suffixes (k, m ...) are shown in lowercase.
1674 If unset (default), Midnight Commander will use binary units (powers of 1024)
1675 and the suffixes are shown in upper case (K, M ...)
1677 .I Show Backup Files.
1678 If enabled, the Midnight Commander will show files ending with a tilde.
1679 Otherwise, they won't be shown (like GNU's ls option \-B).
1681 .I Show Hidden Files.
1682 If enabled, the Midnight Commander will show all files that start with
1683 a dot (like ls \-a).
1686 If enabled, the selection bar will move down when you mark a file (with
1690 When this option is enabled, the pull down menus will be activated as
1691 soon as you press the
1693 key. Otherwise, you will only get the menu title, and you will have
1694 to activate the menu either with the arrow keys or with the hotkeys.
1695 It is recommended if you are using hotkeys.
1698 If this option is enabled, all files and directories are shown mixed
1699 together. If the option is off, directories (and links to directories)
1700 are shown at the beginning of the listing, and other files below.
1702 .I Fast directory reload.
1703 If this option is enabled, the Midnight Commander will use a trick to
1704 determine if the directory contents have changed. The trick is to reload
1705 the directory only if the i\-node of the directory has changed; this means
1706 that reloads only happen when files are created or deleted. If what
1707 changes is the i\-node for a file in the directory (file size changes,
1708 mode or owner changes, etc) the display is not updated. In these cases,
1709 if you have the option on, you have to rescan the directory manually
1714 After executing your commands, the Midnight Commander can pause, so
1715 that you can examine the output of the command. There are three
1716 possible settings for this variable:
1719 Means that you do not want to see the output of your command. If you
1720 are using the Linux or FreeBSD console or an xterm, you will be able to
1721 see the output of the command by typing C\-o.
1723 .I On dumb terminals.
1724 You will get the pause message on terminals that are not capable of
1725 showing the output of the last command executed (any terminal that is
1726 not an xterm or the Linux console).
1729 The program will pause after executing all of your commands.
1733 .I Verbose operation.
1734 This toggles whether the file Copy, Rename and Delete operations are
1735 verbose (i.e., display a dialog box for each operation). If you have a
1736 slow terminal, you may wish to disable the verbose operation. It is
1737 automatically turned off if the speed of your terminal is less than
1741 If this option is enabled, the Midnight
1742 Commander computes total byte sizes and total number of files
1743 prior to any Copy, Rename and Delete operations. This will
1744 provide you with a more accurate progress bar at the expense
1745 of some speed. This option has no effect, if
1746 .I Verbose operation
1750 By default the Select, Unselect and Filter commands will use shell\-like
1751 regular expressions. The following conversions are performed to achieve
1752 this: the '*' is replaced by '.*' (zero or more characters); the '?'
1753 is replaced by '.' (exactly one character) and '.' by the literal
1754 dot. If the option is disabled, then the regular expressions are the
1755 ones described in ed(1).
1758 If this option is enabled, when you exit the Midnight Commander the
1759 configurable options of the Midnight Commander are saved in the
1763 If this option is enabled, the user menu will be invoked at startup.
1764 Useful for building menus for non\-unixers.
1766 .I Use internal editor.
1767 If this option is enabled, the built\-in file editor is used to edit
1768 files. If the option is disabled, the editor specified in the
1770 environment variable is used.
1771 If no editor is specified,
1773 is used. See the section on the
1775 internal file editor\&.
1776 .\"Internal File Editor"
1778 .I Use internal viewer.
1779 If this option is enabled, the built\-in file viewer is used to view
1780 files. If the option is disabled, the pager specified in the
1782 environment variable is used.
1783 If no pager is specified, the
1785 command is used. See the section on the
1787 internal file viewer\&.
1788 .\"Internal File Viewer"
1790 .I Complete: show all.
1791 By default the Midnight Commander pops up all possible
1795 if the completion is ambiguous only when you press
1797 for the second time. For the first time, it just completes as much as
1798 possible and beeps in the case of ambiguity. Enable this option if you
1799 want to see all possible completions even after pressing
1804 If this option is enabled, the
1805 Midnight Commander shows a rotating dash in the upper right corner
1806 as a work in progress indicator.
1808 .I Lynx\-like motion.
1809 If this option is enabled,
1810 you may use the arrows keys to automatically chdir if the
1811 current selection is a subdirectory and the shell command
1812 line is empty. By default, this setting is off.
1814 .I Cd follows links.
1815 This option, if set, causes the Midnight Commander to follow the
1816 logical chain of directories when changing current directory
1817 either in the panels, or using the cd command. This is the default
1818 behavior of bash. When unset, the Midnight Commander follows the
1819 real directory structure, so cd .. if you've entered that directory
1820 through a link will move you to the current directory's real parent
1821 and not to the directory where the link was present.
1824 If this option is enabled, deleting files and directory hotlist entries
1825 unintentionally becomes more difficult. The default selection in the
1826 confirmation dialogs for deletion changes from "Yes" to "No".
1827 This option is disabled by default.
1830 The layout dialog gives you a possibility to change the general layout
1831 of screen. You can specify whether the menubar, the command prompt, the
1832 hintbar and the function keybar are visible. On the Linux or FreeBSD
1833 console you can specify how many lines are shown in the output window.
1835 The rest of the screen area is used for the two directory panels. You
1836 can specify whether the area is split to the panels in vertical or
1837 horizontal direction. The split can be equal or you can specify an
1840 You can specify whether
1844 should be highlighted with distinctive
1848 If the permission highlighting is enabled, the parts of the
1855 which apply to the user running Midnight Commander are highlighted with
1856 the color defined by the
1858 keyword. If the file type highlighting is enabled, file names are colored
1859 according to rules described in /etc/mc/filehighlight.ini file. See
1862 .\"Filenames Highlight"
1866 .I Show Mini\-Status
1867 option is enabled, one line of status information about the currently
1868 selected item is shown at the bottom of the panels.
1870 When run in a terminal emulator for X11, Midnight Commander sets the
1871 terminal window title to the current working directory and updates it
1872 when necessary. If your terminal emulator is broken and you see some
1873 incorrect output on startup and directory change, turn off the
1874 .I Xterm Window Title
1876 .\"NODE " Confirmation"
1878 In this menu you configure the confirmation options for file deletion,
1879 directory hotlist entries deletion, overwriting, execution by pressing
1880 enter and quitting the program.
1881 .\"NODE " Display bits"
1883 This is used to configure the range of visible characters on the
1884 screen. This setting may be 7\-bits if your terminal/curses supports
1885 only seven output bits, ISO\-8859\-1 displays all the characters in the
1886 ISO\-8859\-1 map and full 8 bits is for those terminals that can display
1887 full 8 bit characters.
1888 .\"NODE " Learn keys"
1890 This dialog allows you to test and redefine functional keys, cursor
1891 arrows and some other keys to make them work properly on your terminal.
1892 They often don't, since many terminal databases are incomplete or broken.
1894 You can move around with the Tab key and with the vi moving keys ('h'
1895 left, 'j' down, 'k' up and 'l' right). Once you press any cursor movement
1896 key and it is recognized, you can use that key as well.
1898 You can test keys just by pressing each of them. When you press a
1899 key and it is recognized properly, OK should appear next to the name
1900 of that key. Once a key is marked OK it starts working as usually,
1901 e.g. F1 pressed the first time will just check that the F1 key works,
1902 but after that it will show help. The same applies to the arrow keys.
1903 The Tab key should be working always.
1905 If some keys do not work properly then you won't see OK appear after
1906 pressing one of these. Then you may want to redefine it. Do it by pressing
1907 the button with the name of that key (either by the mouse or by Enter
1908 or Space after selecting the button with Tab or arrows). Then a message
1909 box will appear asking you to press that key. Do it and wait until the
1910 message box disappears. If you want to abort, just press Escape once
1913 When you finish with all the keys, you can Save them. The definitions
1914 for the keys you have redefined will be written into the [terminal:TERM]
1915 section of your ~/.mc/ini file (where TERM is the name of your current
1916 terminal). The definitions of the keys that were already working properly
1918 .\"NODE " Virtual FS"
1920 This option gives you control over the settings of the
1922 Virtual File System\&.
1923 .\"Virtual File System"
1925 The Midnight Commander keeps in memory the information related to some
1926 of the virtual file systems to speed up the access to the files in the
1927 file system (for example, directory listings fetched from FTP servers).
1929 Also, in order to access the contents of compressed files (for example,
1930 compressed tar files) the Midnight Commander needs to create temporary
1931 uncompressed files on your disk.
1933 Since both the information in memory and the temporary files on disk
1934 take up resources, you may want to tune the parameters of the cached
1935 information to decrease your resource usage or to maximize the speed of
1936 access to frequently used file systems.
1938 Because of the format of the tar archives, the
1940 needs to read the whole file just to load the file entries. Since most
1941 tar files are usually kept compressed (plain tar files are species in
1942 extinction), the tar file system has to uncompress the file on the disk
1943 in a temporary location and then access the uncompressed file as a
1946 Now, since we all love to browse files and tar files all over the disk,
1947 it's common that you will leave a tar file and the re\-enter it later.
1948 Since decompression is slow, the Midnight Commander will cache the
1949 information in memory for a limited time. When the timeout expires, all
1950 the resources associated with the file system are released. The default
1951 timeout is set to one minute.
1957 (ftpfs) allows you to browse directories on remote FTP servers. It has
1960 .I ftp anonymous password
1961 is the password used when you login as "anonymous". Some sites require
1962 a valid e\-mail address. On the other hand, you probably don't want to
1963 give your real e\-mail address to untrusted sites, especially if you are
1964 not using spam filtering.
1966 ftpfs keeps the directory listing it fetches from a FTP server in a cache.
1967 The cache expire time is configurable with the
1968 .I ftpfs directory cache timeout
1969 option. A low value for this option may slow down every operation on
1970 the ftpfs because every operation would require sending a request to the
1973 You can define an FTP proxy host for doing FTP. Note that most modern
1974 firewalls are fully transparent at least for passive FTP (see below), so
1975 FTP proxies are considered obsolete.
1978 .I Always use ftp proxy
1979 is not set, you can use the exclamation sign to enable proxy for certain
1986 If this option is set, the program will do two things: consult the
1987 @prefix@/lib/mc/mc.no_proxy file for lines containing host names that
1988 are local (if the host name starts with a dot, it is assumed to be a
1989 domain) and to assume that any hostnames without dots in their names are
1990 directly accessible. All other hosts will be accessed through the
1991 specified FTP proxy.
1993 You can enable using
1995 file, which keeps login names and passwords for ftp servers. See netrc
1996 (5) for the description of the .netrc format.
1999 enables using FTP passive mode, when the connection for data transfer is
2000 initiated by the client, not by the server. This option is recommended
2001 and enabled by default. If this option is turned off, the data
2002 connection is initiated by the server. This may not work with some
2004 .\"NODE " Save Setup"
2006 At startup the Midnight Commander will try to load initialization
2007 information from the ~/.mc/ini file. If this file doesn't exist, it will
2008 load the information from the system\-wide configuration file, located in
2009 @prefix@/share/mc/mc.ini. If the system\-wide configuration file doesn't
2010 exist, MC uses the default settings.
2014 command creates the ~/.mc/ini file by saving the current settings
2018 .\"Left and Right Menus"
2027 option, MC will always save the current settings when exiting.
2029 There also exist settings which can't be changed from the menus. To
2030 change these settings you have to edit the setup file with your
2031 favorite editor. See the section on
2034 .\"Special Settings"
2035 for more information.
2037 .\"NODE "Executing operating system commands"
2038 .SH "Executing operating system commands"
2039 You may execute commands by typing them directly in the Midnight
2040 Commander's input line, or by selecting the program you want to
2041 execute with the selection bar in one of the panels and hitting Enter.
2043 If you press Enter over a file that is not executable, the Midnight
2044 Commander checks the extension of the selected file against the
2048 .\"Extension File Edit"
2049 If a match is found then the code associated with that extension is
2050 executed. A very simple
2053 .\"Macro Substitution"
2054 takes place before executing the command.
2055 .\"NODE " The cd internal command"
2056 .SH " The cd internal command"
2059 command is interpreted by the Midnight Commander, it is not passed to
2060 the command shell for execution. Thus it may not handle all of the
2061 nice macro expansion and substitution that your shell does, although it
2064 .I Tilde substitution.
2065 The (~) will be substituted with your home directory, if you append a
2066 username after the tilde, then it will be substituted with the login
2067 directory of the specified user.
2069 For example, ~guest is the home directory for the user guest, while
2070 ~/guest is the directory guest in your home directory.
2072 .I Previous directory.
2073 You can jump to the directory you were previously by using the special
2074 directory name '\-' like this:
2077 .I CDPATH directories.
2078 If the directory specified to the
2080 command is not in the current directory, then The Midnight Commander
2081 uses the value in the environment variable
2083 to search for the directory in any of the named directories.
2085 For example you could set your
2087 variable to ~/src:/usr/src, allowing you to change your directory to
2088 any of the directories inside the ~/src and /usr/src directories, from
2089 any place in the file system by using its relative name (for example
2090 cd linux could take you to /usr/src/linux).
2091 .\"NODE " Macro Substitution"
2092 .SH " Macro Substitution"
2099 extension dependent command\&,
2100 .\"Extension File Edit"
2101 or running a command from the command line input, a simple macro
2102 substitution takes place.
2107 The indent of blank space, equal the cursor column position. For edit
2111 The syntax type of current file. For edit menu only.
2114 The block file name.
2117 The error file name.
2120 The current menu name.
2123 The current file name.
2126 The extension of current file name.
2129 The current file name without extension.
2132 The current directory name.
2135 The current file in the unselected panel.
2138 The directory name of the unselected panel.
2141 The currently tagged files.
2144 The tagged files in the unselected panel.
2147 Similar to the %t and %T macros, but in addition the files are untagged.
2148 You can use this macro only once per menu file entry or extension file
2149 entry, because next time there will be no tagged files.
2152 The selected files: The tagged files if there are any. Otherwise the
2156 This is a special macro that is used to change the current directory
2157 to the directory specified in front of it. This is used primarily as
2160 Virtual File System\&.
2161 .\"Virtual File System"
2164 This macro is used to invoke the internal viewer. This macro can be
2165 used alone, or with arguments. If you pass any arguments to this
2166 macro, they should be enclosed in brackets.
2170 to force the viewer into ascii mode;
2172 to force the viewer into hex mode;
2174 to tell the viewer that it should interpret the bold and underline
2177 to tell the viewer to not interpret nroff commands for making the text
2184 Prompt for the substitution. An input box is shown and the text inside
2185 the braces is used as a prompt. The macro is substituted by the text
2186 typed by the user. The user can press ESC or F10 to cancel. This macro
2187 doesn't work on the command line yet.
2189 .I %var{ENV:default}
2190 If environment variable
2194 is substituted. Otherwise, the value of
2197 .\"NODE " The subshell support"
2198 .SH " The subshell support"
2199 The subshell support is a compile time option, that works with the
2200 shells: bash, tcsh and zsh.
2202 When the subshell code is activated the Midnight Commander will
2203 spawn a concurrent copy of your shell (the one defined in the
2205 variable and if it is not defined, then the one in the /etc/passwd
2206 file) and run it in a pseudo terminal, instead of invoking a new shell
2207 each time you execute a command, the command will be passed to the
2208 subshell as if you had typed it. This also allows you to change the
2209 environment variables, use shell functions and define aliases that are
2210 valid until you quit the Midnight Commander.
2214 you can specify startup
2215 commands for the subshell in your ~/.mc/bashrc file and
2216 special keyboard maps in the ~/.mc/inputrc file.
2218 users may specify startup commands in the ~/.mc/tcshrc file.
2220 When the subshell code is used, you can suspend applications at any
2221 time with the sequence C\-o and jump back to the Midnight Commander, if
2222 you interrupt an application, you will not be able to run other
2223 external commands until you quit the application you interrupted.
2225 An extra added feature of using the subshell is that the prompt
2226 displayed by the Midnight Commander is the same prompt that you are
2227 currently using in your shell.
2233 section has more information on how you can control the subshell code.
2236 The Chmod window is used to change the attribute bits in a group of
2237 files and directories. It can be invoked with the C\-x c key combination.
2239 The Chmod window has two parts \-
2244 In the File section are displayed the name of the file or directory
2245 and its permissions in octal form, as well as its owner and group.
2247 In the Permissions section there is a set of check buttons which
2248 correspond to the file attribute bits. As you change the attribute
2249 bits, you can see the octal value change in the File section.
2251 To move between the widgets (buttons and check buttons) use the
2255 key. To change the state of the check buttons or to select a button
2258 You can also use the hotkeys on the buttons to quickly activate them.
2259 Hotkeys are shown as highlighted letters on the buttons.
2261 To set the attribute bits, use the Enter key.
2263 When working with a group of files or directories, you just click on
2264 the bits you want to set or clear. Once you have selected the bits
2265 you want to change, you select one of the action buttons (Set marked
2268 Finally, to set the attributes exactly to those specified, you can use
2271 button, which will act on all the tagged files.
2274 set only marked attributes to all selected files
2277 set marked bits in attributes of all selected files
2280 clear marked bits in attributes of all selected files
2283 set the attributes of one file
2286 cancel the Chmod command
2289 The Chown command is used to change the owner/group of a file. The hot
2290 key for this command is C\-x o.
2291 .\"NODE "Advanced Chown"
2292 .SH "Advanced Chown"
2293 The Advanced Chown command is the
2301 command combined into one window. You can change the permissions and
2302 owner/group of files at once.
2303 .\"NODE "File Operations"
2304 .SH "File Operations"
2305 When you copy, move or delete files the Midnight Commander shows the
2306 file operations dialog. It shows the files currently being processed
2307 and uses up to three progress bars. The file bar indicates the
2308 percentage of the current file that has been processed so far. The
2309 count bar shows how many of the tagged files have been handled. The
2310 bytes bar indicates the percentage of the total size of the tagged files
2311 that has been handled. If the verbose option is off, the file and bytes
2314 There are two buttons at the bottom of the dialog. Pressing the Skip
2315 button will skip the rest of the current file. Pressing the Abort
2316 button will abort the whole operation, the rest of the files are
2319 There are three other dialogs which you can run into during the file
2322 The error dialog informs about error conditions and has three choices.
2323 Normally you select either the Skip button to skip the file or the Abort
2324 button to abort the operation altogether. You can also select the Retry
2325 button if you fixed the problem from another terminal.
2327 The replace dialog is shown when you attempt to copy or move a file on
2328 the top of an existing file. The dialog shows the dates and sizes of
2329 the both files. Press the Yes button to overwrite the file, the No
2330 button to skip the file, the All button to overwrite all the files, the
2331 None button to never overwrite and the Update button to overwrite if the
2332 source file is newer than the target file. You can abort the whole
2333 operation by pressing the Abort button.
2335 The recursive delete dialog is shown when you try to delete a directory
2336 which is not empty. Press the Yes button to delete the directory
2337 recursively, the No button to skip the directory, the All button to
2338 delete all the directories and the None button to skip all the non\-empty
2339 directories. You can abort the whole operation by pressing the Abort
2340 button. If you selected the Yes or All button you will be asked for a
2341 confirmation. Type "yes" only if you are really sure you want to do the
2344 If you have tagged files and perform an operation on them only the files
2345 on which the operation succeeded are untagged. Failed and skipped files
2347 .\"NODE "Mask Copy/Rename"
2348 .SH "Mask Copy/Rename"
2349 The copy/move operations let you translate the names of files in an
2350 easy way. To do it, you have to specify the correct source mask and
2351 usually in the trailing part of the destination specify some wildcards.
2352 All the files matching the source mask are copied/renamed according to
2353 the target mask. If there are tagged files, only the tagged files
2354 matching the source mask are renamed.
2356 There are other options which you can set:
2360 determines whether make the symlinks and hardlinks in the source
2361 directory (recursively in subdirectories) new links in the target
2362 directory or whether would you like to copy their content.
2364 .B Dive into subdirs
2366 determines the behavior when the source directory is about to be copied,
2367 but the target directory already exists. The default action is to copy
2368 the contents of the source directory into the target directory.
2369 Enabling this option causes copying the source directory itself into the
2372 For example, you want to copy directory
2378 which is an already existing directory. Normally (when
2379 .B Dive into subdirs
2380 is not set), mc would copy file
2384 By enabling this option the
2386 directory will be created, and
2389 .IR /bla/foo/foo/bar .
2391 .B Preserve attributes
2393 determines whether to preserve the permissions, timestamps and (if you
2394 are root) the ownership of the original files. If this option is not
2395 set, the current value of the umask will be respected.
2397 .B Use shell patterns on
2399 When the shell patterns option is on you can use the '*' and '?'
2400 wildcards in the source mask. They work like they do in the shell. In
2401 the target mask only the '*' and '\\<digit>' wildcards are allowed. The
2402 first '*' wildcard in the target mask corresponds to the first wildcard
2403 group in the source mask, the second '*' corresponds to the second group
2404 and so on. The '\\1' wildcard corresponds to the first wildcard group
2405 in the source mask, the '\\2' wildcard corresponds to the second group
2406 and so on all the way up to '\\9'. The '\\0' wildcard is the whole
2407 filename of the source file.
2411 If the source mask is "*.tar.gz", the destination is "/bla/*.tgz" and the
2412 file to be copied is "foo.tar.gz", the copy will be "foo.tgz" in "/bla".
2414 Suppose you want to swap basename and extension so that "file.c" would
2415 become "c.file" and so on. The source mask for this is "*.*" and the
2416 destination is "\\2.\\1".
2418 .B Use shell patterns off
2420 When the shell patterns option is off the MC doesn't do automatic
2421 grouping anymore. You must use '\\(...\\)' expressions in the source
2422 mask to specify meaning for the wildcards in the target mask. This is
2423 more flexible but also requires more typing. Otherwise target masks
2424 are similar to the situation when the shell patterns option is on.
2428 If the source mask is "^\\(.*\\)\\.tar\\.gz$", the destination is
2429 "/bla/*.tgz" and the file to be copied is "foo.tar.gz", the copy
2430 will be "/bla/foo.tgz".
2432 Let's suppose you want to swap basename and extension so that "file.c"
2433 will become "c.file" and so on. The source mask for this is
2434 "^\\(.*\\)\\.\\(.*\\)$" and the destination is "\\2.\\1".
2438 You can also change the case of the filenames. If you use '\\u'
2439 or '\\l' in the target mask, the next character will be converted to
2440 uppercase or lowercase correspondingly.
2442 If you use '\\U' or '\\L' in the target mask, the next characters will
2443 be converted to uppercase or lowercase correspondingly up to the
2444 next '\\E' or next '\\U', '\\L' or the end of the file name.
2446 The '\\u' and '\\l' are stronger than '\\U' and '\\L'.
2448 For example, if the source mask is '*' (shell patterns on) or '^\\(.*\\)$'
2449 (shell patterns off) and the target mask is '\\L\\u*' the file names
2450 will be converted to have initial upper case and otherwise lower case.
2452 You can also use '\\' as a quote character. For example, '\\\\' is
2453 a backslash and '\\*' is an asterisk.
2454 .\"NODE "Select/Unselect Files"
2455 .SH "Select/Unselect Files"
2456 The dialog of group of files and directories selection or uselection.
2461 allow enter the regular expression of filenames that will be
2462 selected/unselected.
2466 checkbox is on, than files only will be selected. If
2468 is off, as files as directories will be selected.
2471 checkbox is on, the regular expression is much like the filename globbing
2472 in the shell (* standing for zero or more characters and ? standing
2473 for one character). If
2475 is off, then the tagging of files is done with normal regular
2476 expressions (see ed (1)). When
2478 checkbox is on, the selection will be case sensitive characters.
2481 is off, the case will be ignored.
2482 .\"NODE "Internal File Viewer"
2483 .SH "Internal File Viewer"
2484 The internal file viewer provides two display modes: ASCII and hex.
2485 To toggle between modes, use the F4 key.
2487 The viewer will try to use the best method provided by your system or
2488 the file type to display the information.
2489 Some character sequences, which appear most often in preformatted manual
2490 pages, are displayed bold and underlined, thus making a pretty display
2493 When in hex mode, the search function accepts text in quotes and
2494 constant numbers. Text in quotes is matched exactly after removing
2495 the quotes. Each number matches one byte. You can mix quoted text
2496 with constants like this:
2499 "String" \-1 0xBB 012 "more text"
2502 Note that 012 is an octal number. \-1 is converted to 0xFF.
2504 Here is a listing of the actions associated with each key that the
2505 Midnight Commander handles in the internal file viewer.
2508 Invoke the built\-in hypertext help viewer.
2511 Toggle the wrap mode.
2514 Toggle the hex mode.
2517 Goto line. This will prompt you for a line number and will display
2521 Regular expression search.
2524 Reverse regular expression search.
2527 Normal search / hex mode search.
2530 Start normal search if there was no previous search expression else
2534 Start reverse search if there was no previous search expression else
2538 Toggle Raw/Parsed mode: This will show the file as found on disk or if
2539 a processing filter has been specified in the mc.ext file, then the
2540 output from the filter. Current mode is always the other than written
2541 on the button label, since on the button is the mode which you enter
2545 Toggle the format/unformat mode: when format mode is on the viewer
2546 will interpret some string sequences to show bold and underline with
2547 different colors. Also, on button label is the other mode than current.
2550 Exit the internal file viewer.
2552 .B next\-page, space, C\-v.
2553 Scroll one page forward.
2555 .B prev\-page, Alt\-v, C\-b, backspace.
2556 Scroll one page backward.
2559 Scroll one line forward.
2562 Scroll one line backward.
2568 Switch to the subshell and show the command screen.
2571 Like C\-o, but run a new shell if the subshell is not running.
2580 Jump to the next file.
2583 Jump to the previous file.
2588 It's possible to instruct the file viewer how to display a file, look
2591 Extension File Edit section
2592 .\"Extension File Edit"
2593 .\"NODE "Internal File Editor"
2594 .SH "Internal File Editor"
2595 The internal file editor is a full\-featured full screen editor. It can
2596 edit files up to 64 megabytes. It is possible to edit binary files.
2597 The internal file editor is invoked using
2600 .I use_internal_edit
2601 option is set in the initialization file.
2603 The features it presently supports are: block copy, move, delete, cut,
2604 paste; key for key undo; pull\-down menus; file insertion; macro
2605 commands; regular expression search and replace; shift\-arrow text highlighting
2606 (if supported by the terminal); insert\-overwrite toggle; word wrap;
2607 autoindent; tunable tab size; syntax highlighting for various file
2608 types; and an option to pipe text blocks through shell commands like
2611 The editor is very easy to use and requires no tutoring. To see what
2612 keys do what, just consult the appropriate pull\-down menu. Other keys
2613 are: Shift movement keys do text highlighting.
2619 pastes from cooledit.clip.
2625 deletes highlighted text. Mouse highlighting also works, and you
2626 can override the mouse as usual by holding down the shift key
2627 while dragging the mouse to let normal terminal mouse highlighting
2630 To define a macro, press
2632 and then type out the key
2633 strokes you want to be executed. Press
2635 again when finished. You can then assign the macro to any key you
2636 like by pressing that key. The macro is executed when you press
2638 and then the assigned key. The macro is also executed if
2639 you press Meta, Ctrl, or Esc and the assigned key, provided that the
2640 key is not used for any other function. Once defined, the macro
2641 commands go into the file
2642 .B .mc/cedit/cooledit.macros
2643 in your home directory. You can delete a macro by deleting the
2644 appropriate line in this file.
2647 will format the currently highlighted block (plain text or
2651 code or another). This is controlled by the
2653 .B @prefix@/share/mc/edit.indent.rc
2655 .B .mc/cedit/edit.indent.rc
2656 in your home directory the first time you use it.
2658 The editor also displays non\-us characters (160+). When editing
2659 binary files, you should set
2661 to 7 bits in the options menu to keep the spacing clean.
2662 .\"NODE "Completion"
2664 Let the Midnight Commander type for you.
2666 Attempt to perform completion on the text before current position. MC
2667 attempts completion treating the text as variable (if the text begins
2670 username (if the text begins with
2672 hostname (if the text begins with
2674 or command (if you are on the command line in the position where you
2675 might type a command, possible completions then include shell reserved
2676 words and shell built\-in commands as well) in turn. If none of these
2677 matches, filename completion is attempted.
2679 Filename, username, variable and hostname completion works on all input
2680 lines, command completion is command line specific. If the completion
2681 is ambiguous (there are more different possibilities), MC beeps and the
2682 following action depends on the setting of the
2683 .I Complete: show all
2688 dialog. If it is enabled, a list of all possibilities pops up next to
2689 the current position and you can select with the arrow keys and
2691 the correct entry. You can also type the first letters in which the
2692 possibilities differ to move to a subset of all possibilities and
2693 complete as much as possible. If you press
2695 again, only the subset will be shown in the listbox, otherwise the first
2696 item which matches all the previous characters will be highlighted. As
2697 soon as there is no ambiguity, dialog disappears, but you can hide it by
2701 and left and right arrow keys. If
2705 is disabled, the dialog pops up only if you press
2707 for the second time, for the first time MC just beeps.
2708 .\"NODE "Virtual File System"
2709 .SH "Virtual File System"
2710 The Midnight Commander is provided with a code layer to access the file
2711 system; this code layer is known as the virtual file system switch. The
2712 virtual file system switch allows the Midnight Commander to manipulate
2713 files not located on the Unix file system.
2715 Currently the Midnight Commander is packaged with some Virtual File
2718 file system, used for accessing the regular Unix file system; the
2720 used to manipulate files on remote systems with the FTP protocol; the
2722 used to manipulate tar and compressed tar files; the
2724 used to recover deleted files on ext2 file systems (the default file
2725 system for Linux systems),
2727 (for manipulating files over shell connections such as rsh and ssh) and
2730 (Midnight Commander file system), a network based file system. If the
2731 code was compiled with
2733 support, you can manipulate files on remote systems with the SMB (CIFS)
2738 (EXTernal virtual File System) is provided in order to easily expand
2739 VFS capabilities using scripts and external software.
2741 The VFS switch code will interpret all of the path names used and will
2742 forward them to the correct file system, the formats used for each one
2743 of the file systems is described later in their own section.
2744 .\"NODE " FTP File System"
2745 .SH " FTP File System"
2746 The FTP File System (ftpfs) allows you to manipulate files on remote
2747 machines. To actually use it, you can use the
2749 item in the menu or directly change your current directory using the
2751 command to a path name that looks like this:
2753 .I /#ftp:[!][user[:pass]@]machine[:port][remote\-dir]
2760 elements are optional. If you specify the
2762 element, the Midnight Commander will login to the remote machine as that
2763 user, otherwise it will use anonymous login or the login name from the
2767 element is the password used for the connection. Using the password in
2768 the VFS directory name is not recommended, because it can appear on the
2769 screen in clear text and can be saved to the directory history.
2771 To enable using FTP proxy, prepend
2773 (an exclamation sign) to the hostname.
2778 /#ftp:ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx/linux/local
2779 /#ftp:tsx\-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages
2780 /#ftp:!behind.firewall.edu/pub
2781 /#ftp:guest@remote\-host.com:40/pub
2782 /#ftp:miguel:xxx@server/pub
2789 dialog box for ftpfs options.
2790 .\"NODE " Tar File System"
2791 .SH " Tar File System"
2792 The tar file system provides you with read\-only access to your tar
2793 files and compressed tar files by using the chdir command. To change
2794 your directory to a tar file, you change your current directory to the
2795 tar file by using the following syntax:
2797 .I /filename.tar#utar/[dir\-inside\-tar]
2799 The mc.ext file already provides a shortcut for tar files, this means
2800 that usually you just point to a tar file and press return to enter
2801 into the tar file, see the
2804 .\"Extension File Edit"
2805 section for details on how this is done.
2810 mc\-3.0.tar.gz#utar/mc\-3.0/vfs
2811 /ftp/GCC/gcc\-2.7.0.tar#utar
2814 The latter specifies the full path of the tar archive.
2815 .\"NODE " FIle transfer over SHell filesystem"
2816 .SH " FIle transfer over SHell filesystem"
2817 The fish file system is a network based file system that allows you to
2818 manipulate the files in a remote machine as if they were local. To use
2819 this, the other side has to either run fish server, or has to have
2820 bash\-compatible shell.
2822 To connect to a remote machine, you just need to chdir
2823 into a special directory which name is in the following
2826 .I /#sh:[user@]machine[:options]/[remote\-dir]
2833 elements are optional. If you specify the
2835 element, the Midnight Commander will try to login on the remote
2836 machine as that user, otherwise it will use your login name.
2840 are 'C' \- use compression and 'rsh' use rsh instead of ssh. If the
2842 element is present, your current directory on the remote machine will be
2848 /#sh:onlyrsh.mx:r/linux/local
2849 /#sh:joe@want.compression.edu:C/private
2850 /#sh:joe@noncompressed.ssh.edu/private
2852 .\"NODE " Network File System"
2853 .SH " Network File System"
2854 The Midnight Commander file system is a network base file system that
2855 allows you to manipulate the files in a remote machine as if they were
2856 local. To use this, the remote machine must be running the mcserv(8)
2859 To connect to a remote machine, you just need to chdir into a special
2860 directory which name is in the following format:
2862 .I /#mc:[user@]machine[:port][remote\-dir]
2868 elements are optional. If you specify the
2870 element then the Midnight Commander will try to logon on the remote
2871 machine as that user, otherwise it will use your login name.
2875 element is used when the remote server is running on a special port
2876 (see the mcserv(8) manual page for more information about ports);
2879 element is present, your current directory on the remote machine will
2885 /#mc:ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx/linux/local
2886 /#mc:joe@foo.edu:11321/private
2888 .\"NODE " Undelete File System"
2889 .SH " Undelete File System"
2890 On Linux systems, if you asked configure to use the ext2fs undelete
2891 facilities, you will have the undelete file system available.
2892 Recovery of deleted files is only available on ext2 file systems. The
2893 undelete file system is just an interface to the ext2fs library to
2894 retrieve all of the deleted files names on an ext2fs and provides and
2895 to extract the selected files into a regular partition.
2897 To use this file system, you have to chdir into the special file name
2898 formed by the "/#undel" prefix and the file name where the actual
2899 file system resides.
2901 For example, to recover deleted files on the second partition of the
2902 first SCSI disk on Linux, you would use the following path name:
2908 It may take a while for the undelfs to load the required information
2909 before you start browsing files there.
2910 .\"NODE " SMB File System"
2911 .SH " SMB File System"
2912 The smbfs allows you to manipulate files on remote machines with SMB
2913 (or CIFS) protocol. These include Windows for Workgroups,
2914 Windows 9x/ME/XP, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Samba.
2915 To actually use it, you may try to use the panel command "SMB link..."
2916 (accessible from the menubar) or you may directly change your current
2917 directory to it using the cd command to a path name that looks like this:
2919 .I /#smb:[user@]machine[/service][/remote\-dir]
2926 elements are optional.
2932 can be specified in an input dialog.
2939 /#smb:guest@machine/Public/Irlex
2941 .\"NODE " EXTernal File System"
2942 .SH " EXTernal File System"
2944 allows to integrate numerous features and file types into GNU Midnight
2945 Commander in an easy way, by writing scripts.
2947 Extfs filesystems can be divided into two categories:
2949 1. Stand\-alone filesystems, which are not associated with any existing
2950 file. They represent certain system\-wide data as a directory tree.
2951 You can invoke them by typing
2952 .RI ' "cd #fsname" '
2953 where fsname is an extfs short name (see below). Examples of such
2954 filesystems include audio (list audio tracks on the CD) or apt (list of
2955 all Debian packages in the system).
2957 For example, to list CD\-Audio tracks on your CD\-ROM drive, type
2963 2. 'Archive' filesystems (like rpm, patchfs and more), which represent
2964 contents of a file as a directory tree. It can consist of 'real' files
2965 compressed in an archive (urar, rpm) or virtual files, like messages
2966 in a mailbox (mailfs) or parts of a patch (patchfs). To access such
2969 should be appended to the archive name. Note that the archive itself
2970 can be on another vfs.
2972 For example, to list contents of a zip archive documents.zip type
2975 cd documents.zip#uzip
2978 In many aspects, you could treat extfs like any other directory. For
2979 instance, you can add it to the hotlist or change to it from directory
2980 history. An important limitation is that you cannot invoke shell
2981 commands inside extfs, just like any other non\-local VFS.
2983 Common extfs scripts included with Midnight Commander are:
2986 access 'A:' DOS/Windows diskette
2990 front end to Debian's APT package management system
2994 audio CD ripping and playing
2997 .IR "cd device#audio" ).
3000 package of Bad Penguin GNU/Linux distribution
3001 .RI ( "cd file.bpp#bpp" ).
3004 package of Debian GNU/Linux distribution
3005 .RI ( "cd file.deb#deb" ).
3008 Debian GNU/Linux installed packages
3012 view and copy files to/from a HP48 calculator
3016 browsing of lslR listings as found on many FTPs
3017 .RI ( "cd filename#lslR" ).
3020 mbox\-style mailbox files support
3021 .RI ( "cd mailbox#mailfs" ).
3024 extfs to handle unified and context diffs
3025 .RI ( "cd filename#patchfs" ).
3029 .RI ( "cd filename#rpm" ).
3032 RPM database management
3035 .B ulha, urar, uzip, uzoo, uar, uha
3037 .RI ( "cd archive#xxxx"
3038 where xxxx is one of:
3046 You could bind file type/extension to specified extfs as described in the
3049 .\"Extension File Edit"
3050 section. Here is an example entry for Debian packages:
3058 The Midnight Commander will try to detect if your terminal supports
3059 color using the terminal database and your terminal name. Sometimes
3060 it gets confused, so you may force color mode or disable color mode
3061 using the \-c and \-b flag respectively.
3063 If the program is compiled with the Slang screen manager instead of
3064 ncurses, it will also check the variable
3066 if it is set, it has the same effect as the \-c flag.
3068 You may specify terminals that always force color mode
3071 variable to the Colors section of the initialization file. This will
3072 prevent the Midnight Commander from trying to detect if your terminal
3073 supports color. Example:
3077 color_terminals=linux,xterm
3078 color_terminals=terminal\-name1,terminal\-name2...
3081 The program can be compiled with both ncurses and slang, ncurses does
3082 not provide a way to force color mode: ncurses uses just the
3083 information in the terminal database.
3085 The Midnight Commander provides a way to change the default colors.
3086 Currently the colors are configured using the environment variable
3088 or the Colors section in the initialization file.
3090 In the Colors section, the default color map is loaded from the
3092 variable. You can specify an alternate color map for a terminal by
3093 using the terminal name as the key in this section. Example:
3098 xterm=menu=magenta:marked=,magenta:markselect=,red
3101 The format for the color definition is:
3104 <keyword>=<foregroundcolor>,<backgroundcolor>:<keyword>= ...
3107 The colors are optional, and the keywords are: normal, selected, marked,
3108 markselect, errors, input, reverse, gauge. Menu colors are: menu,
3109 menusel, menuhot, menuhotsel. Dialog colors are: dnormal, dfocus,
3110 dhotnormal, dhotfocus. Help colors are: helpnormal, helpitalic,
3111 helpbold, helplink, helpslink. Viewer color is: viewunderline. Editor
3112 colors are: editnormal, editbold, editmarked.
3115 determines the color of input lines used in query dialogs.
3118 determines the color of the filled part of the progress bar (gauge),
3119 which is used to show the user the progress of file operations, such as
3122 The dialog boxes use the following colors:
3124 is used for the normal text,
3126 is the color used for the currently selected component,
3128 is the color used to differentiate the hotkey color in normal
3129 components, whereas the
3131 color is used for the highlighted color in the currently selected
3134 Menus use the same scheme but uses the menu, menusel, menuhot and
3135 menuhotsel tags instead.
3137 Help uses the following colors:
3139 is used for normal text,
3141 is used for text which is emphasized in italic in the manual page,
3143 is used for text which is emphasized in bold in the manual page,
3145 is used for not selected hyperlinks and
3147 is used for selected hyperlink.
3149 The possible colors are: black, gray, red, brightred, green,
3150 brightgreen, brown, yellow, blue, brightblue, magenta, brightmagenta,
3151 cyan, brightcyan, lightgray and white. And there is a special keyword
3152 for transparent background. It is 'default'. The 'default' can only be
3153 used for background color. Example:
3157 base_color=normal=white,default:marked=magenta,default
3162 You can change the appearance of Midhight Commander.
3163 To do this, you must specify a file that contain descriptions of colors
3164 and lines to draw boxes. Redefining of the colors is entirely compatible
3165 with the assignment of colors, as described in Section
3170 A skin\-file is searched on the following algorithm (to the first one found):
3173 1) command line option
3177 .BR \-\-skin=\<skin\>
3179 2) Environment variable
3182 3) In config file parameter
3189 .BR /etc/mc/skins/default.ini
3192 .BR @prefix@/share/mc/skins/default.ini
3195 Command line option, environment variable and parameter in config file may
3196 contain the absolute path to the skin\-file (with the extension \.ini
3197 or without it). Search of skin\-file will occur in (to the first one found):
3206 .BR @prefix@/share/mc/skins/
3210 For getting extended info, refer to:
3213 Description of section and parameters
3217 Color pair definitions
3229 .\"NODE " Skins sections"
3230 .SH " Description of section and parameters"
3234 contain metainfo for skin\-file. Paramter
3236 contain short text about skin.
3241 contain descriptions of color pairs for filenames highlighting.
3242 Name of parameters must be equal to names of sections into
3243 filehighlight.ini file.
3247 .\"Filenames Highlight"
3248 for getting more info.
3253 describes the elements that are used everywhere.
3256 Default color pair. Used in all other sections if they not contain
3266 cursor on selected data
3269 color of the filled part of the progress bar
3272 color of input lines used in query dialogs.
3280 describes the elements that are placed on dialog windows (except error dialogs).
3283 Default color for this section. Used [core]._default_ if not specified
3286 Color of active element (in focus)
3292 Color of hotkeys in focused element
3297 describes the elements that are placed on error dialog windows
3300 Default color for this section. Used [core]._default_ if not specified
3306 Color of hotkeys in focused element
3311 describes the elements that are placed on menu. This section describes
3312 system menu (called by F9) and user-defined menus (called by F2 in panels
3313 and by F11 in editor).
3316 Default color for this section. Used [core]._default_ if not specified
3322 Color of menu hotkeys
3325 Color of active menu item (in focus)
3328 Color of menu hotkeys in focused menu item
3333 describes the elements that are placed on help window.
3336 Default color for this section. Used [core]._default_ if not specified
3339 Color pair for element with
3344 Color pair for element with
3352 Color of active link (on focus)
3357 describes the colors of elements plased in editor.
3360 Default color for this section. Used [core]._default_ if not specified
3363 Color pair for element with
3368 Color of selected text
3371 Color of tabs and trailing spaces highlighting
3374 Color for line state area
3379 describes the colors of elements plased in viewer.
3382 Color pair for element with
3386 .\"NODE " Skins colors"
3387 .SH " Color pair definitions"
3388 Any parameter in skin\-file contain definition of color pair.
3390 Color pairs described as two color separated by ';'. First color
3391 sets the foreground color, second color sets background color.
3392 One of the colors may be omitted, in this case color will be
3393 taken from default color pair (global color pair or
3394 from default color pair of this section).
3401 _default_=green;black
3402 # green(default) on blue
3404 # yellow on black(default)
3409 Possible colors (names) described in
3415 .\"NODE " Skins lines"
3417 Lines sets in section
3419 into skin\-file. By default used single lines, but you may redefine
3420 to usage of any utf\-8 symbols (like to lines, for example).
3423 When you build Midnight Commander with the Ncurses screen library
3424 usage of drawing lines is limited!
3425 Possible only drawing a single lines.
3426 For all questions and comments please contact the developers of Ncurses.
3429 Descriptions of parameters
3433 left-top line fragment.
3436 right-top line fragment.
3439 down branch of horizontal line
3442 up branch of horizontal line
3445 left-bottom line fragment
3448 right-bottom line fragment
3451 right branch of vertical line
3454 left branch of vertical line
3466 thin horizontal line
3472 .\"NODE " Skins oldcolors"
3475 Appointment of color by skin\-files fully compatible with
3476 the appointment of the colors described in
3482 In this case, reassignment of colors has priority over the skin files and is
3485 .\"NODE "Filenames Highlight"
3486 .SH "Filenames Highlight"
3487 Section [filehighlight] from current skin\-file contain key names as
3488 highlight groups and values as color pairs. Color pairs is documented
3495 Rules of filenames highlight placed in /etc/mc/filehighlight.ini file
3496 (~/.mc/filehighlight.ini).
3497 Name of section in this file must be equal to parameters names into
3498 [filehighlight] section (in current skin\-file)
3500 Keys in these groups:
3503 file type. if present, all other option ignored
3506 regular expression. If present, 'extensions' option ignored
3509 list of extensions of files. Separated by ';' sign.
3511 'type' key may have values:
3515 \- DIR (all directoryes)
3517 \- LINK (all links except stale link)
3521 \- DEVICE (all device files)
3524 \- SPECIAL (all special files)
3531 .\"NODE "Special Settings"
3532 .SH "Special Settings"
3533 Most of the settings of the Midnight Commander can be changed from the
3534 menus. However, there are a small number of settings which can only be
3535 changed by editing the setup file.
3537 These variables may be set in your ~/.mc/ini file:
3539 .I clear_before_exec
3540 By default the Midnight Commander clears the screen before executing a
3541 command. If you would prefer to see the output of the command at the
3542 bottom of the screen, edit your ~/.mc/ini file and change the value of
3543 the field clear_before_exec to 0.
3546 If you press F3 on a directory, normally MC enters that directory. If
3547 this flag is set to 1, then MC will ask for confirmation before changing
3548 the directory if you have files tagged.
3550 .I ftpfs_retry_seconds
3551 This value is the number of seconds the Midnight Commander will wait
3552 before attempting to reconnect to an FTP server that has denied the
3553 login. If the value is zero, the login will no be retried.
3556 Specifies how many screen updates can be skipped at most in the internal
3557 file viewer. Normally this value is not significant, because the code
3558 automatically adjusts the number of updates to skip according to the
3559 rate of incoming keystrokes. However, on very slow machines or
3560 terminals with a fast keyboard auto repeat, a big value can make screen
3563 It seems that setting max_dirt_limit to 10 causes the best behavior,
3564 and that is the default value.
3567 Controls whenever scrolling with the mouse is done by pages or line by
3570 .I mouse_move_pages_viewer
3571 Controls if scrolling with the mouse is done by pages or line by line
3572 on the internal file viewer.
3575 By default the Midnight Commander treats the ESC key as a key prefix
3576 (old_esc_mode=0). If this option is set (old_esc_mode=1), the ESC key
3577 will act as a prefix key for one second, and if no extra keys have
3578 arrived, then the ESC key is interpreted as a cancel key (ESC ESC).
3580 .I only_leading_plus_minus
3581 Allow special treatment for '+', '\-', '*' in the command line (select,
3582 unselect, reverse selection) only if the command line is empty. You
3583 don't need to quote those characters in the middle of the command line.
3584 On the other hand, you cannot use them to change selection when the
3585 command line is not empty.
3587 .I reverse_files_only
3588 Allow revert selection of files only. This variable is on by default.
3589 If on, the reverse selection is applied to files only, not to directories.
3590 The selection of directories is untouched. If off, the reverse
3591 selection is applied to files as well to directories: all unselected
3592 items become selected, and vice versa.
3594 .I panel_scroll_pages
3595 If set (the default), panel will scroll by half the display when the
3596 cursor reaches the end or the beginning of the panel, otherwise it
3597 will just scroll a file at a time.
3599 .I show_output_starts_shell
3600 This variable only works if you are not using the subshell support.
3601 When you use the C\-o keystroke to go back to the user screen, if this
3602 one is set, you will get a fresh shell. Otherwise, pressing any key
3603 will bring you back to the Midnight Commander.
3606 If this flag is set, then the home and end keys will work slightly
3607 different on the panels, instead of moving the selection to the first
3608 and last files in the panels, they will act as follows:
3610 The home key will: Go up to the middle line, if below it; else go to the
3611 top line unless it is already on the top line, in this case it will go
3612 to the first file in the panel.
3614 The end key has a similar behavior: Go down to the middle line, if over
3615 it; else go to the bottom line unless you already are at the bottom
3616 line, in such case it will move the selection to the last file name in
3619 .I use_file_to_guess_type
3620 If this variable is on (the default) it will spawn the file command to
3621 match the file types listed on the
3624 .\"Extension File Edit"
3627 If this variable is on (default is off) when you browse the file system
3628 on a Tree panel, it will automatically reload the other panel with the
3629 contents of the selected directory.
3631 .I fish_directory_timeout
3632 This variable holds the lifetime of a directory cache entry in seconds. The
3633 default value is 900 seconds.
3634 .\"NODE "Terminal databases"
3635 .SH "Terminal databases"
3636 The Midnight Commander provides a way to fix your system terminal
3637 database without requiring root privileges. The Midnight Commander
3638 searches in the system initialization file (the mc.lib file located in
3639 the Midnight Commander library directory) and in the ~/.mc/ini file for
3640 the section "terminal:your\-terminal\-name" and then for the section
3641 "terminal:general", each line of the section contains a key symbol that
3642 you want to define, followed by an equal sign and the definition for the
3643 key. You can use the special \\e form to represent the escape character
3644 and the ^x to represent the control\-x character.
3646 The possible key symbols are:
3649 f0 to f20 Function keys f0\-f20
3656 right right arrow key
3659 insert the insert character
3660 delete the delete character
3661 complete to do completion
3664 For example, to define the key insert to be the Escape + [ + O + p, you
3665 set this in the ini file:
3672 Also now you can use
3673 .I extended learn keys.
3677 ctrl alt right=\\e[[1;6C
3678 ctrl alt left=\\e[[1;6D
3682 This means that ctrl+alt+left send \\e[[1;6D esc sequence
3683 and mc interprets "\\e[[1;6D" as C\-A\-Left.
3688 key symbol represents the escape sequences used to invoke the completion
3689 process, this is invoked with Alt\-tab, but you can define other keys to do
3690 the same work (on those keyboard with tons of nice and unused keys
3695 Full paths below may vary between installations. They are also affected
3696 by the MC_DATADIR environment variable. If it's set, its value is used
3697 instead of @prefix@/share/mc in the paths below.
3699 .I @prefix@/share/mc/mc.hlp
3701 The help file for the program.
3703 .I @prefix@/share/mc/mc.ext
3705 The default system\-wide extensions file.
3709 User's own extension, view configuration and edit configuration
3710 file. They override the contents of the system wide files if present.
3712 .I @prefix@/share/mc/mc.ini
3714 The default system\-wide setup for the Midnight Commander, used only if
3715 the user doesn't have his own ~/.mc/ini file.
3717 .I @prefix@/share/mc/mc.lib
3719 Global settings for the Midnight Commander. Settings in this file
3720 affect all users, whether they have ~/.mc/ini or not. Currently, only
3723 .\"Terminal databases"
3724 are loaded from mc.lib.
3728 User's own setup. If this file is present then the setup is loaded
3729 from here instead of the system\-wide startup file.
3731 .I @prefix@/share/mc/mc.hint
3733 This file contains the hints displayed by the program.
3735 .I @prefix@/share/mc/mc.menu
3737 This file contains the default system\-wide applications menu.
3741 User's own application menu. If this file is present it is used instead
3742 of the system\-wide applications menu.
3746 The directory list for the directory tree and tree view features.
3750 Local user\-defined menu. If this file is present, it is used instead of
3751 the home or system\-wide applications menu.
3754 This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
3755 License as published by the Free Software Foundation. See the built\-in
3756 help for details on the License and the lack of warranty.
3757 .\"NODE "AVAILABILITY"
3759 The latest version of this program can be found at
3760 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mc/.
3763 ed(1), gpm(1), mcserv(8), terminfo(1), view(1), sh(1), bash(1),
3767 The Midnight Commander page on the World Wide Web:
3768 http://www.midnight\-commander.org/
3772 Authors and contributors are listed in the AUTHORS file in the source
3776 See the file TODO in the distribution for information on what remains to
3779 If you want to report a problem with the program, please send mail to
3780 this address: mc\-devel@gnome.org.
3782 Provide a detailed description of the bug, the version of the program
3785 displays this information), the operating system you are running the
3786 program on. If the program crashes, we would appreciate a stack trace.