1MC(1) GNU Midnight Commander MC(1)
2
6 mc - Visual shell for Unix-like systems.
7
9 mc [-abcCdfhPstuUVx] [-l log] [dir1 [dir2]] [-e [file] ...] [-v file]
10
12 GNU Midnight Commander is a directory browser/file manager for
13 Unix-like operating systems.
14
16 -a, --stickchars
17 Disable usage of graphic characters for line drawing.
18 -b, --nocolor
20 Force black and white display.
21 -c, --color
23 Force color mode, please check the section Colors for more in‐
24 formation.
25 -C arg, --colors=arg
27 Specify a different color set in the command line. The format
28 of arg is documented in the Colors section.
29 --configure-options
31 Display configure options.
32 -d, --nomouse
34 Disable mouse support.
35 -D N, --debuglevel=N
37 Save the debug level for SMB VFS. N is in 0-10 range.
38 -e [file], --edit[=file]
40 Start the internal editor. If the file is specified, open it on
41 startup. See also mcedit (1).
42 -f, --datadir
44 Display the compiled-in search paths for Midnight Commander
45 files.
46 -F, --datadir-info
48 Display extended info about compiled-in paths for Midnight Com‐
49 mander.
50 -g, --oldmouse
52 Force a "normal tracking" mouse mode. Used when running on
53 xterm-capable terminals (tmux/screen).
54 -k, --resetsoft
56 Reset softkeys to their default from the termcap/terminfo data‐
57 base. Only useful on HP terminals when the function keys don't
58 work.
59 -K file, --keymap=file
61 Specify a name of keymap file in the command line.
62 -l file, --ftplog=file
64 Save the ftpfs dialog with the server in file.
65 --nokeymap
67 Don't load key bindings from any file, use default hardcoded
68 keys.
69 -P file, --printwd=file
71 Print the last working directory to the specified file. This
72 option is not meant to be used directly. Instead, it's used
73 from a special shell script that automatically changes the cur‐
74 rent directory of the shell to the last directory Midnight Com‐
75 mander was in. Source the file /usr/libexec/mc/mc.sh (bash and
76 zsh users) or /usr/libexec/mc.csh (tcsh users) respectively to
77 define mc as an alias to the appropriate shell script.
78 -s, --slow
80 Turn on the slow terminal mode, in this mode the program will
81 not draw expensive line drawing characters and will toggle ver‐
82 bose mode off.
83 -S arg, --skin=arg
85 Specify a name of skin in the command line. Technology of skins
86 is documented in the Skins section.
87 -t, --termcap
89 Used only if the code was compiled with S-Lang and terminfo: it
90 makes Midnight Commander use the value of the TERMCAP variable
91 for the terminal information instead of the information on the
92 system wide terminal database
93 -u, --nosubshell
95 Disable use of the concurrent shell (only makes sense if Mid‐
96 night Commander has been built with concurrent shell support).
97 -U, --subshell
99 Enable use of the concurrent shell support (only makes sense if
100 the Midnight Commander was built with the subshell support set
101 as an optional feature).
102 -v file, --view=file
104 Start the internal viewer to view the specified file. See also
105 mcview (1).
106 -V, --version
108 Display the version of the program.
109 -x, --xterm
111 Force xterm mode. Used when running on xterm-capable terminals
112 (two screen modes, and able to send mouse escape sequences).
113 -X, --no-x11
115 Do not use X11 to get the state of modifiers Alt, Ctrl, Shift
116 If both paths are specified, the first path name is the directory to
118 show in the active panel; the second path name is the directory to be
119 shown in the other panel.
120 If one path is specified, the path name is the directory to show in the
122 active panel; value of "other_dir" from panels.ini is the directory to
123 be shown in the passive panel.
124 If no paths are specified, current directory is shown in the active
126 panel; value of "other_dir" from panels.ini is the directory to be
127 shown in the passive panel.
128
130 The screen of Midnight Commander is divided into four parts. Almost
131 all of the screen space is taken up by two directory panels. By de‐
132 fault, the second line from the bottom of the screen is the shell com‐
133 mand line, and the bottom line shows the function key labels. The top‐
134 most line is the menu bar line. The menu bar line may not be visible,
135 but appears if you click the topmost line with the mouse or press the
136 F9 key.
137 Midnight Commander provides a view of two directories at the same time.
139 One of the panels is the current panel (a selection bar is in the cur‐
140 rent panel). Almost all operations take place on the current panel.
141 Some file operations like Rename and Copy by default use the directory
142 of the unselected panel as a destination (don't worry, they always ask
143 you for confirmation first). For more information, see the sections on
144 the Directory Panels, the Left and Right Menus and the File Menu.
145 You can execute system commands from Midnight Commander by simply typ‐
147 ing them. Everything you type will appear on the shell command line,
148 and when you press Enter, Midnight Commander will execute the command
149 line you typed; read the Shell Command Line and Input Line Keys sec‐
150 tions to learn more about the command line.
151
153 Midnight Commander comes with mouse support. It is activated whenever
154 you are running on an xterm(1) terminal (it even works if you take a
155 telnet, ssh or rlogin connection to another machine from the xterm) or
156 if you are running on a Linux console and have the gpm mouse server
157 running.
158 When you left click on a file in the directory panels, that file is se‐
160 lected; if you click with the right button, the file is marked (or un‐
161 marked, depending on the previous state).
162 Double-clicking on a file will try to execute the command if it is an
164 executable program; and if the extension file has a program specified
165 for the file's extension, the specified program is executed.
166 Also, it is possible to execute the commands assigned to the function
168 key labels by clicking on them.
169 The default auto repeat rate for the mouse buttons is 400 milliseconds.
171 This may be changed to other values by editing the ~/.config/mc/ini
172 file and changing the mouse_repeat_rate parameter.
173 If you are running Midnight Commander with the mouse support, you can
175 get the default mouse behavior (cutting and pasting text) by holding
176 down the Shift key.
177
180 Some commands in Midnight Commander involve the use of the Control
181 (sometimes labeled CTRL or CTL) and the Meta (sometimes labeled ALT or
182 even Compose) keys. In this manual we will use the following abbrevia‐
183 tions:
184 C-<chr>
186 means hold the Control key while typing the character <chr>.
187 Thus C-f would be: hold the Control key and type f.
188 Alt-<chr>
190 means hold the Meta or Alt key down while typing <chr>. If
191 there is no Meta or Alt key, type Esc, release it, then type the
192 character <chr>.
193 S-<chr>
195 means hold the Shift key down while typing <chr>.
196 All input lines in Midnight Commander use an approximation to the GNU
198 Emacs editor's key bindings (default).
199 You may redefine key bindings. See redefine hotkey bindings
201 for more info. All other key bindings (described in this manual) are
203 relative to default behavior.
204 There are many sections which tell about the keys. The following are
207 the most important.
208 The File Menu section documents the keyboard shortcuts for the commands
210 appearing in the File menu. This section includes the function keys.
211 Most of these commands perform some action, usually on the selected
212 file or the tagged files.
213 The Directory Panels section documents the keys which select a file or
215 tag files as a target for a later action (the action is usually one
216 from the file menu).
217 The Shell Command Line section list the keys which are used for enter‐
219 ing and editing command lines. Most of these copy file names and such
220 from the directory panels to the command line (to avoid excessive typ‐
221 ing) or access the command line history.
222 Input Line Keys are used for editing input lines. This means both the
224 command line and the input lines in the query dialogs.
225 Redefine hotkey bindings
228 Hotkey bindings may be read from external file (keymap-file). Ini‐
229 tially, Midnight Commander creates key bindings using keymap defined in
230 the source code. Then, two files /usr/share/mc/mc.keymap and
231 /etc/mc/mc.keymap are loaded always, sequentially reassigned key bind‐
232 ings defined earlier. User-defined keymap-file is searched on the fol‐
233 lowing algorithm (to the first one found):
234 1) command line option -K <keymap> or --keymap=<keymap>
236 2) Environment variable MC_KEYMAP
237 3) Parameter keymap in section [Midnight-Commander] of config
238 file.
239 4) File ~/.config/mc/mc.keymap
240 Command line option, environment variable and parameter in config file
242 may contain the absolute path to the keymap-file (with the extension
243 .keymap or without it). Search of keymap-file will occur in (to the
244 first one found):
245 1) ~/.config/mc
247 2) /etc/mc/
248 3) /usr/share/mc/
249 Miscellaneous Keys
252 Here are some keys which don't fall into any of the other categories:
253 Enter if there is some text in the command line (the one at the bottom
255 of the panels), then that command is executed. If there is no
256 text in the command line then if the selection bar is over a di‐
257 rectory the Midnight Commander does a chdir(2) to the selected
258 directory and reloads the information on the panel; if the se‐
259 lection is an executable file then it is executed. Finally, if
260 the extension of the selected file name matches one of the ex‐
261 tensions in the extensions file then the corresponding command
262 is executed.
263 C-l repaint all the information in Midnight Commander.
265 C-x c run the Chmod command on a file or on the tagged files.
267 C-x o run the Chown command on the current file or on the tagged
269 files.
270 C-x l run the hard link command.
272 C-x s run the absolute symbolic link command.
274 C-x v run the relative symbolic link command. See the File Menu sec‐
276 tion for more information about symbolic links.
277 C-x i set the other panel display mode to information.
279 C-x q set the other panel display mode to quick view.
281 C-x ! execute the External panelize command.
283 C-x h run the add directory to hotlist command.
285 Alt-! executes the Filtered view command, described in the view com‐
287 mand.
288 Alt-? executes the Find file command.
290 Alt-c pops up the quick cd dialog.
292 C-o when the program is being run in the Linux or FreeBSD console or
294 under an xterm, it will show you the output of the previous com‐
295 mand. When ran on the Linux console, Midnight Commander uses an
296 external program (cons.saver) to handle saving and restoring of
297 information on the screen.
298 When the subshell support is compiled in, you can type C-o at any time
300 and you will be taken back to Midnight Commander's main screen, to re‐
301 turn to your application just type C-o. If you have an application
302 suspended by using this trick, you won't be able to execute other pro‐
303 grams from Midnight Commander until you terminate the suspended appli‐
304 cation.
305 Directory Panels
307 This section lists the keys which operate on the directory panels. If
308 you want to know how to change the appearance of the panels take a look
309 at the section on Left and Right Menus.
310 Tab, C-i
312 change the current panel. The old other panel becomes the new
313 current panel and the old current panel becomes the new other
314 panel. The selection bar moves from the old current panel to the
315 new current panel.
316 Insert, C-t
318 to tag files you may use the Insert key (the kich1 terminfo se‐
319 quence). To untag files, just retag a tagged file.
320 Alt-e to change charset of panel you may use Alt-e (M-e). Recoding is
322 made from selected codepage into system codepage. To cancel the
323 recoding, select "No translation" in the dialog of encodings.
324 Alt-g, Alt-r, Alt-j
326 used to select the top file in a panel, the middle file and the
327 bottom one, respectively.
328 Alt-t toggle the current display listing to show the next display
330 listing format. With this it is possible to quickly switch to
331 brief listing, long listing, user defined listing format, and
332 back to the default.
333 C-\ (control-backslash)
335 show the directory hotlist and change to the selected directory.
336 + (plus)
338 this is used to select (tag) a group of files. Midnight Comman‐
339 der will prompt for a selection options. When Files only check‐
340 box is on, only files will be selected. If Files only is off,
341 as files as directories will be selected. When Shell Patterns
342 checkbox is on, the regular expression is much like the filename
343 globbing in the shell (* standing for zero or more characters
344 and ? standing for one character). If Shell Patterns is off,
345 then the tagging of files is done with normal regular expres‐
346 sions (see ed (1)). When Case sensitive checkbox is on, the se‐
347 lection will be case sensitive characters. If Case sensitive is
348 off, the case will be ignored.
349 \ (backslash)
351 use the "\" key to unselect a group of files. This is the oppo‐
352 site of the Plus key.
353 up-key, C-p
355 move the selection bar to the previous entry in the panel.
356 down-key, C-n
358 move the selection bar to the next entry in the panel.
359 home, a1, Alt-<
361 move the selection bar to the first entry in the panel.
362 end, c1, Alt->
364 move the selection bar to the last entry in the panel.
365 next-page, C-v
367 move the selection bar one page down.
368 prev-page, Alt-v
370 move the selection bar one page up.
371 Alt-o If the currently selected file is a directory, load that direc‐
373 tory on the other panel and moves the selection to the next
374 file. If the currently selected file is not a directory, load
375 the parent directory on the other panel and moves the selection
376 to the next file.
377 Alt-i make the current directory of the current panel also the current
379 directory of the other panel. Put the other panel to the list‐
380 ing mode if needed. If the current panel is panelized, the
381 other panel doesn't become panelized.
382 C-PageUp, C-PageDown
384 only when supported by the terminal: change to ".." and to the
385 currently selected directory respectively.
386 Alt-y moves to the previous directory in the history, equivalent to
388 clicking the < with the mouse.
389 Alt-u moves to the next directory in the history, equivalent to click‐
391 ing the > with the mouse.
392 Alt-S-h, Alt-H
394 displays the directory history, equivalent to depressing the 'v'
395 with the mouse.
396 Quick search
398 The Quick search mode allows you to perform fast file search in file
399 panel. Press C-s or Alt-s to start a filename search in the directory
400 listing.
401 When the search is active, the user input will be added to the search
403 string instead of the command line. If the Show mini-status option is
404 enabled the search string is shown on the mini-status line. When typ‐
405 ing, the selection bar will move to the next file starting with the
406 typed letters. The Backspace or DEL keys can be used to correct typing
407 mistakes. If C-s is pressed again, the next match is searched for.
408 If quick search is started with double pressing of C-s, the previous
410 quick search pattern will be used for current search.
411 Besides the filename characters, you can also use wildcard characters
413 '*' and '?'.
414 Shell Command Line
416 This section lists keys which are useful to avoid excessive typing when
417 entering shell commands.
418 Alt-Enter
420 copy the currently selected file name to the command line.
421 C-Enter
423 same a Alt-Enter. May not work on remote systems and some ter‐
424 minals.
425 C-S-Enter
427 copy the full path name of the currently selected file to the
428 command line. May not work on remote systems and some termi‐
429 nals.
430 Alt-Tab
432 does the filename, command, variable, username and hostname com‐
433 pletion for you.
434 C-x t, C-x C-t
436 copy the tagged files (or if there are no tagged files, the se‐
437 lected file) of the current panel (C-x t) or of the other panel
438 (C-x C-t) to the command line.
439 C-x p, C-x C-p
441 the first key sequence copies the current path name to the com‐
442 mand line, and the second one copies the unselected panel's path
443 name to the command line.
444 C-q the quote command can be used to insert characters that are oth‐
446 erwise interpreted by Midnight Commander (like the '+' symbol)
447 Alt-p, Alt-n
449 use these keys to browse through the command history. Alt-p
450 takes you to the last entry, Alt-n takes you to the next one.
451 Alt-h displays the history for the current input line.
453 General Movement Keys
455 The help viewer, the file viewer and the directory tree use common code
456 to handle moving. Therefore they accept exactly the same keys. Each of
457 them also accepts some keys of its own.
458 Other parts of Midnight Commander use some of the same movement keys,
460 so this section may be of use for those parts too.
461 Up, C-p
463 moves one line backward.
464 Down, C-n
466 moves one line forward.
467 Prev Page, Page Up, Alt-v
469 moves one page up.
470 Next Page, Page Down, C-v
472 moves one page down.
473 Home, A1
475 moves to the beginning.
476 End, C1
478 move to the end.
479 The help viewer and the file viewer accept the following keys in addi‐
481 tion the to ones mentioned above:
482 b, C-b, C-h, Backspace, Delete
484 moves one page up.
485 Space bar
487 moves one page down.
488 u, d moves one half of a page up or down.
490 g, G moves to the beginning or to the end.
492 Input Line Keys
494 The input lines (they are used for the command line and for the query
495 dialogs in the program) accept these keys:
496 C-a puts the cursor at the beginning of line.
498 C-e puts the cursor at the end of the line.
500 C-b, move-left
502 move the cursor one position left.
503 C-f, move-right
505 move the cursor one position right.
506 Alt-f moves one word forward.
508 Alt-b moves one word backward.
510 C-h, Backspace
512 delete the previous character.
513 C-d, Delete
515 delete the character in the point (over the cursor).
516 C-@ sets the mark for cutting.
518 C-w copies the text between the cursor and the mark to a kill buffer
520 and removes the text from the input line.
521 Alt-w copies the text between the cursor and the mark to a kill buf‐
523 fer.
524 C-y yanks back the contents of the kill buffer.
526 C-k kills the text from the cursor to the end of the line.
528 Alt-p, Alt-n
530 Use these keys to browse through the command history. Alt-p
531 takes you to the last entry, Alt-n takes you to the next one.
532 Alt-C-h, Alt-Backspace
534 delete one word backward.
535 Alt-Tab
537 does the filename, command, variable, username and hostname com‐
538 pletion for you.
539
542 The menu bar pops up when you press F9 or click the mouse on the top
543 row of the screen. The menu bar has five menus: "Left", "File", "Com‐
544 mand", "Options" and "Right".
545 The Left and Right Menus allow you to modify the appearance of the left
547 and right directory panels.
548 The File Menu lists the actions you can perform on the currently se‐
550 lected file or the tagged files.
551 The Command Menu lists the actions which are more general and bear no
553 relation to the currently selected file or the tagged files.
554 The Options Menu lists the actions which allow you to customize Mid‐
556 night Commander.
557 Left and Right (Above and Below) Menus
559 The outlook of the directory panels can be changed from the Left and
560 Right menus (they are named Above and Below when the horizontal panel
561 split is chosen from the Layout options dialog).
562 Listing Format...
564 The listing mode view is used to display a listing of files, there are
565 four different listing formats available: Full, Brief, Long and User.
566 The full directory view shows the file name, the size of the file and
567 the modification time.
568 The brief view shows only the file name and it has from 1 up to 9 col‐
570 umns (therefore showing more files unlike other views). The long view
571 is similar to the output of ls -l command. The long view takes the
572 whole screen width.
573 If you choose the "User" display format, then you have to specify the
575 display format.
576 The user display format must start with a panel size specifier. This
578 may be "half" or "full", and they specify a half screen panel and a
579 full screen panel respectively.
580 After the panel size, you may specify how many listings to fit in the
582 panel, side-by-side (in other words: how many times to repeat the
583 fields horizontally). This defaults to 1. You may change this by adding
584 a number from 1 to 9 to the format string.
585 After this you add the name of the fields with an optional size speci‐
587 fier. This are the available fields you may display:
588 name displays the file name.
590 size displays the file size.
592 bsize is an alternative form of the size format. It displays the size
594 of the files and for directories it just shows SUB-DIR or
595 UP--DIR.
596 type displays a one character wide type field. This character is
598 similar to what is displayed by ls with the -F flag - * for exe‐
599 cutable files, / for directories, @ for links, = for sockets, -
600 for character devices, + for block devices, | for pipes, ~ for
601 symbolic links to directories and ! for stale symlinks (links
602 that point nowhere).
603 mark an asterisk if the file is tagged, a space if it's not.
605 mtime file's last modification time.
607 atime file's last access time.
609 ctime file's status change time.
611 perm a string representing the current permission bits of the file.
613 mode an octal value with the current permission bits of the file.
615 nlink the number of links to the file.
617 ngid the GID (numeric).
619 nuid the UID (numeric).
621 owner the owner of the file.
623 group the group of the file.
625 inode the inode of the file.
627 Also you can use following keywords to define the panel layout:
629 space a space in the display format.
631 | add a vertical line to the display format.
633 To force one field to a fixed size (a size specifier), you just add :
635 followed by the number of characters you want the field to have. If
636 the number is followed by the symbol +, then the size specifies the
637 minimal field size - if the program finds out that there is more space
638 on the screen, it will then expand that field.
639 For example, the Full display corresponds to this format:
641 half type name | size | mtime
643 And the Long display corresponds to this format:
645 full perm space nlink space owner space group space size space mtime
647 space name
648 This is a nice user display format:
650 half name | size:7 | type mode:3
652 Panels may also be set to the following modes:
654 Info The info view display information related to the currently se‐
656 lected file and if possible information about the current file
657 system.
658 Tree The tree view is quite similar to the directory tree feature.
660 See the section about it for more information.
661 Quick View
663 In this mode, the panel will switch to a reduced viewer that
664 displays the contents of the currently selected file, if you se‐
665 lect the panel (with the tab key or the mouse), you will have
666 access to the usual viewer commands.
667 Sort Order...
669 The eight sort orders are by name, by extension, by modification time,
670 by access time, and by inode information modification time, by size, by
671 inode and unsorted. In the Sort order dialog box you can choose the
672 sort order and you may also specify if you want to sort in reverse or‐
673 der by checking the reverse box.
674 By default directories are sorted before files but this can be changed
676 from the Panel options menu (option Mix all files).
677 Filter...
679 The filter command allows you to specify a shell pattern (for example
680 *.tar.gz) which the files must match to be shown. Regardless of the
681 filter pattern, the directories and the links to directories are always
682 shown in the directory panel.
683 Reread
685 The reread command reload the list of files in the directory. It is
686 useful if other processes have created or removed files.
687 File Menu
689 Midnight Commander uses the F1 - F10 keys as keyboard shortcuts for
690 commands appearing in the file menu. The escape sequences for the
691 function keys are terminfo capabilities kf1 trough kf10. On terminals
692 without function key support, you can achieve the same functionality by
693 pressing the Esc key and then a number in the range 1 through 9 and 0
694 (corresponding to F1 to F9 and F10 respectively).
695 The File menu has the following commands (keyboard shortcuts in paren‐
697 theses):
698 Help (F1)
700 Invokes the built-in hypertext help viewer. Inside the help viewer, you
702 can use the Tab key to select the next link and the Enter key to follow
703 that link. The keys Space and Backspace are used to move forward and
704 backward in a help page. Press F1 again to get the full list of ac‐
705 cepted keys.
706 Menu (F2)
708 Invoke the user menu. The user menu provides an easy way to provide
710 users with a menu and add extra features to Midnight Commander.
711 View (F3, F13)
713 View the currently selected file. By default this invokes the Internal
715 File Viewer but if the option "Use internal view" is off, it invokes an
716 external file viewer specified by the VIEWER environment variable. If
717 VIEWER is undefined, the PAGER environment variable is tried. If PAGER
718 is also undefined, the "view" command is invoked. If you use F13 in‐
719 stead, the viewer will be invoked without doing any formatting or pre‐
720 processing to the file.
721 See parameters for external viewer for explain how you may specify an
723 extended command line options for external viewers.
724 Filtered View (Alt-!)
726 This command prompts for a command and its arguments (the argument de‐
728 faults to the currently selected file name), the output from such com‐
729 mand is shown in the internal file viewer.
730 Edit (F4, F14)
732 Press F4 to edit the highlighted file. Press F14 (usually F14) to
734 start the editor with a new, empty file. Currently they invoke the vi
735 editor, or the editor specified in the EDITOR environment variable, or
736 the Internal File Editor if the use_internal_edit option is on.
737 See parameters for external editor for explain how you may specify an
739 extended command line options for external editors.
740 Copy (F5, F15)
742 Press F5 to pop up an input dialog to copy the currently selected file
744 (or the tagged files, if there is at least one file tagged) to the di‐
745 rectory/filename you specify in the input dialog. The destination de‐
746 faults to the directory in the non-selected panel. Space for destina‐
747 tion file may be preallocated relative to preallocate_space configure
748 option. During this process, you can press C-c or Esc to abort the op‐
749 eration. For details about source mask (which will be usually either *
750 or ^\(.*\)$ depending on setting of Use shell patterns) and possible
751 wildcards in the destination see Mask copy/rename.
752 F15 (usually F15) is similar, but defaults to the directory in the se‐
754 lected panel. It always operates on the selected file, regardless of
755 any tagged files.
756 On some systems, it is possible to do the copy in the background by
758 clicking on the background button (or pressing Alt-b in the dialog
759 box). The Background Jobs is used to control the background process.
760 Link (C-x l)
762 Create a hard link to the current file.
764 Absolute symlink (C-x s)
766 Create a absolute symbolic link to the current file.
768 Relative symLink (C-x v)
770 Create a relative symbolic link to the current file.
772 To those of you who don't know what links are: creating a link to a
774 file is a bit like copying the file, but both the source filename and
775 the destination filename represent the same file image. For example, if
776 you edit one of these files, all changes you make will appear in both
777 files. Some people call links aliases or shortcuts.
778 A hard link appears as a real file. After making it, there is no way of
780 telling which one is the original and which is the link. If you delete
781 either one of them the other one is still intact. It is very difficult
782 to notice that the files represent the same image. Use hard links when
783 you don't even want to know.
784 A symbolic link is a reference to the name of the original file. If the
786 original file is deleted the symbolic link is useless. It is quite easy
787 to notice that the files represent the same image. Midnight Commander
788 shows an "@"-sign in front of the file name if it is a symbolic link to
789 somewhere (except to directory, where it shows a tilde (~)). The orig‐
790 inal file which the link points to is shown on mini-status line if the
791 Show mini-status option is enabled. Use symbolic links when you want to
792 avoid the confusion that can be caused by hard links.
793 When you press "C-x s" Midnight Commander will automatically fill in
795 the complete path+filename of the original file and suggest a name for
796 the link. You can change either one.
797 Sometimes you may want to change the absolute path of the original into
799 a relative path. An absolute path starts from the root directory:
800 /home/frodo/mc/mc -> /home/frodo/new/mc
802 A relative link describes the original file's location starting from
804 the location of the link itself:
805 /home/frodo/mc/mc -> ../new/mc
807 You can force Midnight Commander to suggest a relative path by pressing
809 "C-x v" instead of "C-x s".
810 Rename/Move (F6, F16)
812 Press F6 to pop up an input dialog to copy the currently selected file
814 (or the tagged files, if there is at least one file tagged) to the di‐
815 rectory/filename you specify in the input dialog. The destination de‐
816 faults to the directory in the non-selected panel. For more details
817 look at Copy (F5) operation above, most of the things are quite simi‐
818 lar.
819 F16 (usually F16) is similar, but defaults to the directory in the se‐
821 lected panel. It always operates on the selected file, regardless of
822 any tagged files.
823 On some systems, it is possible to do the copy in the background by
825 clicking on the background button (or pressing Alt-b in the dialog
826 box). The Background Jobs is used to control the background process.
827 Mkdir (F7)
829 Pop up an input dialog and creates the directory specified.
831 Delete (F8)
833 Delete the currently selected file or the tagged files in the currently
835 selected panel. During the process, you can press C-c or Esc to abort
836 the operation.
837 Quick cd (Alt-c) Use the quick cd command if you have full command line
839 and want to cd somewhere.
840 Select group (+)
842 This is used to select (tag) a group of files. Midnight Commander will
844 prompt for a selection options. When Files only checkbox is on, only
845 files will be selected. If Files only is off, as files as directories
846 will be selected. When Shell Patterns checkbox is on, the regular ex‐
847 pression is much like the filename globbing in the shell (* standing
848 for zero or more characters and ? standing for one character). If
849 Shell Patterns is off, then the tagging of files is done with normal
850 regular expressions (see ed (1)). When Case sensitive checkbox is on,
851 the selection will be case sensitive characters. If Case sensitive is
852 off, the case will be ignored.
853 Unselect group (\)
855 Used to unselect a group of files. This is the opposite of the Select
857 group command.
858 Quit (F10, S-F10)
860 Terminate Midnight Commander. S-F10 is used when you want to quit and
862 you are using the shell wrapper. S-F10 will not take you to the last
863 directory you visited with Midnight Commander, instead it will stay at
864 the directory where you started Midnight Commander.
865 Quick cd
867 This command is useful if you have a full command line and want to cd
868 somewhere without having to yank and paste the command line. This com‐
869 mand pops up a small dialog, where you enter everything you would enter
870 after cd on the command line and then you press enter. This features
871 all the things that are already in the internal cd command.
872 Command Menu
874 The Directory tree command shows a tree figure of the directories.
875 The "Find file" command allows you to search for a specific file.
877 The "Swap panels" command swaps the contents of the two directory pan‐
879 els.
880 The "Switch panels on/off" command shows the output of the last shell
882 command. This works only on xterm and on Linux and FreeBSD console.
883 The "Compare directories" command compares the directory panels with
885 each other. You can then use the Copy (F5) command to make the panels
886 identical. There are three compare methods. The quick method compares
887 only file size and file date. The thorough method makes a full
888 byte-by-byte compare. The thorough method is not available if the ma‐
889 chine does not support the mmap(2) system call. The size-only compare
890 method just compares the file sizes and does not check the contents or
891 the date times, it just checks the file size.
892 The "External panelize" allows you to execute an external program, and
894 make the output of that program the contents of the current panel.
895 The "Command history" command shows a list of typed commands. The se‐
897 lected command is copied to the command line. The command history can
898 also be accessed by typing Alt-p or Alt-n.
899 The "Directory hotlist" command makes changing of the current directory
901 to often used directories faster.
902 The "Screen list" command shows a dialog window with the list of cur‐
904 rently running internal editors, viewers and other MC modules that sup‐
905 port this mode.
906 The "Edit extension file" command allows you to specify programs to ex‐
908 ecuted when you try to execute, view, edit and do a bunch of other
909 thing on files with certain extensions (filename endings).
910 The "Edit Menu File" command may be used for editing the user menu
912 (which appears by pressing F2).
913 Directory Tree
915 The Directory Tree command shows a tree figure of the directories. You
916 can select a directory from the figure and Midnight Commander will
917 change to that directory.
918 There are two ways to invoke the tree. The real directory tree command
920 is available from Commands menu. The other way is to select tree view
921 from the Left or Right menu.
922 To get rid of long delays, Midnight Commander creates the tree figure
924 by scanning only a small subset of all the directories. If the direc‐
925 tory which you want to see is missing, move to its parent directory and
926 press C-r (or F2).
927 You can use the following keys:
929 General movement keys
931 are accepted.
932 Enter. In the directory tree, exits the directory tree and changes to
934 this directory in the current panel. In the tree view, changes
935 to this directory in the other panel and stays in tree view mode
936 in the current panel.
937 C-r, F2 (Rescan).
939 Rescan this directory. Use this when the tree figure is out of
940 date: it is missing subdirectories or shows some subdirectories
941 which don't exist any more.
942 F3 (Forget).
944 Delete this directory from the tree figure. Use this to remove
945 clutter from the figure. If you want the directory back to the
946 tree figure press F2 in its parent directory.
947 F4 (Static/Dynamic).
949 Toggle between the dynamic navigation mode (default) and the
950 static navigation mode.
951 In the static navigation mode you can use the Up and Down keys to se‐
953 lect a directory. All known directories are shown.
954 In the dynamic navigation mode you can use the Up and Down keys to se‐
956 lect a sibling directory, the Left key to move to the parent directory,
957 and the Right key to move to a child directory. Only the parent, sib‐
958 ling and children directories are shown, others are left out. The tree
959 figure changes dynamically as you traverse.
960 F5 (Copy).
962 Copy the directory.
963 F6 (RenMov).
965 Move the directory.
966 F7 (Mkdir).
968 Make a new directory below this directory.
969 F8 (Delete).
971 Delete this directory from the file system.
972 C-s, Alt-s.
974 Search the next directory matching the search string. If there
975 is no such directory these keys will move one line down.
976 C-h, Backspace.
978 Delete the last character of the search string.
979 Any other character.
981 Add the character to the search string and move to the next di‐
982 rectory which starts with these characters. In the tree view you
983 must first activate the search mode by pressing C-s. The search
984 string is shown in the mini status line.
985 The following actions are available only in the directory tree. They
987 aren't supported in the tree view.
988 F1 (Help).
990 Invoke the help viewer and show this section.
991 Esc, F10.
993 Exit the directory tree. Do not change the directory.
994 The mouse is supported. A double-click behaves like Enter. See also the
996 section on mouse support.
997 Find File
999 The Find File feature first asks for the start directory for the search
1000 and the filename to be searched for. By pressing the Tree button you
1001 can select the start directory from the directory tree figure.
1002 The "File name" input field contains a filename pattern to be searched
1004 for. It is interpreted as a shell pattern or as a regular expression
1005 depending on the state of the "Using shell patterns" checkbox. An empty
1006 value is valid and matches any file name.
1007 The "Content" input field contains a string to search for within the
1009 files. Leave this field empty to disable searching file contents.
1010 Option "Whole words" allows select only those files containing matches
1012 that form whole words. Like grep -w.
1013 You can start the search by pressing the OK button. During the search
1015 you can stop from the Stop button and continue from the Start button.
1016 You can browse the filelist with the up and down arrow keys. The Chdir
1018 button will change to the directory of the currently selected file. The
1019 Again button will ask for the parameters for a new search. The Quit
1020 button quits the search operation. The Panelize button will place the
1021 found files to the current directory panel so that you can do addi‐
1022 tional operations on them (view, copy, move, delete and so on). To re‐
1023 turn to the normal file listing, change directory to "..".
1024 The 'Enable ignore directories' checkbox and input field below it allow
1026 one to set up the list of directories that should be skip during the
1027 search files (for example, you may want to avoid searches on a CD-ROM
1028 or on a NFS directory that is mounted across a slow link). List compo‐
1029 nents must be separated with a colon, here is an example:
1030 /cdrom:/nfs/wuarchive:/afs
1032 Relative paths are supported also. The following example shows how to
1034 skip special directories of version control systems:
1035 /cdrom:/nfs/wuarchive:/afs:.svn:.git:CVS
1036 Attention: input field can contain a dot (.), this means the current
1038 absolute path.
1039 You may consider using the External panelize command for some opera‐
1041 tions. Find file command is for simple queries only, while using Exter‐
1042 nal panelize you can do as mysterious searches as you would like.
1043 External panelize
1045 The External panelize allows you to execute an external program, and
1046 make the output of that program the contents of the current panel.
1047 For example, if you want to manipulate in one of the panels all the
1049 symbolic links in the current directory, you can use external paneliza‐
1050 tion to run the following command:
1051 find . -type l -print
1053 Upon command completion, the directory contents of the panel will no
1055 longer be the directory listing of the current directory, but all the
1056 files that are symbolic links.
1057 If you want to panelize all of the files that have been downloaded from
1059 your FTP server, you can use this awk command to extract the file name
1060 from the transfer log files:
1061 awk '$9 ~! /incoming/ { print $9 }' < /var/log/xferlog
1063 You may want to save often used panelize commands under a descriptive
1065 name, so that you can recall them quickly. You do this by typing the
1066 command on the input line and pressing Add new button. Then you enter a
1067 name under which you want the command to be saved. Next time, you just
1068 choose that command from the list and do not have to type it again.
1069 Hotlist
1071 The Directory hotlist command shows the labels of the directories in
1072 the directory hotlist. Midnight Commander will change to the directory
1073 corresponding to the selected label. From the hotlist dialog, you can
1074 remove already created label/directory pairs and add new ones. To add
1075 new directories quickly, you can use the Add to hotlist command (C-x
1076 h), which adds the current directory into the directory hotlist, asking
1077 just for the label for the directory.
1078 This makes cd to often used directories faster. You may consider using
1080 the CDPATH variable as described in internal cd command description.
1081 Edit Extension File
1083 This will invoke your editor on the file ~/.config/mc/mc.ext. The for‐
1084 mat of this file following:
1085 All lines starting with # or empty lines are thrown away.
1087 Lines starting in the first column should have following format:
1089 keyword/expr, i.e. everything after the slash until new line is expr.
1091 keyword can be:
1093 shell - expr is an extension (no wildcards). File matches it its name
1095 ends with expr. Example: shell/.tar matches *.tar.
1096 regex - expr is a regular expression. File matches if its name
1098 matches the regular expression.
1099 directory
1101 - expr is a regular expression. File matches if it is a direc‐
1102 tory and its name matches the regular expression.
1103 type - expr is a regular expression. File matches if the output of
1105 file %f without the initial "filename:" part matches regular ex‐
1106 pression expr.
1107 default
1109 - matches any file. expr is ignored.
1110 include
1112 - denotes a common section. expr is the name of the section.
1113 Other lines should start with a space or tab and should be of the for‐
1115 mat: keyword=command (with no spaces around =), where keyword should
1116 be: Open (invoked on Enter or double click), View (F3), Edit (F4) or
1117 Include (to add rules from the common section). command is any
1118 one-line shell command, with the simple macro substitution.
1119 Rules are matched from top to bottom, thus the order is important. If
1121 the appropriate action is missing, search continues as if this rule
1122 didn't match (i.e. if a file matches the first and second entry and
1123 View action is missing in the first one, then on pressing F3 the View
1124 action from the second entry will be used). default should match all
1125 the actions.
1126 Background Jobs
1128 This lets you control the state of any background Midnight Commander
1129 process (only copy and move files operations can be done in the back‐
1130 ground). You can stop, restart and kill a background job from here.
1131 Edit Menu File
1133 The user menu is a menu of useful actions that can be customized by the
1134 user. When you access the user menu, the file .mc.menu from the current
1135 directory is used if it exists, but only if it is owned by user or root
1136 and is not world-writable. If no such file found, ~/.config/mc/menu is
1137 tried in the same way, and otherwise mc uses the default system-wide
1138 menu /usr/share/mc/mc.menu.
1139 The format of the menu file is very simple. Lines that start with any‐
1141 thing but space or tab are considered entries for the menu (in order to
1142 be able to use it like a hot key, the first character should be a let‐
1143 ter). All the lines that start with a space or a tab are the commands
1144 that will be executed when the entry is selected.
1145 When an option is selected all the command lines of the option are
1147 copied to a temporary file in the temporary directory (usually
1148 /usr/tmp) and then that file is executed. This allows the user to put
1149 normal shell constructs in the menus. Also simple macro substitution
1150 takes place before executing the menu code. For more information, see
1151 macro substitution.
1152 Here is a sample mc.menu file:
1154 A Dump the currently selected file
1156 od -c %f
1157 B Edit a bug report and send it to root
1159 I=`mktemp ${MC_TMPDIR:-/tmp}/mail.XXXXXX` || exit 1
1160 vi $I
1161 mail -s "Midnight Commander bug" root < $I
1162 rm -f $I
1163 M Read mail
1165 emacs -f rmail
1166 N Read Usenet news
1168 emacs -f gnus
1169 H Call the info hypertext browser
1171 info
1172 J Copy current directory to other panel recursively
1174 tar cf - . | (cd %D && tar xvpf -)
1175 K Make a release of the current subdirectory
1177 echo -n "Name of distribution file: "
1178 read tar
1179 ln -s %d `dirname %d`/$tar
1180 cd ..
1181 tar cvhf ${tar}.tar $tar
1182 = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n
1184 X Extract the contents of a compressed tar file
1185 tar xzvf %f
1186 Default Conditions
1188 Each menu entry may be preceded by a condition. The condition must
1190 start from the first column with a '=' character. If the condition is
1191 true, the menu entry will be the default entry.
1192 Condition syntax: = <sub-cond>
1194 or: = <sub-cond> | <sub-cond> ...
1195 or: = <sub-cond> & <sub-cond> ...
1196 Sub-condition is one of following:
1198 y <pattern> syntax of current file matching pattern?
1200 (for edit menu only)
1201 f <pattern> current file matching pattern?
1202 F <pattern> other file matching pattern?
1203 d <pattern> current directory matching pattern?
1204 D <pattern> other directory matching pattern?
1205 t <type> current file of type?
1206 T <type> other file of type?
1207 x <filename> is it executable filename?
1208 ! <sub-cond> negate the result of sub-condition
1209 Pattern is a normal shell pattern or a regular expression, according to
1211 the shell patterns option. You can override the global value of the
1212 shell patterns option by writing "shell_patterns=x" on the first line
1213 of the menu file (where "x" is either 0 or 1).
1214 Type is one or more of the following characters:
1216 n not a directory
1218 r regular file
1219 d directory
1220 l link
1221 c character device
1222 b block device
1223 f FIFO (pipe)
1224 s socket
1225 x executable file
1226 t tagged
1227 For example 'rlf' means either regular file, link or fifo. The 't' type
1229 is a little special because it acts on the panel instead of the file.
1230 The condition '=t t' is true if there are tagged files in the current
1231 panel and false if not.
1232 If the condition starts with '=?' instead of '=' a debug trace will be
1234 shown whenever the value of the condition is calculated.
1235 The conditions are calculated from left to right. This means
1237 = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n
1238 is calculated as
1239 ( (f *.tar.gz) | (f *.tgz) ) & (t n)
1240 Here is a sample of the use of conditions:
1242 = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n
1244 L List the contents of a compressed tar-archive
1245 gzip -cd %f | tar xvf -
1246 Addition Conditions
1248 If the condition begins with '+' (or '+?') instead of '=' (or '=?') it
1250 is an addition condition. If the condition is true the menu entry will
1251 be included in the menu. If the condition is false the menu entry will
1252 not be included in the menu.
1253 You can combine default and addition conditions by starting condition
1255 with '+=' or '=+' (or '+=?' or '=+?' if you want debug trace). If you
1256 want to use two different conditions, one for adding and another for
1257 defaulting, you can precede a menu entry with two condition lines, one
1258 starting with '+' and another starting with '='.
1259 Comments are started with '#'. The additional comment lines must start
1261 with '#', space or tab.
1262 Options Menu
1264 Midnight Commander has some options that may be toggled on and off in
1265 several dialogs which are accessible from this menu. Options are en‐
1266 abled if they have an asterisk or "x" in front of them.
1267 The Configuration command pops up a dialog from which you can change
1269 most of settings of Midnight Commander.
1270 The Layout command pops up a dialog from which you specify a bunch of
1272 options how mc looks like on the screen.
1273 The Panel options command pops up a dialog from which you specify op‐
1275 tions of file manager panels.
1276 The Confirmation command pops up a dialog from which you specify which
1278 actions you want to confirm.
1279 The Appearance command pops up a dialog from which you specify the
1281 skin.
1282 The Display bits command pops up a dialog from which you may select
1284 which characters is your terminal able to display.
1285 The Learn keys command pops up a dialog from which you test some keys
1287 which are not working on some terminals and you may fix them.
1288 The Virtual FS command pops up a dialog from which you specify some VFS
1290 related options.
1291 The Save setup command saves the current settings of the Left, Right
1293 and Options menus. A small number of other settings is saved, too.
1294 Configuration
1296 The options in this dialog are divided into several groups: "File oper‐
1297 ation options", "Esc key mode", "Pause after run" and "Other options".
1298 File operation options
1300 Verbose operation. This toggles whether the file Copy, Rename and
1302 Delete operations are verbose (i.e., display a dialog box for each op‐
1303 eration). If you have a slow terminal, you may wish to disable the ver‐
1304 bose operation. It is automatically turned off if the speed of your
1305 terminal is less than 9600 bps.
1306 Compute totals. If this option is enabled, Midnight Commander computes
1308 total byte sizes and total number of files prior to any Copy, Rename
1309 and Delete operations. This will provide you with a more accurate
1310 progress bar at the expense of some speed. This option has no effect,
1311 if Verbose operation is disabled.
1312 Classic progressbar. If this option is enabled, the progressbar of
1314 Copy/Move/Delete operations is always grown form left to right. If dis‐
1315 abled, the growing direction of progressbar follows to direction of
1316 Copy/Move/Delete operation: from left panel to right one and vice
1317 versa. Enabled by default.
1318 Mkdir autoname. When you press F7 to create a new directory, the input
1320 line in popup dialog will be filled by name of current file or direc‐
1321 tory in active panel. Disabled by default.
1322 Preallocate space. Preallocate space for whole target file, if possi‐
1324 ble, before copy operation. Disabled by default.
1325 Esc key mode.
1327 By default, Midnight Commander treats the Esc key as a key prefix.
1329 Therefore, you should press Esc code twice to exit a dialog. But there
1330 is a possibility to use a single press of Esc key for that action.
1331 Single press. By default this option is disabled. If you'll enable it,
1333 the Esc key will act as a prefix key for set up time interval (see
1334 Timeout option below), and if no extra keys have arrived, then the Esc
1335 key is interpreted as a cancel key (Esc Esc).
1336 Timeout. This options is used to setup the time interval (in microsec‐
1338 onds) for single press of Esc key. By default, this interval is one
1339 second (1000000 microseconds). Also the timeout can be set via KEY‐
1340 BOARD_KEY_TIMEOUT_US environment variable (also in microseconds), which
1341 has higher priority than Timeout option value.
1342 Pause after run
1344 After executing your commands, Midnight Commander can pause, so that
1346 you can examine the output of the command. There are three possible
1347 settings for this variable:
1348 Never. Means that you do not want to see the output of your command.
1350 If you are using the Linux or FreeBSD console or an xterm, you will be
1351 able to see the output of the command by typing C-o.
1352 On dumb terminals. You will get the pause message on terminals that
1354 are not capable of showing the output of the last command executed (any
1355 terminal that is not an xterm or the Linux console).
1356 Always. The program will pause after executing all of your commands.
1358 Other options
1360 Use internal editor. If this option is enabled, the built-in file edi‐
1362 tor is used to edit files. If the option is disabled, the editor speci‐
1363 fied in the EDITOR environment variable is used. If no editor is spec‐
1364 ified, vi is used. See the section on the internal file editor.
1365 Use internal viewer. If this option is enabled, the built-in file
1367 viewer is used to view files. If the option is disabled, the pager
1368 specified in the PAGER environment variable is used. If no pager is
1369 specified, the view command is used. See the section on the internal
1370 file viewer.
1371 Ask new file name. If this option is enabled, file name is asked be‐
1373 fore open new file in editor.
1374 Auto menus. If this option is enabled, the user menu will be invoked
1376 at startup. Useful for building menus for non-unixers.
1377 Drop down menus. When this option is enabled, the pull down menus will
1379 be activated as soon as you press the F9 key. Otherwise, you will only
1380 get the menu title, and you will have to activate the menu either with
1381 the arrow keys or with the hotkeys. It is recommended if you are using
1382 hotkeys.
1383 Shell Patterns. By default the Select, Unselect and Filter commands
1385 will use shell-like regular expressions. The following conversions are
1386 performed to achieve this: the '*' is replaced by '.*' (zero or more
1387 characters); the '?' is replaced by '.' (exactly one character) and
1388 '.' by the literal dot. If the option is disabled, then the regular ex‐
1389 pressions are the ones described in ed(1).
1390 Complete: show all. By default, Midnight Commander pops up all possi‐
1392 ble completions if the completion is ambiguous only when you press
1393 Alt-Tab for the second time. For the first time, it just completes as
1394 much as possible and beeps in the case of ambiguity. Enable this op‐
1395 tion if you want to see all possible completions even after pressing
1396 Alt-Tab the first time.
1397 Rotating dash. If this option is enabled, the Midnight Commander shows
1399 a rotating dash in the upper right corner as a work in progress indica‐
1400 tor.
1401 Cd follows links. This option, if set, causes Midnight Commander to
1403 follow the logical chain of directories when changing current directory
1404 either in the panels, or using the cd command. This is the default be‐
1405 havior of bash. When unset, Midnight Commander follows the real direc‐
1406 tory structure, so cd .. if you've entered that directory through a
1407 link will move you to the current directory's real parent and not to
1408 the directory where the link was present.
1409 Safe delete. If this option is enabled, deleting files and directory
1411 hotlist entries unintentionally becomes more difficult. The default
1412 selection in the confirmation dialogs for deletion changes from Yes to
1413 No. This option is disabled by default.
1414 Safe overwrite. If this option is enabled, overwriting files uninten‐
1416 tionally becomes more difficult. The default selection in the over‐
1417 write confirmation dialog changes from Yes to No. This option is dis‐
1418 abled by default.
1419 Auto save setup. If this option is enabled, when you exit Midnight
1421 Commander, the configurable options of Midnight Commander are saved in
1422 the ~/.config/mc/ini file.
1423 Layout
1425 The layout dialog gives you a possibility to change the general layout
1426 of screen. The options in this dialog are divided into several groups:
1427 "Panel split", "Console output" and "Other options".
1428 Panel split
1430 The rest of the screen area is used for the two directory panels. You
1432 can specify whether the area is split to the panels in Vertical or Hor‐
1433 izontal direction. Panel layout can be changed using Alt-, (Alt-comma)
1434 shortcut.
1435 Equal split. By default, panels have equal sizes. Using this option
1437 you can specify an unequal split.
1438 Console output
1440 On the Linux or FreeBSD console you can specify how many lines are
1442 shown in the output window. This option is available if Midnight Com‐
1443 mander runs on native console only.
1444 Other options
1446 Menu bar visible. If enabled, main menu of Midnight Commander is al‐
1448 ways visible on the top row of screen above panels. Enabled by default.
1449 Command prompt. If enabled, command line is available. Enabled by de‐
1451 fault.
1452 Keybar visible. If enabled, 10 labels associated with F1-F10 keys are
1454 located at the bottom row of screen. Enabled by default.
1455 Hintbar visible. If enabled, the one-line hints are visible below pan‐
1457 els. Enabled by default.
1458 XTerm window title. When run in a terminal emulator for X11, Midnight
1460 Commander sets the terminal window title to the current working direc‐
1461 tory and updates it when necessary. If your terminal emulator is bro‐
1462 ken and you see some incorrect output on startup and directory change,
1463 turn off this option. Enabled by default.
1464 Show free space. If enabled, free space and total space of current
1466 file system is shown at the bottom frame of panel. Enabled by default.
1467 Panel options
1469 Main panel options
1470 Show mini-status. If enabled, one line of status information about the
1472 currently selected item is shown at the bottom of the panels. Enabled
1473 by default.
1474 Use SI size units. If this option is enabled, Midnight Commander will
1476 use SI prefixes (base 10) when displaying any byte sizes. If disabled
1477 (default), Midnight Commander will use IEC prefixes (base 2).
1478 Mix all files. If this option is enabled, all files and directories
1480 are shown mixed together. If the option is disabled (default), direc‐
1481 tories (and links to directories) are shown at the beginning of the
1482 listing, and other files below.
1483 Show backup files. If enabled, Midnight Commander will show files end‐
1485 ing with a tilde. Otherwise, they won't be shown (like GNU's ls option
1486 -B). Enabled by default.
1487 Show hidden files. If enabled, Midnight Commander will show all files
1489 that start with a dot (like ls -a). Disabled by default.
1490 Fast directory reload. If this option is enabled, Midnight Commander
1492 will use a trick to determine if the directory contents have changed.
1493 The trick is to reload the directory only if the i-node of the direc‐
1494 tory has changed; this means that reloads only happen when files are
1495 created or deleted. If what changes is the i-node for a file in the
1496 directory (file size changes, mode or owner changes, etc) the display
1497 is not updated. In these cases, if you have the option on, you have to
1498 rescan the directory manually (with C-r). Disabled by default.
1499 Mark moves down. If enabled, the selection bar will move down when you
1501 mark a file (with Insert key). Enabled by default.
1502 Reverse files only. Allow revert selection of files only. Enabled by
1504 default. If enabled, the reverse selection is applied to files only,
1505 not to directories. The selection of directories is untouched. If off,
1506 the reverse selection is applied to files as well to directories: all
1507 unselected items become selected, and vice versa.
1508 Simple swap. If both panels contain file listing, simple swap means
1510 that panels exchange its screen positions: left panel become right one,
1511 and vice versa. If this option is unchecked, file listing panels ex‐
1512 change its content keeping listing format and sort options. Unchecked
1513 by default.
1514 Auto save panels setup. If this option is enabled, when you exit Mid‐
1516 night Commander, the current settings of panels are saved in the
1517 ~/.config/mc/panels.ini file. Disabled by default.
1518 Navigation
1520 Lynx-like motion. If this option is enabled, you may use the arrows
1522 keys to automatically chdir if the current selection is a subdirectory
1523 and the shell command line is empty. By default, this setting is off.
1524 Page scrolling. If set (the default), panel will scroll by half the
1526 display when the cursor reaches the end or the beginning of the panel,
1527 otherwise it will just scroll a file at a time.
1528 Center scrolling. If set, panel will scroll when the cursor reaches
1530 the middle of the panel column, only hitting the top or bottom of the
1531 panel when actually on the first or last file. This behavior applies
1532 when scrolling one file at a time, and does not apply to the page
1533 up/down keys.
1534 Mouse page scrolling. Controls whenever scrolling with the mouse wheel
1536 is done by pages or line by line on the panels.
1537 File highlight
1539 You can specify whether permissions and file types should be high‐
1541 lighted with distinctive Colors. If the permission highlighting is en‐
1542 abled, the parts of the perm and mode display fields which apply to the
1543 user running Midnight Commander are highlighted with the color defined
1544 by the selected keyword. If the file type highlighting is enabled,
1545 file names are colored according to rules described in /etc/mc/file‐
1546 highlight.ini file. See Filenames Highlight for more info.
1547 Quick search
1549 You can specify how the Quick search mode should work: case insensi‐
1551 tively, case sensitively or be matched to the panel sort order: case
1552 sensitive or not.
1553 Confirmation
1555 In this dialog you configure the confirmation options for file dele‐
1556 tion, overwriting files, execution by pressing enter, quitting the pro‐
1557 gram, directory hotlist entries deletion and history cleanup.
1558 Appearance
1560 In this dialog you can select the skin to be used and enable shadow for
1561 dialogs and drop down menus.
1562 See the Skins section for technical details about the skin definition
1564 files.
1565 Shadows. If this option is enabled, all dialogs and drop down menus
1567 will have a shadow.
1568 Display bits
1570 This is used to configure the range of visible characters on the
1571 screen. This setting may be 7-bits if your terminal/curses supports
1572 only seven output bits, ISO-8859-1 displays all the characters in the
1573 ISO-8859-1 map and full 8 bits is for those terminals that can display
1574 full 8 bit characters.
1575 Learn keys
1577 This dialog allows you to test and redefine functional keys, cursor ar‐
1578 rows and some other keys to make them work properly on your terminal.
1579 They often don't, since many terminal databases are incomplete or bro‐
1580 ken.
1581 You can move around with the Tab key and with the vi moving keys ('h'
1583 left, 'j' down, 'k' up and 'l' right). Once you press any cursor move‐
1584 ment key and it is recognized, you can use that key as well.
1585 You can test keys just by pressing each of them. When you press a key
1587 and it is recognized properly, OK should appear next to the name of
1588 that key. Once a key is marked OK it starts working as usually, e.g.
1589 F1 pressed the first time will just check that the F1 key works, but
1590 after that it will show help. The same applies to the arrow keys. The
1591 Tab key should be working always.
1592 If some keys do not work properly then you won't see OK appear after
1594 pressing one of these. Then you may want to redefine it. Do it by
1595 pressing the button with the name of that key (either by the mouse or
1596 by Enter or Space after selecting the button with Tab or arrows). Then
1597 a message box will appear asking you to press that key. Do it and wait
1598 until the message box disappears. If you want to abort, just press Es‐
1599 cape once and wait.
1600 When you finish with all the keys, you can Save them. The definitions
1602 for the keys you have redefined will be written into the [termi‐
1603 nal:TERM] section of your ~/.config/mc/ini file (where TERM is the name
1604 of your current terminal). The definitions of the keys that were al‐
1605 ready working properly are not saved.
1606 Virtual FS
1608 This option gives you control over the settings of the Virtual File
1609 System.
1610 Midnight Commander keeps in memory the information related to some of
1612 the virtual file systems to speed up the access to the files in the
1613 file system (for example, directory listings fetched from FTP servers).
1614 Also, in order to access the contents of compressed files (for example,
1616 compressed tar files), Midnight Commander needs to create temporary un‐
1617 compressed files on your disk.
1618 Since both the information in memory and the temporary files on disk
1620 take up resources, you may want to tune the parameters of the cached
1621 information to decrease your resource usage or to maximize the speed of
1622 access to frequently used file systems.
1623 Because of the format of the tar archives, the Tar filesystem needs to
1625 read the whole file just to load the file entries. Since most tar
1626 files are usually kept compressed (plain tar files are species in ex‐
1627 tinction), the tar file system has to uncompress the file on the disk
1628 in a temporary location and then access the uncompressed file as a reg‐
1629 ular tar file.
1630 Now, since we all love to browse files and tar files all over the disk,
1632 it's common that you will leave a tar file and then re-enter it later.
1633 Since decompression is slow, Midnight Commander will cache the informa‐
1634 tion in memory for a limited time. When the timeout expires, all the
1635 resources associated with the file system are released. The default
1636 timeout is set to one minute.
1637 The FTP File System (ftpfs) allows you to browse directories on remote
1639 FTP servers. It has several options.
1640 ftp anonymous password is the password used when you login as "anony‐
1642 mous". Some sites require a valid e-mail address. On the other hand,
1643 you probably don't want to give your real e-mail address to untrusted
1644 sites, especially if you are not using spam filtering.
1645 ftpfs keeps the directory listing it fetches from a FTP server in a
1647 cache. The cache expire time is configurable with the ftpfs directory
1648 cache timeout option. A low value for this option may slow down every
1649 operation on the ftpfs because every operation would require sending a
1650 request to the FTP server.
1651 You can define an FTP proxy host for doing FTP. Note that most modern
1653 firewalls are fully transparent at least for passive FTP (see below),
1654 so FTP proxies are considered obsolete.
1655 If Always use ftp proxy is not set, you can use the exclamation sign to
1657 enable proxy for certain hosts. See FTP File System for examples.
1658 If this option is set, the program will do two things: consult the
1660 /usr/lib/mc/mc.no_proxy file for lines containing host names that are
1661 local (if the host name starts with a dot, it is assumed to be a do‐
1662 main) and to assume that any hostnames without dots in their names are
1663 directly accessible. All other hosts will be accessed through the
1664 specified FTP proxy.
1665 You can enable using ~/.netrc file, which keeps login names and pass‐
1667 words for ftp servers. See netrc (5) for the description of the .netrc
1668 format.
1669 Use passive mode enables using FTP passive mode, when the connection
1671 for data transfer is initiated by the client, not by the server. This
1672 option is recommended and enabled by default. If this option is turned
1673 off, the data connection is initiated by the server. This may not work
1674 with some firewalls.
1675 Save Setup
1677 At startup, Midnight Commander tries to load initialization information
1678 from the ~/.config/mc/ini file. If this file doesn't exist, the sys‐
1679 tem-wide file /etc/mc/mc.ini is used. If this file doesn't exist, the
1680 system-wide file /usr/share/mc/mc.ini is used. If this file doesn't ex‐
1681 ist, MC uses the default settings.
1682 The Save Setup command creates the ~/.config/mc/ini file by saving the
1684 current settings of the Left, Right and Options menus.
1685 If you activate the auto save setup option, MC will always save the
1687 current settings when exiting.
1688 There also exist settings which can't be changed from the menus. To
1690 change these settings you have to edit the setup file with your fa‐
1691 vorite editor. See the section on Special Settings for more informa‐
1692 tion.
1693
1696 You may execute commands by typing them directly in Midnight Comman‐
1697 der's input line, or by selecting the program you want to execute with
1698 the selection bar in one of the panels and hitting Enter.
1699 If you press Enter over a file that is not executable, Midnight Comman‐
1701 der checks the extension of the selected file against the extensions in
1702 the Extensions File. If a match is found then the code associated with
1703 that extension is executed. A very simple macro expansion takes place
1704 before executing the command.
1705 The cd internal command
1707 The cd command is interpreted by Midnight Commander, it is not passed
1708 to the command shell for execution. Thus it may not handle all of the
1709 nice macro expansion and substitution that your shell does, although it
1710 does some of them:
1711 Tilde substitution. The (~) will be substituted with your home direc‐
1713 tory, if you append a username after the tilde, then it will be substi‐
1714 tuted with the login directory of the specified user.
1715 For example, ~guest is the home directory for the user guest, while
1717 ~/guest is the directory guest in your home directory.
1718 Previous directory. You can jump to the directory you were previously
1720 by using the special directory name '-' like this: cd -
1721 CDPATH directories. If the directory specified to the cd command is
1723 not in the current directory, then Midnight Commander uses the value in
1724 the environment variable CDPATH to search for the directory in any of
1725 the named directories.
1726 For example you could set your CDPATH variable to ~/src:/usr/src, al‐
1728 lowing you to change your directory to any of the directories inside
1729 the ~/src and /usr/src directories, from any place in the file system
1730 by using its relative name (for example cd linux could take you to
1731 /usr/src/linux).
1732 Macro Substitution
1734 When accessing a user menu, or executing an extension dependent com‐
1735 mand, or running a command from the command line input, a simple macro
1736 substitution takes place.
1737 The macros are:
1739 %i The indent of blank space, equal the cursor column position.
1741 For edit menu only.
1742 %y The syntax type of current file. For edit menu only.
1744 %k The block file name.
1746 %e The error file name.
1748 %m The current menu name.
1750 %f and %p
1752 In file manager user menu: the current file name in selected
1753 panel. In mcedit user menu: the name of opened file.
1754 %x The extension of current file name.
1756 %b The current file name without extension.
1758 %d The current directory name.
1760 %F The current file in the unselected panel.
1762 %D The directory name of the unselected panel.
1764 %t The currently tagged files.
1766 %T The tagged files in the unselected panel.
1768 %u and %U
1770 Similar to the %t and %T macros, but in addition the files are
1771 untagged. You can use this macro only once per menu file entry
1772 or extension file entry, because next time there will be no
1773 tagged files.
1774 %s and %S
1776 The selected files: The tagged files if there are any. Otherwise
1777 the current file.
1778 %cd This is a special macro that is used to change the current di‐
1780 rectory to the directory specified in front of it. This is used
1781 primarily as an interface to the Virtual File System.
1782 %view This macro is used to invoke the internal viewer. This macro
1784 can be used alone, or with arguments. If you pass any arguments
1785 to this macro, they should be enclosed in brackets.
1786 The arguments are: ascii to force the viewer into ascii mode;
1788 hex to force the viewer into hex mode; nroff to tell the viewer
1789 that it should interpret the bold and underline sequences of
1790 nroff; unformatted to tell the viewer to not interpret nroff
1791 commands for making the text bold or underlined.
1792 %% The % character
1794 %{some text}
1796 Prompt for the substitution. An input box is shown and the text
1797 inside the braces is used as a prompt. The macro is substituted
1798 by the text typed by the user. The user can press Esc or F10 to
1799 cancel. This macro doesn't work on the command line yet.
1800 %var{ENV:default}
1802 If environment variable ENV is unset, the default is substi‐
1803 tuted. Otherwise, the value of ENV is substituted.
1804 The subshell support
1806 The subshell support is a compile time option, that works with the
1807 shells: bash, ash (BusyBox and Debian), tcsh, zsh and fish.
1808 When the subshell support is active, Midnight Commander will spawn a
1810 concurrent copy of your shell (the one defined in the SHELL variable
1811 and if it is not defined, then the one in the /etc/passwd file) and run
1812 it in a pseudo terminal, instead of invoking a new shell each time you
1813 execute a command, the command will be passed to the subshell as if you
1814 had typed it. This also allows you to change the environment vari‐
1815 ables, use shell functions and define aliases that are valid until you
1816 quit Midnight Commander.
1817 bash users may specify startup commands in ~/.local/share/mc/bashrc
1819 (fallback ~/.bashrc) and special keyboard maps in ~/.local/share/mc/in‐
1820 putrc (fallback ~/.inputrc).
1821 ash/dash users (BusyBox or Debian) may specify startup commands in
1823 ~/.local/share/mc/ashrc (fallback ~/.profile).
1824 zsh users may specify startup commands in ~/.local/share/mc/.zshrc
1826 (fallback ~/.zshrc).
1827 tcsh, fish users cannot specify mc-specific startup commands at
1829 present. They have to rely on shell-specific startup files.
1830 The following paragraphs are relevant only when the subshell support is
1832 active:
1833 You can suspend applications at any time with the sequence C-o and jump
1835 back to Midnight Commander, if you interrupt an application, you will
1836 not be able to run other external commands until you quit the applica‐
1837 tion you interrupted.
1838 The basic prompt displayed by Midnight Commander is of the form
1840 "user@host:current_path$ ". When using a capable shell, like Bash, the
1841 prompt displayed by Midnight Commander will be the same prompt that you
1842 are currently using in your shell.
1843 (There's a known problem when using fish: the prompt is displayed only
1845 in full screen mode (Ctrl-o), not when the panels are visible.)
1846 The OPTIONS section has more information on how you can control sub‐
1848 shell usage (-U/-u). Furthermore, to set a specific subshell different
1849 from your current SHELL variable or login shell defined in /etc/passwd,
1850 you may call MC like this: SHELL=/bin/myshell mc
1851
1853 The Chmod window is used to change the attribute bits in a group of
1854 files and directories. It can be invoked with the C-x c key combina‐
1855 tion.
1856 The Chmod window has two parts - Permissions and File.
1858 In the File section are displayed the name of the file or directory and
1860 its permissions in octal form, as well as its owner and group.
1861 In the Permissions section there is a set of check buttons which corre‐
1863 spond to the file attribute bits. As you change the attribute bits,
1864 you can see the octal value change in the File section.
1865 To move between the widgets (buttons and check buttons) use the arrow
1867 keys or the Tab key. To change the state of the check buttons or to
1868 select a button use Space. You can also use the hotkeys on the buttons
1869 to quickly activate them. Hotkeys are shown as highlighted letters on
1870 the buttons.
1871 To set the attribute bits, use the Enter key.
1873 When working with a group of files or directories, you just click on
1875 the bits you want to set or clear. Once you have selected the bits you
1876 want to change, you select one of the action buttons (Set marked or
1877 Clear marked).
1878 Finally, to set the attributes exactly to those specified, you can use
1880 the [Set all] button, which will act on all the tagged files.
1881 [Marked all] set only marked attributes to all selected files
1883 [Set marked] set marked bits in attributes of all selected files
1885 [Clean marked] clear marked bits in attributes of all selected files
1887 [Set] set the attributes of one file
1889 [Cancel] cancel the Chmod command
1891
1893 The Chown command is used to change the owner/group of a file. The hot
1894 key for this command is C-x o.
1895
1897 The Advanced Chown command is the Chmod and Chown command combined into
1898 one window. You can change the permissions and owner/group of files at
1899 once.
1900
1902 The Chattr window is used to change the attributes of a group of files
1903 and directories on a Linux file system. It can be invoked with the C-x
1904 e key combination.
1905 Not all attributes are supported or utilized by all filesystems. List
1907 of available attribute flags is represented as a set of check buttons
1908 which correspond to the attribute flags (see chattr(1) for details). As
1909 you change the attribute flags, you can see the symbolic value change
1910 below file name.
1911 To move between the widgets (buttons and check buttons) use the arrow
1913 keys or the Tab key. To change the state of the check buttons or to se‐
1914 lect a button use Space.
1915 To set the attributes, use the Enter key.
1917 When working with a group of files or directories, you just click on
1919 the flags you want to set or clear. Once you have selected the flags
1920 you want to change, you select one of the action buttons (Set marked or
1921 Clear marked).
1922 Finally, to set the attributes exactly to those specified, you can use
1924 the [Set all] button, which will act on all the tagged files.
1925 [Marked all] set only marked attributes to all selected files.
1927 [Set marked] set marked flags in attributes of all selected files.
1929 [Clean marked] clear marked flags in attributes of all selected files.
1931 [Set] set the attributes of one file.
1933 [Cancel] cancel the Chattr command.
1935
1937 When you copy, move or delete files, Midnight Commander shows the file
1938 operations dialog. It shows the files currently being processed and
1939 uses up to three progress bars. The file bar indicates the percentage
1940 of the current file that has been processed so far. The count bar
1941 shows how many of the tagged files have been handled. The bytes bar
1942 indicates the percentage of the total size of the tagged files that has
1943 been handled. If the verbose option is off, the file and bytes bars
1944 are not shown.
1945 There are two buttons at the bottom of the dialog. Pressing the Skip
1947 button will skip the rest of the current file. Pressing the Abort but‐
1948 ton will abort the whole operation, the rest of the files are skipped.
1949 There are three other dialogs which you can run into during the file
1951 operations.
1952 The error dialog informs about error conditions and has three choices.
1954 Normally you select either the Skip button to skip the file or the
1955 Abort button to abort the operation altogether. You can also select
1956 the Retry button if you fixed the problem from another terminal.
1957 The replace dialog is shown when you attempt to copy or move a file on
1959 the top of an existing file. The dialog shows the dates and sizes of
1960 the both files. Press the Yes button to overwrite the file, the No
1961 button to skip the file, the All button to overwrite all the files, the
1962 None button to never overwrite and the Update button to overwrite if
1963 the source file is newer than the target file. You can abort the whole
1964 operation by pressing the Abort button.
1965 The recursive delete dialog is shown when you try to delete a directory
1967 which is not empty. Press the Yes button to delete the directory re‐
1968 cursively, the No button to skip the directory, the All button to
1969 delete all the directories and the None button to skip all the
1970 non-empty directories. You can abort the whole operation by pressing
1971 the Abort button. If you selected the Yes or All button you will be
1972 asked for a confirmation. Type "yes" only if you are really sure you
1973 want to do the recursive delete.
1974 If you have tagged files and perform an operation on them only the
1976 files on which the operation succeeded are untagged. Failed and skipped
1977 files are left tagged.
1978
1980 The copy/move operations let you translate the names of files in an
1981 easy way. To do it, you have to specify the correct source mask and
1982 usually in the trailing part of the destination specify some wildcards.
1983 All the files matching the source mask are copied/renamed according to
1984 the target mask. If there are tagged files, only the tagged files
1985 matching the source mask are renamed.
1986 There are other options which you can set:
1988 Follow links
1990 determines whether make the symlinks and hardlinks in the source direc‐
1992 tory (recursively in subdirectories) new links in the target directory
1993 or whether would you like to copy their content.
1994 Dive into subdirs
1996 determines the behavior when the source directory is about to be
1998 copied, but the target directory already exists. The default action is
1999 to copy the contents of the source directory into the target directory.
2000 Enabling this option causes copying the source directory itself into
2001 the target directory.
2002 For example, you want to copy directory /foo containing file bar to
2004 /bla/foo, which is an already existing directory. Normally (when Dive
2005 into subdirs is not set), mc would copy file /foo/bar into the file
2006 /bla/foo/bar. By enabling this option the /bla/foo/foo directory will
2007 be created, and /foo/bar will be copied into /bla/foo/foo/bar.
2008 Preserve attributes
2010 determines whether to preserve the permissions, timestamps and (if you
2012 are root) the ownership of the original files. If this option is not
2013 set, the current value of the umask will be respected.
2014 Use shell patterns
2016 When this option is on you can use the '*' and '?' wildcards in the
2018 source mask. They work like they do in the shell. In the target mask
2019 only the '*' and '\<digit>' wildcards are allowed. The first '*' wild‐
2020 card in the target mask corresponds to the first wildcard group in the
2021 source mask, the second '*' corresponds to the second group and so on.
2022 The '\1' wildcard corresponds to the first wildcard group in the source
2023 mask, the '\2' wildcard corresponds to the second group and so on all
2024 the way up to '\9'. The '\0' wildcard is the whole filename of the
2025 source file.
2026 Two examples:
2028 If the source mask is "*.tar.gz", the destination is "/bla/*.tgz" and
2030 the file to be copied is "foo.tar.gz", the copy will be "foo.tgz" in
2031 "/bla".
2032 Suppose you want to swap basename and extension so that "file.c" would
2034 become "c.file" and so on. The source mask for this is "*.*" and the
2035 destination is "\2.\1".
2036 Use shell patterns off
2038 When the shell patterns option is off the MC doesn't do automatic
2040 grouping anymore. You must use '\(...\)' expressions in the source mask
2041 to specify meaning for the wildcards in the target mask. This is more
2042 flexible but also requires more typing. Otherwise target masks are sim‐
2043 ilar to the situation when the shell patterns option is on.
2044 Two examples:
2046 If the source mask is "^\(.*\)\.tar\.gz$", the destination is
2048 "/bla/*.tgz" and the file to be copied is "foo.tar.gz", the copy will
2049 be "/bla/foo.tgz".
2050 Let's suppose you want to swap basename and extension so that "file.c"
2052 will become "c.file" and so on. The source mask for this is
2053 "^\(.*\)\.\(.*\)$" and the destination is "\2.\1".
2054 Case Conversions
2056 You can also change the case of the filenames. If you use '\u' or '\l'
2058 in the target mask, the next character will be converted to uppercase
2059 or lowercase correspondingly.
2060 If you use '\U' or '\L' in the target mask, the next characters will be
2062 converted to uppercase or lowercase correspondingly up to the next '\E'
2063 or next '\U', '\L' or the end of the file name.
2064 The '\u' and '\l' are stronger than '\U' and '\L'.
2066 For example, if the source mask is '*' ( Use shell patterns on) or
2068 '^\(.*\)$' ( Use shell patterns off) and the target mask is '\L\u*' the
2069 file names will be converted to have initial upper case and otherwise
2070 lower case.
2071 You can also use '\' as a quote character. For example, '\\' is a back‐
2073 slash and '\*' is an asterisk.
2074 Stable symlinks
2076 commands Midnight Commander, that it should change symlinks in the tar‐
2078 get, so that they'll point to the same location as it did before. With
2079 absolute symbolic links this does nothing, but if you have a relative
2080 one, it will recompute its value, adding necessary ../ and other direc‐
2081 tory parts and making the value as short as possible (most modern
2082 filesystems keep short symlinks inside inodes and thus don't waste much
2083 disk space).
2084
2087 The dialog of group of files and directories selection or uselection.
2088 The input line allow enter the regular expression of filenames that
2089 will be selected/unselected.
2090 When Files only checkbox is on, only files will be selected. If Files
2092 only is off, as files as directories will be selected. When Shell Pat‐
2093 terns checkbox is on, the regular expression is much like the filename
2094 globbing in the shell (* standing for zero or more characters and ?
2095 standing for one character). If Shell Patterns is off, then the tagging
2096 of files is done with normal regular expressions (see ed (1)). When
2097 Case sensitive checkbox is on, the selection will be case sensitive
2098 characters. If Case sensitive is off, the case will be ignored.
2099
2101 The mcdiff is a visual diff tool. You can compare two files and edit
2102 them in-place (diffs are updated dynamically). You can browse and view
2103 a working copy from popular version control systems (GIT, Subversion,
2104 etc).
2105 Following shortcuts are available in internal diff viewer of Midnight
2107 Commander.
2108 F1 Invoke the built-in hypertext help viewer.
2110 F2 Save modified files.
2112 F4 Edit file of the left panel in the internal editor.
2114 F14 Edit file of the right panel in the internal editor.
2116 F5 Merge the current hunk. Only the current hunk will be merged.
2118 F7 Start search.
2120 F17 Continue search.
2122 F10, Esc, q
2124 Exit from diff viewer.
2125 Alt-s, s
2127 Toggle show of hunk status.
2128 Alt-n, l
2130 Toggle show of line numbers.
2131 f Maximize left panel.
2133 = Make panels equal in width.
2135 > Reduce the size of the right panel.
2137 < Reduce the size of the left panel.
2139 c Toggle show of trailing carriage return (CR) symbol as ^M.
2141 2, 3, 4, 8
2143 Set tabulation size
2144 C-u Swap contents of diff panels.
2146 C-r Refresh the screen.
2148 C-o Switch to the subshell and show the command screen.
2150 Enter, Space, n
2152 Find next diff hunk.
2153 Backspace, p
2155 Find previous diff hunk.
2156 g Go to line.
2158 Down Scroll one line forward.
2160 Up Scroll one line backward.
2162 PageUp Move one page up.
2164 PageDown
2166 Mves one page down.
2167 Home, A1
2169 Moves to the line beginning.
2170 End Moves to the line end.
2172 C-Home Move to the file beginning.
2174 C-End, C1
2176 Move to the file end.
2177
2179 The internal file viewer provides two display modes: ASCII and hex. To
2180 toggle between modes, use the F4 key.
2181 The viewer will try to use the best method provided by your system or
2183 the file type to display the information. Some character sequences,
2184 which appear most often in preformatted manual pages, are displayed
2185 bold and underlined, thus making a pretty display of your files.
2186 When in hex mode, the search function accepts text in quotes and con‐
2188 stant numbers. Text in quotes is matched exactly after removing the
2189 quotes. Each number matches one byte. You can mix quoted text with
2190 constants like this:
2191 "String" 34 0xBB 012 "more text"
2193 Numbers are always interpreted in hex. In the example above, "34" is
2195 interpreted as 0x34. The prefix "0x" isn't really needed: we could type
2196 "BB" instead of "0xBB". And "012" is interpreted as 0x12, not as an oc‐
2197 tal number.
2198 Here is a listing of the actions associated with each key that the Mid‐
2200 night Commander handles in the internal file viewer.
2201 F1 Invoke the built-in hypertext help viewer.
2203 F2 Toggle the wrap mode.
2205 F4 Toggle the hex mode.
2207 F5 Goto. You can specify a line number, offset or percentage of
2209 file size of position that you want to view.
2210 F7, /, ?
2212 Start search. These keys call the dialog window that allows you
2213 to set up the search options. If key is ? the "Backwards" option
2214 is on.
2215 C-s Continue forward search.
2217 C-r Continue reverse search.
2219 F17, n Continue search in the chosen direction.
2221 N Temporary change the search direction: backwards if forward
2223 search is chosen, and vice versa.
2224 F8 Toggle Raw/Parsed mode: This will show the file as found on disk
2226 or if a processing filter has been specified in the mc.ext file,
2227 then the output from the filter. Current mode is always the
2228 other than written on the button label, since on the button is
2229 the mode which you enter by that key.
2230 F9 Toggle the format/unformat mode: when format mode is on the
2232 viewer will interpret some string sequences to show bold and un‐
2233 derline with different colors. Also, on button label is the
2234 other mode than current.
2235 F10, Esc.
2237 Exit the internal file viewer.
2238 PageDown, space, C-v.
2240 Scroll one page forward.
2241 PageUp, Alt-v, C-b, Backspace.
2243 Scroll one page backward.
2244 Down Scroll one line forward.
2246 Up Scroll one line backward.
2248 C-l Refresh the screen.
2250 C-o Switch to the subshell and show the command screen.
2252 [n] m Set the mark n.
2254 [n] r Jump to the mark n.
2256 C-f Jump to the next file.
2258 C-b Jump to the previous file.
2260 Alt-r Toggle the ruler.
2262 Alt-e to change charset of displayed text may use Alt-e (M-e). Recod‐
2264 ing is made from selected codepage into system codepage. To can‐
2265 cel the recoding you may select "<No translation>" in charset
2266 selection dialog.
2267 It's possible to instruct the file viewer how to display a file, look
2269 at the Edit Extension File section
2270
2273 The internal file editor is a full-featured full screen editor. It can
2274 edit files up to 64 megabytes. It is possible to edit binary files.
2275 The internal file editor is invoked using F4 if the use_internal_edit
2276 option is set in the initialization file.
2277 The features it presently supports are: block copy, move, delete, cut,
2279 paste; key for key undo; pull-down menus; file insertion; macro com‐
2280 mands; regular expression search and replace; S-arrow text highlighting
2281 (if supported by the terminal); insert-overwrite toggle; word wrap; au‐
2282 toindent; tunable tab size; syntax highlighting for various file types;
2283 and an option to pipe text blocks through shell commands like indent
2284 and ispell.
2285 Sections:
2287 Options of editor in ini-file
2289 The editor is very easy to use and requires no tutoring. To see what
2291 keys do what, just consult the appropriate pull-down menu. Other keys
2292 are: Shift movement keys do text highlighting. C-Ins copies to the
2293 file mcedit.clip and S-Ins pastes from mcedit.clip. S-Del cuts to
2294 mcedit.clip, and C-Del deletes highlighted text. Mouse highlighting
2295 also works, and you can override the mouse as usual by holding down the
2296 shift key while dragging the mouse to let normal terminal mouse high‐
2297 lighting work.
2298 To define a macro, press C-R and then type out the key strokes you want
2300 to be executed. Press C-R again when finished. You can then assign the
2301 macro to any key you like by pressing that key. The macro is executed
2302 when you press C-A and then the assigned key. The macro is also exe‐
2303 cuted if you press Meta, Ctrl, or Esc and the assigned key, provided
2304 that the key is not used for any other function. Once defined, the
2305 macro commands go into the file ~/.local/share/mc/mcedit/mcedit.macros
2306 You can delete a macro by deleting the appropriate line in this file.
2307 To change charset of displayed text may use Alt-e (M-e). Recoding is
2309 made from selected codepage into system codepage. To cancel the recod‐
2310 ing you may select "<No translation>" in charset selection dialog.
2311 F19 will format the currently highlighted block (plain text or C or C++
2313 code or another). This is controlled by the file /usr/share/mc/edit.in‐
2314 dent.rc which is copied to ~/.local/share/mc/mcedit/edit.indent.rc in
2315 your home directory the first time you use it.
2316 The editor also displays non-us characters (160+). When editing binary
2318 files, you should set display bits to 7 bits in the options menu to
2319 keep the spacing clean.
2320
2323 Some editor options of ini-file are described in this section. Options
2324 are placed in [Midnight-Commander] section
2325 editor_wordcompletion_collect_entire_file
2327 Search autocomplete candidates in entire of file or just from
2328 begin of file to cursor position (0)
2329
2332 Midnight Commander supports running many internal modules (such as edi‐
2333 tor, viewer and diff viewer) simultaneously and switching between them
2334 without closing open files. Using several file managers at a time, how‐
2335 ever, is not currently supported.
2336 Let's call each of these modules a screen. There are three ways to
2338 switch between screens, using one of these global shortcuts:
2339 Alt-} switch to the next screen;
2341 Alt-{ switch to the previous screen;
2343 Alt-` open a dialog window with the list of currently open screens (or
2345 use the "Screen list" menu item).
2346
2348 Let Midnight Commander type for you.
2349 Attempt to perform completion on the text before current position. MC
2351 attempts completion treating the text as variable (if the text begins
2352 with $), username (if the text begins with ~), hostname (if the text
2353 begins with @) or command (if you are on the command line in the posi‐
2354 tion where you might type a command, possible completions then include
2355 shell reserved words and shell built-in commands as well) in turn. If
2356 none of these matches, filename completion is attempted.
2357 Filename, username, variable and hostname completion works on all input
2359 lines, command completion is command line specific. If the completion
2360 is ambiguous (there are more different possibilities), MC beeps and the
2361 following action depends on the setting of the Complete: show all op‐
2362 tion in the Configuration dialog. If it is enabled, a list of all pos‐
2363 sibilities pops up next to the current position and you can select with
2364 the arrow keys and Enter the correct entry. You can also type the
2365 first letters in which the possibilities differ to move to a subset of
2366 all possibilities and complete as much as possible. If you press
2367 Alt-Tab again, only the subset will be shown in the listbox, otherwise
2368 the first item which matches all the previous characters will be high‐
2369 lighted. As soon as there is no ambiguity, dialog disappears, but you
2370 can hide it by canceling keys Esc, F10 and left and right arrow keys.
2371 If Complete: show all is disabled, the dialog pops up only if you press
2372 Alt-Tab for the second time, for the first time MC just beeps.
2373 Apply escaping of ?, *, and & symbols (as \?, \*, and \&) in filenames
2375 to disallow use them as metasymbols in regular expressions when substi‐
2376 tution is performed in the input line.
2377
2380 Midnight Commander is provided with a code layer to access the file
2381 system; this code layer is known as the virtual file system switch.
2382 The virtual file system switch allows Midnight Commander to manipulate
2383 files not located on the Unix file system.
2384 Currently, Midnight Commander is packaged with some Virtual File Sys‐
2386 tems (VFS): the local file system, used for accessing the regular Unix
2387 file system; the ftpfs, used to manipulate files on remote systems with
2388 the FTP protocol; the tarfs, used to manipulate tar and compressed tar
2389 files; the undelfs, used to recover deleted files on ext2 file systems
2390 (the default file system for Linux systems), fish (for manipulating
2391 files over shell connections such as rsh and ssh). If the code was
2392 compiled with sftpfs (for manipulating files over SFTP connections).
2393 If the code was compiled with smbfs support, you can manipulate files
2394 on remote systems with the SMB (CIFS) protocol.
2395 A generic extfs (EXTernal virtual File System) is provided in order to
2397 easily expand VFS capabilities using scripts and external software.
2398 The VFS switch code will interpret all of the path names used and will
2400 forward them to the correct file system, the formats used for each one
2401 of the file systems is described later in their own section.
2402 FTP File System
2404 The FTP File System (ftpfs) allows you to manipulate files on remote
2405 machines. To actually use it, you can use the FTP link item in the
2406 menu or directly change your current directory using the cd command to
2407 a path name that looks like this:
2408 ftp://[!][user[:pass]@]machine[:port][remote-dir]
2410 The user, port and remote-dir elements are optional. If you specify
2412 the user element, Midnight Commander will login to the remote machine
2413 as that user, otherwise it will use anonymous login or the login name
2414 from the ~/.netrc file. The optional pass element is the password used
2415 for the connection. Using the password in the VFS directory name is
2416 not recommended, because it can appear on the screen in clear text and
2417 can be saved to the directory history.
2418 To enable using FTP proxy, prepend ! (an exclamation sign) to the
2420 hostname.
2421 Examples:
2423 ftp://ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx/linux/local
2425 ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages
2426 ftp://!behind.firewall.edu/pub
2427 ftp://guest@remote-host.com:40/pub
2428 ftp://miguel:xxx@server/pub
2429 Please check the Virtual File System dialog box for ftpfs options.
2431 Tar File System
2433 The tar file system provides you with read-only access to your tar
2434 files and compressed tar files by using the chdir command. To change
2435 your directory to a tar file, you change your current directory to the
2436 tar file by using the following syntax:
2437 /filename.tar/utar://[dir-inside-tar]
2439 The mc.ext file already provides a shortcut for tar files, this means
2441 that usually you just point to a tar file and press return to enter
2442 into the tar file, see the Edit Extension File section for details on
2443 how this is done.
2444 Examples:
2446 mc-3.0.tar.gz/utar://mc-3.0/vfs
2448 /ftp/GCC/gcc-2.7.0.tar/utar://
2449 The latter specifies the full path of the tar archive.
2451 FIle transfer over SHell filesystem
2453 The fish file system is a network based file system that allows you to
2454 manipulate the files in a remote machine as if they were local. To use
2455 this, the other side has to either run fish server, or has to have
2456 bash-compatible shell.
2457 To connect to a remote machine, you just need to chdir into a special
2459 directory which name is in the following format:
2460 sh://[user@]machine[:options]/[remote-dir]
2462 The user, options and remote-dir elements are optional. If you specify
2464 the user element, Midnight Commander will try to login on the remote
2465 machine as that user, otherwise it will use your login name.
2466 The available options are:
2468 'C' - use compression;
2469 'r' - use rsh instead of ssh;
2470 port - specify the port used by remote server.
2471 If the remote-dir element is present, your current directory on the re‐
2472 mote machine will be set to this one.
2473 Examples:
2475 sh://onlyrsh.mx:r/linux/local
2477 sh://joe@want.compression.edu:C/private
2478 sh://joe@noncompressed.ssh.edu/private
2479 sh://joe@somehost.ssh.edu:2222/private
2480 SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) filesystem
2482 The SFTP file system is a network based file system that allows you to
2483 manipulate the files in a remote machine as if they were local.
2484 To connect to a remote machine, you just need to chdir into a special
2486 directory which name is in the following format:
2487 sftp://[user@]machine:[port]/[remote-dir]
2489 The user, port and remote-dir elements are optional. If you specify
2491 the user element, Midnight Commander will try to login on the remote
2492 machine as that user, otherwise it will use your login name. port -
2493 specify the port used by remote server (22 by default). If the re‐
2494 mote-dir element is present, your current directory on the remote ma‐
2495 chine will be set to this one.
2496 Examples:
2498 sftp://onlyrsh.mx/linux/local
2500 sftp://joe:password@want.compression.edu/private
2501 sftp://joe@noncompressed.ssh.edu/private
2502 sftp://joe@somehost.ssh.edu:2222/private
2503 When establishing the connection, server key fingerprint is verified
2505 using the ~/.ssh/known_hosts file. If the host/key pair is not found or
2506 the host is found, but the key doesn't match, an appropriate message is
2507 shown. There are three buttons in the message dialog:
2508 [Yes] add new host/key pair to the ~/.ssh/known_hosts file and con‐
2510 tinue.
2511 [Ignore] do not add new host/key pair to the ~/.ssh/known_hosts file,
2513 but continue nevertheless (at you own risk).
2514 [No] abort connection.
2516 Undelete File System
2518 On Linux systems, if you asked configure to use the ext2fs undelete fa‐
2519 cilities, you will have the undelete file system available. Recovery
2520 of deleted files is only available on ext2 file systems. The undelete
2521 file system is just an interface to the ext2fs library to retrieve all
2522 of the deleted files names on an ext2fs and provides and to extract the
2523 selected files into a regular partition.
2524 To use this file system, you have to chdir into the special file name
2526 formed by the "undel://" prefix and the file name where the actual file
2527 system resides.
2528 For example, to recover deleted files on the second partition of the
2530 first SCSI disk on Linux, you would use the following path name:
2531 undel://sda2
2533 It may take a while for the undelfs to load the required information
2535 before you start browsing files there.
2536 SMB File System
2538 The smbfs allows you to manipulate files on remote machines with SMB
2539 (or CIFS) protocol. These include Windows for Workgroups, Windows
2540 9x/ME/XP, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Samba. To actually use it, you
2541 may try to use the panel command "SMB link..." (accessible from the
2542 menubar) or you may directly change your current directory to it using
2543 the cd command to a path name that looks like this:
2544 smb://[user@]machine[/service][/remote-dir]
2546 The user, service and remote-dir elements are optional. The user, do‐
2548 main and password can be specified in an input dialog.
2549 Examples:
2551 smb://machine/Share
2553 smb://other_machine
2554 smb://guest@machine/Public/Irlex
2555 EXTernal File System
2557 extfs allows you to integrate numerous features and file types into GNU
2558 Midnight Commander in an easy way, by writing scripts.
2559 Extfs filesystems can be divided into two categories:
2561 1. Stand-alone filesystems, which are not associated with any existing
2563 file. They represent certain system-wide data as a directory tree.
2564 You can invoke them by typing cd fsname:// where fsname is an extfs
2565 short name (see below). Examples of such filesystems include audio
2566 (list audio tracks on the CD) or apt (list of all Debian packages in
2567 the system).
2568 For example, to list CD-Audio tracks on your CD-ROM drive, type
2570 cd audio://
2572 2. 'Archive' filesystems (like rpm, patchfs and more), which represent
2574 contents of a file as a directory tree. It can consist of 'real' files
2575 compressed in an archive (urar, rpm) or virtual files, like messages in
2576 a mailbox (mailfs) or parts of a patch (patchfs). To access such
2577 filesystems fsname:// should be appended to the archive name. Note
2578 that the archive itself can be on another vfs.
2579 For example, to list contents of a zip archive documents.zip type
2581 cd documents.zip/uzip://
2583 In many aspects, you could treat extfs like any other directory. For
2585 instance, you can add it to the hotlist or change to it from directory
2586 history. An important limitation is that you cannot invoke shell com‐
2587 mands inside extfs, just like any other non-local VFS.
2588 Common extfs scripts included with Midnight Commander are:
2590 a access 'A:' DOS/Windows diskette (cd a://).
2592 apt front end to Debian's APT package management system (cd apt://).
2594 audio audio CD ripping and playing (cd audio:// or cd device/au‐
2596 dio://).
2597 bpp package of Bad Penguin GNU/Linux distribution (cd
2599 file.bpp/bpp://).
2600 deb package of Debian GNU/Linux distribution (cd file.deb/deb://).
2602 dpkg Debian GNU/Linux installed packages (cd deb://).
2604 hp48 view and copy files to/from a HP48 calculator (cd hp48://).
2606 lslR browsing of lslR listings as found on many FTPs (cd file‐
2608 name/lslR://).
2609 mailfs mbox-style mailbox files support (cd mailbox/mailfs://).
2611 patchfs
2613 extfs to handle unified and context diffs (cd file‐
2614 name/patchfs://).
2615 rpm RPM package (cd filename/rpm://).
2617 rpms RPM database management (cd rpms://).
2619 ulha, urar, uzip, uzoo, uar, uha
2621 archivers (cd archive/xxxx:// where xxxx is one of: ulha, urar,
2622 uzip, uzoo, uar, uha).
2623 You could bind file type/extension to specified extfs as described in
2625 the Edit Extension File section. Here is an example entry for Debian
2626 packages:
2627 regex/.deb$
2629 Open=%cd %p/deb://
2630
2632 Midnight Commander will try to detect if your terminal supports color
2633 using the terminal database and your terminal name. Sometimes it gets
2634 confused, so you may force color mode or disable color mode using the
2635 -c and -b flag respectively.
2636 If the program is compiled with the S-Lang screen manager instead of
2638 ncurses, it will also check the variable COLORTERM, if it is set, it
2639 has the same effect as the -c flag.
2640 You may specify terminals that always force color mode by adding the
2642 color_terminals variable to the Colors section of the initialization
2643 file. This will prevent Midnight Commander from trying to detect if
2644 your terminal supports color. Example:
2645 [Colors]
2647 color_terminals=linux,xterm
2648 color_terminals=terminal-name1,terminal-name2...
2649 The program can be compiled with both ncurses and S-Lang, ncurses does
2651 not provide a way to force color mode: ncurses uses just the informa‐
2652 tion in the terminal database.
2653 Midnight Commander provides a way to change the default colors. Cur‐
2655 rently the colors are configured using the environment variable
2656 MC_COLOR_TABLE or the Colors section in the initialization file.
2657 In the Colors section, the default color map is loaded from the
2659 base_color variable. You can specify an alternate color map for a ter‐
2660 minal by using the terminal name as the key in this section. Example:
2661 [Colors]
2663 base_color=
2664 xterm=menu=magenta:marked=,magenta:markselect=,red
2665 The format for the color definition is:
2667 <keyword>=<fgcolor>,<bgcolor>,<attributes>:<keyword>=...
2669 The colors are optional, and the keywords are: normal, selected, dis‐
2671 abled, marked, markselect, errors, input, inputmark, inputunchanged,
2672 commandlinemark, reverse, gauge, header, inputhistory, commandhistory.
2673 Button bar colors are: bbarhotkey, bbarbutton. Status bar color: sta‐
2674 tusbar. Menu colors are: menunormal, menusel, menuhot, menuhotsel, men‐
2675 uinactive. Dialog colors are: dnormal, dfocus, dhotnormal, dhotfocus,
2676 dtitle. Error dialog colors are: errdfocus, errdhotnormal, errdhotfo‐
2677 cus, errdtitle. Help colors are: helpnormal, helpitalic, helpbold,
2678 helplink, helpslink, helptitle. Viewer colors are: viewnormal, view‐
2679 bold, viewunderline, viewselected. Editor colors are: editnormal, edit‐
2680 bold, editmarked, editwhitespace, editlinestate. Popup menu colors are:
2681 pmenunormal, pmenusel, pmenutitle.
2682 header determines the color of panel header, the line that contains
2684 column titles and sort mode indicator.
2685 input determines the color of input lines used in query dialogs.
2687 gauge determines the color of the filled part of the progress bar
2689 (gauge), which is used to show the user the progress of file opera‐
2690 tions, such as copying.
2691 disabled determines the color of the widget that cannot be selected.
2693 The dialog boxes use the following colors: dnormal is used for the nor‐
2695 mal text, dfocus is the color used for the currently selected compo‐
2696 nent, dhotnormal is the color used to differentiate the hotkey color in
2697 normal components, whereas the dhotfocus color is used for the high‐
2698 lighted color in the currently selected component.
2699 Menus use the same scheme but uses the menunormal, menusel, menuhot,
2701 menuhotsel and menuinactive tags instead.
2702 Help uses the following colors: helpnormal is used for normal text,
2704 helpitalic is used for text which is emphasized in italic in the manual
2705 page, helpbold is used for text which is emphasized in bold in the man‐
2706 ual page, helplink is used for not selected hyperlinks and helpslink is
2707 used for selected hyperlink.
2708 Popup menu uses following colors: pmenunormal is used for non-selected
2710 menu items and as a main color of popup menu window, pmenusel is used
2711 for selected menu item, pmenutitle is used for popup menu title.
2712 The possible colors are: black, gray, red, brightred, green, bright‐
2714 green, brown, yellow, blue, brightblue, magenta, brightmagenta, cyan,
2715 brightcyan, lightgray and white. And there is a special keyword for
2716 transparent background. It is 'default'. The 'default' can only be used
2717 for background color. Another special keyword "base" means mc's main
2718 colors. When 256 colors are available, they can be specified either as
2719 color16 to color255, or as rgb000 to rgb555 and gray0 to gray23. Exam‐
2720 ple:
2721 [Colors]
2723 base_color=normal=white,default:marked=magenta,default
2724 Attributes can be any of bold, italic, underline, reverse and blink,
2726 appended by a plus sign if more than one are desired. The special word
2727 "none" means no attributes, without attempting to fall back to
2728 base_color. Example:
2729 menuhotsel=yellow;black;bold+underline
2731
2734 You can change the appearance of Midnight Commander. To do this, you
2735 must specify a file that contain descriptions of colors and lines to
2736 draw boxes. Redefining of the colors is entirely compatible with the
2737 assignment of colors, as described in Section Colors.
2738 If your skin contains any true-color definitions, you should define the
2740 'truecolors' key set to TRUE value in [skin] section. If true-color is
2741 not used but 256-color is, you should define '256colors' instead.
2742 A skin-file is searched on the following algorithm (to the first one
2744 found):
2745 1) command line option -S <skin> or --skin=<skin>
2747 2) Environment variable MC_SKIN
2748 3) Parameter skin in section [Midnight-Commander] in config
2749 file.
2750 4) File /etc/mc/skins/default.ini
2751 5) File /usr/share/mc/skins/default.ini
2752 Command line option, environment variable and parameter in config file
2755 may contain the absolute path to the skin-file (with the extension .ini
2756 or without it). Search of skin-file will occur in (to the first one
2757 found):
2758 1) ~/.local/share/mc/skins/
2760 2) /etc/mc/skins/
2761 3) /usr/share/mc/skins/
2762 For getting extended info, refer to:
2765 Description of section and parameters
2767 Color pair definitions
2768 Color and attribute aliases
2769 Draw lines
2770 Compatibility
2771 Description of section and parameters
2774 Section [skin] contain metainfo for skin-file. Parameter description
2775 contain short text about skin.
2776 Section [filehighlight] contain descriptions of color pairs for file‐
2779 names highlighting. Name of parameters must be equal to names of sec‐
2780 tions into filehighlight.ini file. See Filenames Highlight for getting
2781 more info.
2782 Section [core] describes the elements that are used everywhere.
2785 _default_
2787 Default color pair. Used in all other sections if they not con‐
2788 tain color definitions
2789 selected
2791 cursor
2792 marked selected data
2794 markselect
2796 cursor on selected data
2797 gauge color of the filled part of the progress bar
2799 input color of input lines used in query dialogs
2801 inputmark
2803 color of input selected text
2804 inputunchanged
2806 color of input text before first modification or cursor movement
2807 commandlinemark
2809 color of selected text in command line
2810 reverse
2812 reverse color
2813 Section [dialog] describes the elements that are placed on dialog win‐
2815 dows (except error dialogs).
2816 _default_
2818 Default color for this section. Used [core]._default_ if not
2819 specified
2820 dfocus Color of active element (in focus)
2822 dhotnormal
2824 Color of hotkeys
2825 dhotfocus
2827 Color of hotkeys in focused element
2828 Section [error] describes the elements that are placed on error dialog
2831 windows
2832 _default_
2834 Default color for this section. Used [core]._default_ if not
2835 specified
2836 errdhotnormal
2838 Color of hotkeys
2839 errdhotfocus
2841 Color of hotkeys in focused element
2842 Section [menu] describes the elements that are placed in menu. This
2845 section describes system menu (called by F9) and user-defined menus
2846 (called by F2 in panels and by F11 in editor).
2847 _default_
2849 Default color for this section. Used [core]._default_ if not
2850 specified
2851 entry Color of menu items
2853 menuhot
2855 Color of menu hotkeys
2856 menusel
2858 Color of active menu item (in focus)
2859 menuhotsel
2861 Color of menu hotkeys in focused menu item
2862 menuinactive
2864 Color of inactive menu
2865 Section [help] describes the elements that are placed on help window.
2868 _default_
2870 Default color for this section. Used [core]._default_ if not
2871 specified
2872 helpitalic
2874 Color pair for element with italic attribute
2875 helpbold
2877 Color pair for element with bold attribute
2878 helplink
2880 Color of links
2881 helpslink
2883 Color of active link (on focus)
2884 Section [editor] describes the colors of elements placed in editor.
2887 _default_
2889 Default color for this section. Used [core]._default_ if not
2890 specified
2891 editbold
2893 Color pair for element with bold attribute
2894 editmarked
2896 Color of selected text
2897 editwhitespace
2899 Color of tabs and trailing spaces highlighting
2900 editlinestate
2902 Color for line state area
2903 Section [viewer] describes the colors of elements placed in viewer.
2906 viewunderline
2908 Color pair for element with underline attribute
2909 Color pair definitions
2912 Any parameter in skin-file contain definition of color pair.
2913 Color pairs described as two colors and the optional attributes sepa‐
2915 rated by ';'. First field sets the foreground color, second field sets
2916 background color, third field sets the attributes. Any of the fields
2917 may be omitted, in this case value will be taken from default color
2918 pair (global color pair or from default color pair of this section).
2919 Example:
2921 [core]
2922 # green on black
2923 _default_=green;black
2924 # green (default) on blue
2925 selected=;blue
2926 # yellow on black (default)
2927 # underlined yellow on black (default)
2928 marked=yellow;;underline
2929 Possible colors (names) and attributes are described in Colors. sec‐
2932 tion.
2933 Color and attribute aliases
2936 This optional section might define aliases for single colors (not color
2937 pairs) as well as combination of attributes; in other words, for semi‐
2938 colon-separated fragments of parameters. Aliases can refer to other
2939 aliases as long as they don't form a loop.
2940 Example:
2942 [aliases]
2943 myfavfg=green
2944 myfavbg=black
2945 myfavattr=bold+italic
2946 [core]
2947 _default_=myfavfg;myfavbg;myfavattr
2948 Draw lines
2951 Lines sets in section [Lines] into skin-file. By default single lines
2952 are used, but you may redefine to usage of any utf-8 symbols (like to
2953 lines, for example).
2954 WARNING!!! When you build Midnight Commander with the ncurses screen
2956 library usage of drawing lines is limited! Possible only drawing a
2957 single lines. For all questions and comments please contact the devel‐
2958 opers of ncurses.
2959 Descriptions of parameters [Lines]:
2962 lefttop
2964 left-top line fragment.
2965 righttop
2967 right-top line fragment.
2968 centertop
2970 down branch of horizontal line
2971 centerbottom
2973 up branch of horizontal line
2974 leftbottom
2976 left-bottom line fragment
2977 rightbottom
2979 right-bottom line fragment
2980 leftmiddle
2982 right branch of vertical line
2983 rightmiddle
2985 left branch of vertical line
2986 centermiddle
2988 cross of lines
2989 horiz horizontal line
2991 vert vertical line
2993 thinhoriz
2995 thin horizontal line
2996 thinvert
2998 thin vertical line
2999 Compatibility
3003 Appointment of color by skin-files fully compatible with the appoint‐
3004 ment of the colors described in Colors. section.
3005 In this case, reassignment of colors has priority over the skin file
3007 and is complementary.
3008
3011 Section [filehighlight] in current skin-file contains key names as
3012 highlight groups and values as color pairs. Color pairs is documented
3013 in Skins section.
3014 Rules of filenames highlight are placed in /usr/share/mc/filehigh‐
3016 light.ini file (~/.config/mc/filehighlight.ini). Name of section in
3017 this file must be equal to parameters names in [filehighlight] section
3018 (in current skin-file).
3019 Keys in these groups are:
3021 type file type. If present, all other options are ignored.
3023 regexp regular expression. If present, 'extensions' option is ignored.
3025 extensions
3027 list of extensions of files. Separated by ';' sign.
3028 extensions_case
3030 (make sense only with 'extensions' parameter) make 'extensions'
3031 rule case sensitive (true) or not (false).
3032 `type' key may have values:
3034 - FILE (all files)
3035 - FILE_EXE
3036 - DIR (all directories)
3037 - LINK_DIR
3038 - LINK (all links except stale link)
3039 - HARDLINK
3040 - SYMLINK
3041 - STALE_LINK
3042 - DEVICE (all device files)
3043 - DEVICE_BLOCK
3044 - DEVICE_CHAR
3045 - SPECIAL (all special files)
3046 - SPECIAL_SOCKET
3047 - SPECIAL_FIFO
3048 - SPECIAL_DOOR
3049
3051 Most of Midnight Commander settings can be changed from the menus. How‐
3052 ever, there are a small number of settings which can only be changed by
3053 editing the setup file.
3054 These variables may be set in your ~/.config/mc/ini file:
3056 clear_before_exec
3058 By default, Midnight Commander clears the screen before execut‐
3059 ing a command. If you would prefer to see the output of the
3060 command at the bottom of the screen, edit your ~/.config/mc/ini
3061 file and change the value of the field clear_before_exec to 0.
3062 confirm_view_dir
3064 If you press F3 on a directory, normally MC enters that direc‐
3065 tory. If this flag is set to 1, then MC will ask for confirma‐
3066 tion before changing the directory if you have files tagged.
3067 ftpfs_retry_seconds
3069 This value is the number of seconds Midnight Commander will wait
3070 before attempting to reconnect to an FTP server that has denied
3071 the login. If the value is zero, the login will no be retried.
3072 max_dirt_limit
3074 Specifies how many screen updates can be skipped at most in the
3075 internal file viewer. Normally this value is not significant,
3076 because the code automatically adjusts the number of updates to
3077 skip according to the rate of incoming keystrokes. However, on
3078 very slow machines or terminals with a fast keyboard auto re‐
3079 peat, a big value can make screen updates too jumpy.
3080 It seems that setting max_dirt_limit to 10 causes the best be‐
3082 havior, and that is the default value.
3083 mouse_move_pages_viewer
3085 Controls if scrolling with the mouse is done by pages or line by
3086 line on the internal file viewer.
3087 only_leading_plus_minus
3089 Allow special treatment for '+', '-', '*' in the command line
3090 (select, unselect, reverse selection) only if the command line
3091 is empty. You don't need to quote those characters in the mid‐
3092 dle of the command line. On the other hand, you cannot use them
3093 to change selection when the command line is not empty.
3094 alternate_plus_minus
3096 If true, use '+', '-', '\' and '*' keys normally. For select/un‐
3097 select, use 'Alt-+', 'Alt--' and 'Alt-*'.
3098 show_output_starts_shell
3100 This variable only works if you are not using the subshell sup‐
3101 port. When you use the C-o keystroke to go back to the user
3102 screen, if this one is set, you will get a fresh shell. Other‐
3103 wise, pressing any key will bring you back to Midnight Comman‐
3104 der.
3105 timeformat_recent
3107 Change the time format used to display dates less than 6 months
3108 from now. See strftime or date man page for the format specifi‐
3109 cation. If this option is absent, default timeformat is used.
3110 timeformat_old
3112 Change the time format used to display dates older than 6
3113 months from now or for dates in the future. See strftime or
3114 date man page for the format specification. If this option is
3115 absent, default timeformat is used.
3116 torben_fj_mode
3118 If this flag is set, then the home and end keys will work
3119 slightly different on the panels, instead of moving the selec‐
3120 tion to the first and last files in the panels, they will act as
3121 follows:
3122 The home key will: Go up to the middle line, if below it; else
3124 go to the top line unless it is already on the top line, in this
3125 case it will go to the first file in the panel.
3126 The end key has a similar behavior: Go down to the middle line,
3128 if over it; else go to the bottom line unless you already are at
3129 the bottom line, in such case it will move the selection to the
3130 last file name in the panel.
3131 use_file_to_guess_type
3133 If this variable is on (the default) it will spawn the file com‐
3134 mand to match the file types listed on the mc.ext file.
3135 xtree_mode
3137 If this variable is on (default is off) when you browse the file
3138 system on a Tree panel, it will automatically reload the other
3139 panel with the contents of the selected directory.
3140 fish_directory_timeout
3142 This variable holds the lifetime of a directory cache entry in
3143 seconds. The default value is 900 seconds.
3144 clipboard_store
3146 This variable contains path (with options) to the external clip‐
3147 board utility like 'xclip' to read text into X selection from
3148 file. For example:
3149 clipboard_store=xclip -i
3151 clipboard_paste
3153 This variable contains path (with options) to the external clip‐
3154 board utility like 'xclip' to print the selection to standard
3155 out. For example:
3156 clipboard_paste=xclip -o
3158 autodetect_codeset
3160 This option allows use the `enca' command to autodetect codeset
3161 of text files in internal viewer and editor. List of valid val‐
3162 ues can be obtain by the `enca --list languages | cut -d : -f1'
3163 command. Option must be located in the [Misc] section.
3164 For example:
3166 autodetect_codeset=russian
3168
3170 Midnight Commander provides a way for specify an options for external
3171 editors and viewers. Midnight Commander tries to search the "[External
3172 editor or viewer parameters]" section in the system initialization file
3173 (the mc.lib file located in Midnight Commander's library directory) and
3174 then in the ~/.config/mc/ini file. The option name should be equal to
3175 the name (full pathname) of external editor or viewer. The option value
3176 can contain following variables:
3177 %filename
3179 The filename to edit/view.
3180 %lineno
3182 The start line in the opening file.
3183 For example:
3185 [External editor or viewer parameters]
3187 vi=%filename +%lineno
3188 joe=%filename +%lineno
3189 more=%filename +%lineno
3190 Start line is passed to the external editor/viewer only if it is called
3192 from the Find file results window.
3193 If external editor/viewer is launched via F4/F3 keys, MC hopes that
3195 program (at least "joe", but probably others too) has an own feature
3196 that by default opens the file where it was last open. MC doesn't pre‐
3197 vent external editor/viewer to save and restore position in opened
3198 files.
3199
3201 Midnight Commander provides a way to fix your system terminal database
3202 without requiring root privileges. Midnight Commander searches in the
3203 system initialization file (the mc.lib file located in Midnight Comman‐
3204 der's library directory) and in the ~/.config/mc/ini file for the sec‐
3205 tion "terminal:your-terminal-name" and then for the section "termi‐
3206 nal:general", each line of the section contains a key symbol that you
3207 want to define, followed by an equal sign and the definition for the
3208 key. You can use the special \e form to represent the escape character
3209 and the ^x to represent the control-x character.
3210 The possible key symbols are:
3212 f0 to f20 Function keys f0-f20
3214 bs backspace
3215 home home key
3216 end end key
3217 up up arrow key
3218 down down arrow key
3219 left left arrow key
3220 right right arrow key
3221 pgdn page down key
3222 pgup page up key
3223 insert the insert character
3224 delete the delete character
3225 complete to do completion
3226 For example, to define the key insert to be the Escape + [ + O + p, you
3228 set this in the ini file:
3229 insert=\e[Op
3231 Also now you can use extended learn keys. For example:
3234 ctrl-alt-right=\e[[1;6C
3236 ctrl-alt-left=\e[[1;6D
3237 This means that ctrl+alt+left sends a \e[[1;6D escape sequence and
3240 therefore Midnight Commander interprets "\e[[1;6D" as C-Alt-Left.
3241 The complete key symbol represents the escape sequences used to invoke
3244 the completion process, this is invoked with Alt-tab, but you can de‐
3245 fine other keys to do the same work (on those keyboard with tons of
3246 nice and unused keys everywhere).
3247
3250 Full paths below may vary between installations. They are also af‐
3251 fected by the MC_DATADIR environment variable. If it's set, its value
3252 is used instead of /usr/share/mc in the paths below.
3253 /usr/share/mc/help/mc.hlp
3255 The help file for the program.
3257 /usr/share/mc/mc.ext
3259 The default system-wide extensions file.
3261 ~/.config/mc/mc.ext
3263 User's own extension, view configuration and edit configuration
3265 file. They override the contents of the system wide files if
3266 present.
3267 /etc/mc/mc.ini
3269 /usr/share/mc/mc.ini
3270 System-wide setup files for Midnight Commander, used only if the
3272 user doesn't have his own ~/.config/mc/ini file. If
3273 /etc/mc/mc.ini exists, /usr/share/mc/mc.ini isn't used.
3274 /usr/share/mc/mc.lib
3276 Global settings for Midnight Commander. Settings in this file
3278 affect all users, whether they have ~/.config/mc/ini or not.
3279 Currently, only terminal settings are loaded from mc.lib.
3280 ~/.config/mc/ini
3282 User's own setup. If this file is present then the setup is
3284 loaded from here instead of the system-wide startup file.
3285 /usr/share/mc/hints/mc.hint
3287 This file contains the hints displayed by the program.
3289 /usr/share/mc/mc.menu
3291 This file contains the default system-wide applications menu.
3293 ~/.config/mc/menu
3295 User's own application menu. If this file is present it is used
3297 instead of the system-wide applications menu.
3298 ~/.cache/mc/Tree
3300 The directory list for the directory tree and tree view fea‐
3302 tures.
3303 ~/.local/share/mc.menu
3305 Local user-defined menu. If this file is present, it is used in‐
3307 stead of the home or system-wide applications menu.
3308 To change default root directory of MC, you can use MC_PROFILE_ROOT en‐
3310 vironment variable. The value of MC_PROFILE_ROOT must be an absolute
3311 path. If MC_PROFILE_ROOT is unset or empty, HOME variable is used. If
3312 HOME is unset or empty, MC directories are get from GLib library.
3313
3315 This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
3316 License as published by the Free Software Foundation. See the built-in
3317 help for details on the License and the lack of warranty.
3318
3320 The latest version of this program can be found at http://ftp.mid‐
3321 night-commander.org/.
3322
3324 ed(1), gpm(1), terminfo(1), view(1), sh(1), bash(1), tcsh(1), zsh(1).
3325 Midnight Commander's page on the World Wide Web:
3327 http://www.midnight-commander.org/
3328
3330 Authors and contributors are listed in the AUTHORS file in the source
3331 distribution.
3332
3334 See the file TODO in the distribution for information on what remains
3335 to be done.
3336 If you want to report a problem with the program, please create bugre‐
3338 port at http://www.midnight-commander.org/.
3339 Provide a detailed description of the bug, the version of the program
3341 you are running (mc -V displays this information), the operating system
3342 you are running the program on. If the program crashes, we would ap‐
3343 preciate a stack trace.
3344MC Version 4.8.27 August 2021 MC(1)