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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 3 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 2.8.x or newer, available at
34 ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/glib/
36 Please read the file INSTALL for installation instructions
37 and full list of dependencies.
40 Features
41 --------
43 GNU Midnight Commander was conceived as a free clone of John Socha's
44 Norton Commander (TM). It also takes the best from more recent software
45 with similar interfaces. GNU Midnight Commander comes with mouse support
46 on xterm and optionally on the Linux console.
48 Some features are specific to the POSIX environment MC runs on, some are
49 familiar to the users of similar software for other operating systems.
50 The features include:
52 * Built in Virtual File System: manipulate remote file systems
53 through the FTP and SMB protocols or over secure shell, browse
54 contents of tar, ar, rpm, zip, cpio, lha and rar archives just
55 like local files.
57 * Almost all operations work with the virtual file system,
58 enabling you to do complex tasks, like viewing files in
59 archives on an FTP server.
61 * Mouse support on most terminal emulators for X Window System
62 as well as on the Linux console.
64 * Learn Keys: GNU Midnight Commander may be configured at run
65 time to support any kind of input keys for a given terminal,
66 making its operation possible even on most weird terminals.
68 * Text and hex editors are available for you to use (hex editor
69 is a part of the viewer).
71 * Hotlist allows you to keep a list of common visited locations,
72 including remote sites and directories inside archives.
74 * Command completion: By pressing Alt-Tab in any place where a
75 filename or an executable are expected, GNU Midnight Commander
76 will complete the name for you. If you press Alt-Tab for the
77 second time, you get a list box with all possible completions.
79 * Subshell support: Run your commands by a real shell
80 interpreter. GNU Midnight Commander interacts with bash,
81 tcsh and zsh to provide you with all of the facilities
82 available in your preferred shell.
84 * Find file command can search for the file contents.
86 * Background operations allow you to copy or move files from
87 any virtual file system while you do other tasks (i.e., you
88 can do background FTP copies).
90 * FTP proxy is supported.
92 * Linux file recovery: If you are using Linux, you can recover
93 deleted files from an ext2 or ext3 partition with the undelete
94 file system. This is a low level file recovery function that
95 can recover files deleted by any program on Linux.
97 * External panelization: You can run any arbitrary external
98 command and GNU Midnight Commander will display the output
99 generated as a file listing that can be manipulated as a
100 regular directory.
102 * Emacs-like key bindings are used in all widgets.
104 * Context dependent actions (open, view, edit) are available.
106 * The built-in file viewer, together with the context dependent
107 actions is used to format man pages on the fly, coloring mail
108 messages and more.
110 * The built-in editor supports syntax highlighting and external
111 actions, such as spell checking and formatting.
114 Mini-documentation
115 ------------------
117 These are hints for the text mode edition:
119 * Use the F-Keys for invoking the commands in the function key bar.
120 If your terminal doesn't support F-keys, you can use the <ESC digit>
121 sequence to invoke the corresponding F-digit key.
123 * Tab changes the current panel.
125 * All input lines have emacs-like key-bindings (command history is
126 accessed through the M-p and M-n keys).
128 * The panels accept C-n, C-p for browsing the panel (like in Emacs).
130 * M-Enter copies the currently selected file name to the input line.
132 * M-Tab completes the current word (or tries to).
134 * The Virtual File System is a cute addition to the project, you may
135 browse in tar and compressed tar files as well as browsing remote
136 machines with the fish file system.
138 * Please read the manual page.
140 You can access the whole documentation online with the F1 key,
141 although it's not as nice as the groff printed manual page :-)
144 Where to get more information
145 -----------------------------
147 There is a webpage for GNU Midnight Commander at
149 http://www.midnight-commander.org/
151 This page also has current information about mailing lists and some
152 useful advices how to report bugs.
154 You can download the latest version of GNU Midnight Commander from
156 http://www.midnight-commander.org/downloads/
159 Reporting problems
160 ------------------
162 You can report bug on our site, please read
164 http://midnight-commander.org/wiki/defectReports
166 Also you can use mc mailing lists to discuss problems.
168 There are two mailing lists, mc@gnome.org and mc-devel@gnome.org. Use
169 mc-devel@gnome.org if you are prepared for a more technical discussion
170 with the developers of the package, otherwise use mc@gnome.org.
172 Please don't sent HTML e-mail to either of those mailing lists.
174 Include the output of "mc --version", the operating system and the
175 distribution (if applicable) you are using, the compiler and the
176 configure flags used to compile the program (if you know them).
178 If the program crashed and produced a core dump, please provide a
179 stack trace of the program.
181 You can do this by running gdb like this:
183 gdb mc core
184 (gdb) where