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1 Contents
2 --------
4 Introduction
5 Dependencies
6 Features
7 Mini-documentation
8 Where to get more information
9 Reporting problems
12 Introduction
13 ------------
15 GNU Midnight Commander (also referred to as MC) is a user shell with
16 text-mode full-screen interface. It can be run on the OS console,
17 in xterm and other terminal emulators.
19 GNU Midnight Commander allows you to manage files while making most of
20 you screen and giving you a clear representation of the filesystem, yet
21 it's simple enough to be run over a telnet or ssh session.
23 GNU Midnight Commander is released under the GNU General Public
24 License version 2.0 or any later version. A copy of the file is
25 included with this distribution package.
28 Dependencies
29 ------------
31 To compile the GNU Midnight Commander you need to have a copy of the
32 glib library version 1.2.x or 2.0.x, available at
33 ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/
36 Features
37 --------
39 GNU Midnight Commander was conceived as a free clone of John Socha's
40 Norton Commander (TM). It also takes the best from more recent software
41 with similar interfaces. GNU Midnight Commander comes with mouse support
42 on xterm and optionally on the Linux console.
44 Some features are specific to the POSIX environment MC runs on, some are
45 familiar to the users of similar software for other operating systems.
46 The features include:
48 * Built in Virtual File System: manipulate remote file systems
49 through the FTP and SMB protocols or over secure shell, browse
50 contents of tar, ar, rpm, zip, cpio, lha and rar archives just
51 like local files.
53 * Almost all operations work with the virtual file system,
54 enabling you to do complex tasks, like viewing files in
55 archives on an FTP server.
57 * Mouse support on most terminal emulators for X Window System
58 as well as on the Linux console.
60 * Learn Keys: GNU Midnight Commander may be configured at run
61 time to support any kind of input keys for a given terminal,
62 making its operation possible even on most weird terminals.
64 * Text and hex editors are available for you to use (hex editor
65 is a part of the viewer).
67 * Hotlist allows you to keep a list of common visited locations,
68 including remote sites and directories inside archives.
70 * Command completion: By pressing Alt-Tab in any place where a
71 filename or an executable are expected, GNU Midnight Commander
72 will complete the name for you. If you press Alt-Tab for the
73 second time, you get a list box with all possible completions.
75 * Subshell support: Run your commands by a real shell
76 interpreter. GNU Midnight Commander interacts with bash,
77 tcsh and zsh to provide you with all of the facilities
78 available in your preferred shell.
80 * Find file command can search for the file contents.
82 * Background operations allow you to copy or move files from
83 any virtual file system while you do other tasks (i.e., you
84 can do background FTP copies).
86 * FTP proxy is supported.
88 * Linux file recovery: If you are using Linux, you can recover
89 deleted files from an ext2 or ext3 partition with the undelete
90 file system. This is a low level file recovery function that
91 can recover files deleted by any program on Linux.
93 * External panelization: You can run any arbitrary external
94 command and GNU Midnight Commander will display the output
95 generated as a file listing that can be manipulated as a
96 regular directory.
98 * Emacs-like key bindings are used in all widgets.
100 * Context dependent actions (open, view, edit) are available.
102 * The built-in file viewer, together with the context dependent
103 actions is used to format man pages on the fly, coloring mail
104 messages and more.
106 * The built-in editor supports syntax highlighting and external
107 actions, such as spell checking and formatting.
110 Mini-documentation
111 ------------------
113 These are hints for the text mode edition:
115 * Use the F-Keys for invoking the commands in the function key bar.
116 If your terminal doesn't support F-keys, you can use the <ESC digit>
117 sequence to invoke the corresponding F-digit key.
119 * Tab changes the current panel.
121 * All input lines have emacs-like key-bindings (command history is
122 accessed through the M-p and M-n keys).
124 * The panels accept C-n, C-p for browsing the panel (like in Emacs).
126 * M-Enter copies the currently selected file name to the input line.
128 * M-Tab completes the current word (or tries to).
130 * The Virtual File System is a cute addition to the project, you may
131 browse in tar and compressed tar files as well as browsing remote
132 machines with the mcfs file system.
134 * Please read the manual page.
136 * Read the file TODO for the current projects.
138 You can access the whole documentation online with the F1 key,
139 although it's not as nice as the groff printed manual page :-)
142 Where to get more information
143 -----------------------------
145 There is a webpage for GNU Midnight Commander at
147 http://www.midnight-commander.org/
149 This page also has current information about mailing lists and some
150 useful advices how to report bugs.
152 You can download the latest version of GNU Midnight Commander from
154 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mc/
157 Reporting problems
158 ------------------
160 There are two mailing lists, mc@gnome.org and mc-devel@gnome.org. Use
161 mc-devel@gnome.org if you are prepared for a more technical discussion
162 with the developers of the package, otherwise use mc@gnome.org.
164 Please don't sent HTML e-mail to either of those mailing lists.
166 Include the output of "mc --version", the operating system and the
167 distribution (if applicable) you are using, the compiler and the
168 configure flags used to compile the program (if you know them).
170 If the program crashed and produced a core dump, please provide a
171 stack trace of the program.
173 You can do this by running gdb like this:
175 gdb mc core
176 (gdb) where