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MC(1)			    GNU Midnight Commander			 MC(1)

NAME
       mc - Visual shell for Unix-like systems.

USAGE
       mc [-abcCdfhPstuUVx] [-l log] [dir1 [dir2]] [-e [file] ...] [-v file]

DESCRIPTION
       GNU   Midnight  Commander  is  a	 directory  browser/file  manager  for
       Unix-like operating systems.

OPTIONS
       -a, --stickchars
	      Disable usage of graphic characters for line drawing.

       -b, --nocolor
	      Force black and white display.

       -c, --color
	      Force color mode, please	check  the  section  Colors  for  more
	      information.

       -C arg, --colors=arg
	      Specify  a  different color set in the command line.  The format
	      of arg is documented in the Colors section.

       --configure-options
	      Display configure options.

       -d, --nomouse
	      Disable mouse support.

       -D N, --debuglevel=N
	      Save the debug level for SMB VFS. N is in 0-10 range.

       -e [file], --edit[=file]
	      Start the internal editor.  If the file is specified, open it on
	      startup.	See also mcedit (1).

       -f, --datadir
	      Display  the  compiled-in	 search	 paths	for Midnight Commander
	      files.

       -F, --datadir-info
	      Display extended info about compiled-in paths for Midnight  Com‐
	      mander.

       -g, --oldmouse
	      Force  a	"normal	 tracking"  mouse  mode.  Used when running on
	      xterm-capable terminals (tmux/screen).

       -k, --resetsoft
	      Reset softkeys to their default from the termcap/terminfo	 data‐
	      base.  Only  useful on HP terminals when the function keys don't
	      work.

       -K file, --keymap=file
	      Specify a name of keymap file in the command line.

       -l file, --ftplog=file
	      Save the ftpfs dialog with the server in file.

       --nokeymap
	      Don't load key bindings from any	file,  use  default  hardcoded
	      keys.

       -P file, --printwd=file
	      Print  the  last	working directory to the specified file.  This
	      option is not meant to be used  directly.	  Instead,  it's  used
	      from  a special shell script that automatically changes the cur‐
	      rent directory of the shell to the last directory Midnight  Com‐
	      mander  was  in. Source the file /usr/lib/mc/mc.sh (bash and zsh
	      users) or /usr/lib/mc.csh (tcsh users) respectively to define mc
	      as an alias to the appropriate shell script.

       -s, --slow
	      Set  alternative	mode  drawing  of  frameworks.	If the section
	      [Lines] is not filled, the symbol for the	 pseudographics	 frame
	      is  a  space, otherwise the frame characters are taken from fol‐
	      lowing parameters.

	      You can redefine the following variables:

       lefttop
	      left-top corner

       righttop
	      right-top corner

       centertop
	      center-top cross

       centerbottom
	      center-bottom cross

       leftbottom
	      left-bottom corner

       rightbottom
	      right-bottom corner

       leftmiddle
	      left-middle cross

       rightmiddle
	      right-middle cross

       centermiddle
	      center cross

       horiz  default horizontal line

       vert   default vertical line

       thinhoriz
	      thin horizontal line

       thinvert
	      thin vertical line

       -S arg, --skin=arg
	      Specify a name of skin in the command line. Technology of	 skins
	      is documented in the Skins section.

       -t, --termcap
	      Used  only  if the code was compiled with Slang and terminfo: it
	      makes Midnight Commander use the value of the  TERMCAP  variable
	      for  the	terminal information instead of the information on the
	      system wide terminal database

       -u, --nosubshell
	      Disable use of the concurrent shell (only makes  sense  if  Mid‐
	      night Commander has been built with concurrent shell support).

       -U, --subshell
	      Enable  use of the concurrent shell support (only makes sense if
	      the Midnight Commander was built with the subshell  support  set
	      as an optional feature).

       -v file, --view=file
	      Start  the internal viewer to view the specified file.  See also
	      mcview (1).

       -V, --version
	      Display the version of the program.

       -x, --xterm
	      Force xterm mode.	 Used when running on xterm-capable  terminals
	      (two screen modes, and able to send mouse escape sequences).

       -X, --no-x11
	      Do not use X11 to get the state of modifiers Alt, Ctrl, Shift

       If  both	 paths	are specified, the first path name is the directory to
       show in the active panel; the second path name is the directory	to  be
       shown in the other panel.

       If one path is specified, the path name is the directory to show in the
       active panel; value of "other_dir" from panels.ini is the directory  to
       be shown in the passive panel.

       If  no  paths  are  specified, current directory is shown in the active
       panel; value of "other_dir" from panels.ini  is	the  directory	to  be
       shown in the passive panel.

Overview
       The  screen  of	Midnight Commander is divided into four parts.	Almost
       all of the screen space is  taken  up  by  two  directory  panels.   By
       default,	 the  second  line  from the bottom of the screen is the shell
       command line, and the bottom line shows the function key	 labels.   The
       topmost	line is the menu bar line.  The menu bar line may not be visi‐
       ble, but appears if you click the topmost line with the mouse or	 press
       the F9 key.

       Midnight Commander provides a view of two directories at the same time.
       One of the panels is the current panel (a selection bar is in the  cur‐
       rent  panel).  Almost  all  operations take place on the current panel.
       Some file operations like Rename and Copy by default use the  directory
       of  the unselected panel as a destination (don't worry, they always ask
       you for confirmation first). For more information, see the sections  on
       the Directory Panels, the Left and Right Menus and the File Menu.

       You  can execute system commands from Midnight Commander by simply typ‐
       ing them. Everything you type will appear on the	 shell	command	 line,
       and  when  you press Enter, Midnight Commander will execute the command
       line you typed; read the Shell Command Line and Input  Line  Keys  sec‐
       tions to learn more about the command line.

Mouse Support
       Midnight	 Commander  comes with mouse support. It is activated whenever
       you are running on an xterm(1) terminal (it even works if  you  take  a
       telnet,	ssh or rlogin connection to another machine from the xterm) or
       if you are running on a Linux console and have  the  gpm	 mouse	server
       running.

       When  you  left	click  on a file in the directory panels, that file is
       selected; if you click with the right button, the file  is  marked  (or
       unmarked, depending on the previous state).

       Double-clicking	on  a file will try to execute the command if it is an
       executable program; and if the extension file has a  program  specified
       for the file's extension, the specified program is executed.

       Also,  it  is possible to execute the commands assigned to the function
       key labels by clicking on them.

       The default auto repeat rate for the mouse buttons is 400 milliseconds.
       This  may  be  changed  to other values by editing the ~/.config/mc/ini
       file and changing the mouse_repeat_rate parameter.

       If you are running Midnight Commander with the mouse support,  you  can
       get  the	 default  mouse behavior (cutting and pasting text) by holding
       down the Shift key.

Keys
       Some commands in Midnight Commander involve  the	 use  of  the  Control
       (sometimes  labeled CTRL or CTL) and the Meta (sometimes labeled ALT or
       even Compose) keys. In this manual we will use the following  abbrevia‐
       tions:

       C-<chr>
	      means  hold  the	Control	 key while typing the character <chr>.
	      Thus C-f would be: hold the Control key and type f.

       Alt-<chr>
	      means hold the Meta or Alt key  down  while  typing  <chr>.   If
	      there is no Meta or Alt key, type ESC, release it, then type the
	      character <chr>.

       S-<chr>
	      means hold the Shift key down while typing <chr>.

       All input lines in Midnight Commander use an approximation to  the  GNU
       Emacs editor's key bindings (default).

       You may redefine key bindings. See redefine hotkey bindings

       for  more  info.	 All other key bindings (described in this manual) are
       relative to default behavior.

       There are many sections which tell about the keys.  The	following  are
       the most important.

       The File Menu section documents the keyboard shortcuts for the commands
       appearing in the File menu. This section includes  the  function	 keys.
       Most  of	 these	commands  perform some action, usually on the selected
       file or the tagged files.

       The Directory Panels section documents the keys which select a file  or
       tag  files  as  a  target for a later action (the action is usually one
       from the file menu).

       The Shell Command Line section list the keys which are used for	enter‐
       ing  and	 editing command lines. Most of these copy file names and such
       from the directory panels to the command line (to avoid excessive  typ‐
       ing) or access the command line history.

       Input  Line  Keys are used for editing input lines. This means both the
       command line and the input lines in the query dialogs.

  Redefine hotkey bindings
       Hotkey bindings may be read from	 external  file	 (keymap-file).	  Ini‐
       tially, Midnight Commander creates key bindings using keymap defined in
       the  source  code.  Then,   two	 files	 /usr/share/mc/mc.keymap   and
       /etc/mc/mc.keymap  are loaded always, sequentially reassigned key bind‐
       ings defined earlier.  User-defined keymap-file is searched on the fol‐
       lowing algorithm (to the first one found):

	      1) command line option -K <keymap> or --keymap=<keymap>
	      2) Environment variable MC_KEYMAP
	      3)  Parameter  keymap  in section [Midnight-Commander] of config
	      file.
	      4) File ~/.config/mc/mc.keymap

       Command line option, environment variable and parameter in config  file
       may  contain  the  absolute path to the keymap-file (with the extension
       .keymap or without it). Search of keymap-file will  occur  in  (to  the
       first one found):

	      1) ~/.config/mc
	      2) /etc/mc/
	      3) /usr/share/mc/

  Miscellaneous Keys
       Here are some keys which don't fall into any of the other categories:

       Enter  if there is some text in the command line (the one at the bottom
	      of the panels), then that command is executed. If	 there	is  no
	      text  in	the  command  line then if the selection bar is over a
	      directory the Midnight Commander does a chdir(2) to the selected
	      directory	 and  reloads  the  information	 on  the panel; if the
	      selection is an executable file then it is executed. Finally, if
	      the  extension  of  the  selected	 file  name matches one of the
	      extensions in the extensions file then the corresponding command
	      is executed.

       C-l    repaint all the information in Midnight Commander.

       C-x c  run the Chmod command on a file or on the tagged files.

       C-x o  run  the	Chown  command	on  the	 current file or on the tagged
	      files.

       C-x l  run the hard link command.

       C-x s  run the absolute symbolic link command.

       C-x v  run the relative symbolic link command. See the File  Menu  sec‐
	      tion for more information about symbolic links.

       C-x i  set the other panel display mode to information.

       C-x q  set the other panel display mode to quick view.

       C-x !  execute the External panelize command.

       C-x h  run the add directory to hotlist command.

       Alt-!  executes	the  Filtered view command, described in the view com‐
	      mand.

       Alt-?  executes the Find file command.

       Alt-c  pops up the quick cd dialog.

       C-o    when the program is being run in the Linux or FreeBSD console or
	      under an xterm, it will show you the output of the previous com‐
	      mand.  When ran on the Linux console, Midnight Commander uses an
	      external	program (cons.saver) to handle saving and restoring of
	      information on the screen.

       When the subshell support is compiled in, you can type C-o at any  time
       and  you	 will  be  taken  back to Midnight Commander's main screen, to
       return to your application just type C-o.  If you have  an  application
       suspended  by using this trick, you won't be able to execute other pro‐
       grams from Midnight Commander until you terminate the suspended	appli‐
       cation.

  Directory Panels
       This  section  lists the keys which operate on the directory panels. If
       you want to know how to change the appearance of the panels take a look
       at the section on Left and Right Menus.

       Tab, C-i
	      change  the  current  panel. The old other panel becomes the new
	      current panel and the old current panel becomes  the  new	 other
	      panel. The selection bar moves from the old current panel to the
	      new current panel.

       Insert, C-t
	      to tag files you may use the  Insert  key	 (the  kich1  terminfo
	      sequence).  To untag files, just retag a tagged file.

       M-e    to change charset of panel you may use M-e (Alt-e).  Recoding is
	      made from selected codepage into system codepage. To cancel  the
	      recoding you may select "directory up" (..) in active panel.  To
	      cancel the charsets in all directories, select "No translation "
	      in the dialog of encodings.

       Alt-g, Alt-r, Alt-j
	      used  to select the top file in a panel, the middle file and the
	      bottom one, respectively.

       Alt-t  toggle the current display listing  to  show  the	 next  display
	      listing  mode.   With  this  it is possible to quickly switch to
	      brief listing, long listing, user defined listing mode, and back
	      to the default.

       C-\ (control-backslash)
	      show the directory hotlist and change to the selected directory.

       +  (plus)
	      this  is used to select (tag) a group of files. Midnight Comman‐
	      der will prompt for a selection options. When Files only	check‐
	      box  is  on, only files will be selected.	 If Files only is off,
	      as files as directories will be selected.	 When  Shell  Patterns
	      checkbox is on, the regular expression is much like the filename
	      globbing in the shell (* standing for zero  or  more  characters
	      and  ?  standing	for  one character). If Shell Patterns is off,
	      then the tagging of files is done with  normal  regular  expres‐
	      sions  (see  ed  (1)).  When  Case sensitive checkbox is on, the
	      selection will be case sensitive characters.  If Case  sensitive
	      is off, the case will be ignored.

       \ (backslash)
	      use  the "\" key to unselect a group of files. This is the oppo‐
	      site of the Plus key.

       up-key, C-p
	      move the selection bar to the previous entry in the panel.

       down-key, C-n
	      move the selection bar to the next entry in the panel.

       home, a1, Alt-<
	      move the selection bar to the first entry in the panel.

       end, c1, Alt->
	      move the selection bar to the last entry in the panel.

       next-page, C-v
	      move the selection bar one page down.

       prev-page, Alt-v
	      move the selection bar one page up.

       Alt-o  If the currently selected file is a directory, load that	direc‐
	      tory  on	the  other  panel  and moves the selection to the next
	      file. If the currently selected file is not  a  directory,  load
	      the  parent directory on the other panel and moves the selection
	      to the next file.

       Alt-i  make the current directory of the current panel also the current
	      directory	 of the other panel.  Put the other panel to the list‐
	      ing mode if needed.  If the  current  panel  is  panelized,  the
	      other panel doesn't become panelized.

       C-PageUp, C-PageDown
	      only  when  supported by the terminal: change to ".." and to the
	      currently selected directory respectively.

       Alt-y  moves to the previous directory in the  history,	equivalent  to
	      clicking the < with the mouse.

       Alt-u  moves to the next directory in the history, equivalent to click‐
	      ing the > with the mouse.

       Alt-Shift-h, Alt-H
	      displays the directory history, equivalent to depressing the 'v'
	      with the mouse.

  Quick search
       The  Quick  search  mode allows you to perform fast file search in file
       panel.  Press C-s or Alt-s to start a filename search in the  directory
       listing.

       When  the  search is active, the user input will be added to the search
       string instead of the command line. If the Show mini-status  option  is
       enabled	the  search string is shown on the mini-status line. When typ‐
       ing, the selection bar will move to the next  file  starting  with  the
       typed  letters. The Backspace or DEL keys can be used to correct typing
       mistakes. If C-s is pressed again, the next match is searched for.

       If quick search is started with double pressing of  C-s,	 the  previous
       quick search pattern will be used for current search.

       Besides	the  filename characters, you can also use wildcard characters
       '*' and '?'.

  Shell Command Line
       This section lists keys which are useful to avoid excessive typing when
       entering shell commands.

       Alt-Enter
	      copy the currently selected file name to the command line.

       C-Enter
	      same  a Alt-Enter.  May not work on remote systems and some ter‐
	      minals.

       C-Shift-Enter
	      copy the full path name of the currently selected	 file  to  the
	      command  line.   May  not work on remote systems and some termi‐
	      nals.

       Alt-Tab
	      does the filename, command, variable, username and hostname com‐
	      pletion for you.

       C-x t, C-x C-t
	      copy  the	 tagged	 files	(or  if there are no tagged files, the
	      selected file) of the current panel (C-x	t)  or	of  the	 other
	      panel (C-x C-t) to the command line.

       C-x p, C-x C-p
	      the  first key sequence copies the current path name to the com‐
	      mand line, and the second one copies the unselected panel's path
	      name to the command line.

       C-q    the quote command can be used to insert characters that are oth‐
	      erwise interpreted by Midnight Commander (like the '+' symbol)

       Alt-p, Alt-n
	      use these keys to browse	through	 the  command  history.	 Alt-p
	      takes you to the last entry, Alt-n takes you to the next one.

       Alt-h  displays the history for the current input line.

  General Movement Keys
       The help viewer, the file viewer and the directory tree use common code
       to handle moving. Therefore they accept exactly the same keys. Each  of
       them also accepts some keys of its own.

       Other  parts  of Midnight Commander use some of the same movement keys,
       so this section may be of use for those parts too.

       Up, C-p
	      moves one line backward.

       Down, C-n
	      moves one line forward.

       Prev Page, Page Up, Alt-v
	      moves one page up.

       Next Page, Page Down, C-v
	      moves one page down.

       Home, A1
	      moves to the beginning.

       End, C1
	      move to the end.

       The help viewer and the file viewer accept the following keys in	 addi‐
       tion the to ones mentioned above:

       b, C-b, C-h, Backspace, Delete
	      moves one page up.

       Space bar
	      moves one page down.

       u, d   moves one half of a page up or down.

       g, G   moves to the beginning or to the end.

  Input Line Keys
       The  input  lines (they are used for the command line and for the query
       dialogs in the program) accept these keys:

       C-a    puts the cursor at the beginning of line.

       C-e    puts the cursor at the end of the line.

       C-b, move-left
	      move the cursor one position left.

       C-f, move-right
	      move the cursor one position right.

       Alt-f  moves one word forward.

       Alt-b  moves one word backward.

       C-h, Backspace
	      delete the previous character.

       C-d, Delete
	      delete the character in the point (over the cursor).

       C-@    sets the mark for cutting.

       C-w    copies the text between the cursor and the mark to a kill buffer
	      and removes the text from the input line.

       Alt-w  copies  the  text between the cursor and the mark to a kill buf‐
	      fer.

       C-y    yanks back the contents of the kill buffer.

       C-k    kills the text from the cursor to the end of the line.

       Alt-p, Alt-n
	      Use these keys to browse	through	 the  command  history.	 Alt-p
	      takes you to the last entry, Alt-n takes you to the next one.

       Alt-C-h, Alt-Backspace
	      delete one word backward.

       Alt-Tab
	      does the filename, command, variable, username and hostname com‐
	      pletion for you.

Menu Bar
       The menu bar pops up when you press F9 or click the mouse  on  the  top
       row  of	the screen. The menu bar has five menus: "Left", "File", "Com‐
       mand", "Options" and "Right".

       The Left and Right Menus allow you to modify the appearance of the left
       and right directory panels.

       The  File  Menu	lists  the  actions  you  can perform on the currently
       selected file or the tagged files.

       The Command Menu lists the actions which are more general and  bear  no
       relation to the currently selected file or the tagged files.

       The  Options  Menu  lists the actions which allow you to customize Mid‐
       night Commander.

  Left and Right (Above and Below) Menus
       The outlook of the directory panels can be changed from	the  Left  and
       Right  menus  (they are named Above and Below when the horizontal panel
       split is chosen from the Layout options dialog).

    Listing Mode...
       The listing mode view is used to display a listing of files, there  are
       four  different	listing	 modes	available: Full, Brief, Long and User.
       The full directory view shows the file name, the size of the  file  and
       the modification time.

       The  brief view shows only the file name and it has from 1 up to 9 col‐
       umns (therefore showing more files unlike other views). The  long  view
       is  similar  to	the  output  of ls -l command. The long view takes the
       whole screen width.

       If you choose the "User" display format, then you have to  specify  the
       display format.

       The  user  display format must start with a panel size specifier.  This
       may be "half" or "full", and they specify a half	 screen	 panel	and  a
       full screen panel respectively.

       After  the  panel size, you may specify how many listings to fit in the
       panel, side-by-side (in other words:  how  many	times  to  repeat  the
       fields horizontally). This defaults to 1. You may change this by adding
       a number from 1 to 9 to the format string.

       After this you add the name of the fields with an optional size	speci‐
       fier.  This are the available fields you may display:

       name   displays the file name.

       size   displays the file size.

       bsize  is  an alternative form of the size format. It displays the size
	      of the files and	for  directories  it  just  shows  SUB-DIR  or
	      UP--DIR.

       type   displays	a  one	character  wide type field.  This character is
	      similar to what is displayed by ls with the -F flag - * for exe‐
	      cutable  files, / for directories, @ for links, = for sockets, -
	      for character devices, + for block devices, | for pipes,	~  for
	      symbolic	links  to directories and !  for stale symlinks (links
	      that point nowhere).

       mark   an asterisk if the file is tagged, a space if it's not.

       mtime  file's last modification time.

       atime  file's last access time.

       ctime  file's status change time.

       perm   a string representing the current permission bits of the file.

       mode   an octal value with the current permission bits of the file.

       nlink  the number of links to the file.

       ngid   the GID (numeric).

       nuid   the UID (numeric).

       owner  the owner of the file.

       group  the group of the file.

       inode  the inode of the file.

       Also you can use following keywords to define the panel layout:

       space  a space in the display format.

       |      add a vertical line to the display format.

       To force one field to a fixed size (a size specifier), you just	add  :
       followed	 by  the  number of characters you want the field to have.  If
       the number is followed by the symbol +, then  the  size	specifies  the
       minimal	field size - if the program finds out that there is more space
       on the screen, it will then expand that field.

       For example, the Full display corresponds to this format:

       half type name | size | mtime

       And the Long display corresponds to this format:

       full perm space nlink space owner space group space  size  space	 mtime
       space name

       This is a nice user display format:

       half name | size:7 | type mode:3

       Panels may also be set to the following modes:

       Info   The  info	 view  display	information  related  to the currently
	      selected file and if possible information about the current file
	      system.

       Tree   The  tree	 view  is quite similar to the directory tree feature.
	      See the section about it for more information.

       Quick View
	      In this mode, the panel will switch to  a	 reduced  viewer  that
	      displays	the  contents  of  the currently selected file, if you
	      select the panel (with the tab key or the mouse), you will  have
	      access to the usual viewer commands.

    Sort Order...
       The  eight sort orders are by name, by extension, by modification time,
       by access time, and by inode information modification time, by size, by
       inode  and  unsorted.   In the Sort order dialog box you can choose the
       sort order and you may also specify if you  want	 to  sort  in  reverse
       order by checking the reverse box.

       By  default directories are sorted before files but this can be changed
       from the Panel options menu (option Mix all files).

    Filter...
       The filter command allows you to specify a shell pattern	 (for  example
       *.tar.gz)  which	 the  files  must match to be shown. Regardless of the
       filter pattern, the directories and the links to directories are always
       shown in the directory panel.

    Reread
       The  reread  command  reload  the list of files in the directory. It is
       useful if other processes have created or removed files.

  File Menu
       Midnight Commander uses the F1 - F10 keys  as  keyboard	shortcuts  for
       commands	 appearing  in	the  file  menu.  The escape sequences for the
       function keys are terminfo capabilities kf1 trough kf10.	 On  terminals
       without function key support, you can achieve the same functionality by
       pressing the ESC key and then a number in the range 1 through 9	and  0
       (corresponding to F1 to F9 and F10 respectively).

       The  File menu has the following commands (keyboard shortcuts in paren‐
       theses):

       Help (F1)

       Invokes the built-in hypertext help viewer. Inside the help viewer, you
       can use the Tab key to select the next link and the Enter key to follow
       that link. The keys Space and Backspace are used to  move  forward  and
       backward	 in  a	help  page.  Press  F1	again  to get the full list of
       accepted keys.

       Menu (F2)

       Invoke the user menu.  The user menu provides an easy  way  to  provide
       users with a menu and add extra features to Midnight Commander.

       View (F3, F13)

       View  the currently selected file. By default this invokes the Internal
       File Viewer but if the option "Use internal view" is off, it invokes an
       external	 file viewer specified by the VIEWER environment variable.  If
       VIEWER is undefined, the PAGER environment variable is tried.  If PAGER
       is  also	 undefined,  the  "view"  command  is invoked.	If you use F13
       instead, the viewer will be invoked without  doing  any	formatting  or
       preprocessing to the file.

       See  parameters	for external viewer for explain how you may specify an
       extended command line options for external viewers.

       Filtered View (Alt-!)

       This command prompts for a command  and	its  arguments	(the  argument
       defaults	 to  the  currently  selected file name), the output from such
       command is shown in the internal file viewer.

       Edit (F4, F14)

       Press F4 to edit the highlighted file.	Press  F14  (usually  F14)  to
       start  the editor with a new, empty file.  Currently they invoke the vi
       editor, or the editor specified in the EDITOR environment variable,  or
       the Internal File Editor if the use_internal_edit option is on.

       See  parameters	for external editor for explain how you may specify an
       extended command line options for external editors.

       Copy (F5, F15)

       Press F5 to pop up an input dialog to copy the currently selected  file
       (or  the	 tagged	 files,	 if  there is at least one file tagged) to the
       directory/filename you specify in the  input  dialog.  The  destination
       defaults to the directory in the non-selected panel. Space for destina‐
       tion file may be preallocated relative to  preallocate_space  configure
       option.	 During	 this  process,	 you can press C-c or ESC to abort the
       operation.  For details about source mask (which will be usually either
       *  or ^\(.*\)$ depending on setting of Use shell patterns) and possible
       wildcards in the destination see Mask copy/rename.

       F15 (usually F15) is similar, but defaults  to  the  directory  in  the
       selected	 panel. It always operates on the selected file, regardless of
       any tagged files.

       On some systems, it is possible to do the copy  in  the	background  by
       clicking	 on  the  background  button  (or pressing Alt-b in the dialog
       box).  The Background Jobs is used to control the background process.

       Link (C-x l)

       Create a hard link to the current file.

       Absolute symlink (C-x s)

       Create a absolute symbolic link to the current file.

       Relative symLink (C-x v)

       Create a relative symbolic link to the current file.

       To those of you who don't know what links are: creating	a  link	 to  a
       file  is	 a bit like copying the file, but both the source filename and
       the destination filename represent the same file image. For example, if
       you  edit  one of these files, all changes you make will appear in both
       files. Some people call links aliases or shortcuts.

       A hard link appears as a real file. After making it, there is no way of
       telling	which one is the original and which is the link. If you delete
       either one of them the other one is still intact. It is very  difficult
       to  notice that the files represent the same image. Use hard links when
       you don't even want to know.

       A symbolic link is a reference to the name of the original file. If the
       original file is deleted the symbolic link is useless. It is quite easy
       to notice that the files represent the same image.  Midnight  Commander
       shows an "@"-sign in front of the file name if it is a symbolic link to
       somewhere (except to directory, where it shows a tilde (~)).  The orig‐
       inal  file which the link points to is shown on mini-status line if the
       Show mini-status option is enabled. Use symbolic links when you want to
       avoid the confusion that can be caused by hard links.

       When  you  press	 "C-x s" Midnight Commander will automatically fill in
       the complete path+filename of the original file and suggest a name  for
       the link.  You can change either one.

       Sometimes you may want to change the absolute path of the original into
       a relative path. An absolute path starts from the root directory:

       /home/frodo/mc/mc -> /home/frodo/new/mc

       A relative link describes the original file's  location	starting  from
       the location of the link itself:

       /home/frodo/mc/mc -> ../new/mc

       You can force Midnight Commander to suggest a relative path by pressing
       "C-x v" instead of "C-x s".

       Rename/Move (F6, F16)

       Press F6 to pop up an input dialog to copy the currently selected  file
       (or  the	 tagged	 files,	 if  there is at least one file tagged) to the
       directory/filename you specify in the input  dialog.   The  destination
       defaults	 to  the directory in the non-selected panel. For more details
       look at Copy (F5) operation above, most of the things are  quite	 simi‐
       lar.

       F16  (usually  F16)  is	similar,  but defaults to the directory in the
       selected panel. It always operates on the selected file, regardless  of
       any tagged files.

       On  some	 systems,  it  is possible to do the copy in the background by
       clicking on the background button (or  pressing	Alt-b  in  the	dialog
       box).  The Background Jobs is used to control the background process.

       Mkdir (F7)

       Pop up an input dialog and creates the directory specified.

       Delete (F8)

       Delete the currently selected file or the tagged files in the currently
       selected panel. During the process, you can press C-c or ESC  to	 abort
       the operation.

       Quick cd (Alt-c) Use the quick cd command if you have full command line
       and want to cd somewhere.

       Select group (+)

       This is used to select (tag) a group of files. Midnight Commander  will
       prompt  for  a  selection options. When Files only checkbox is on, only
       files will be selected.	If Files only is off, as files as  directories
       will  be	 selected.   When  Shell  Patterns checkbox is on, the regular
       expression is much like the filename globbing in the shell (*  standing
       for  zero  or  more  characters	and ?  standing for one character). If
       Shell Patterns is off, then the tagging of files is  done  with	normal
       regular	expressions  (see ed (1)). When Case sensitive checkbox is on,
       the selection will be case sensitive characters.	 If Case sensitive  is
       off, the case will be ignored.

       Unselect group (\)

       Used  to	 unselect a group of files. This is the opposite of the Select
       group command.

       Quit (F10, Shift-F10)

       Terminate Midnight Commander. Shift-F10 is used when you want  to  quit
       and  you	 are  using the shell wrapper.	Shift-F10 will not take you to
       the last directory you visited with Midnight Commander, instead it will
       stay at the directory where you started Midnight Commander.

    Quick cd
       This  command  is useful if you have a full command line and want to cd
       somewhere without having to yank and paste the command line. This  com‐
       mand pops up a small dialog, where you enter everything you would enter
       after cd on the command line and then you press	enter.	This  features
       all the things that are already in the internal cd command.

  Command Menu
       The Directory tree command shows a tree figure of the directories.

       The "Find file" command allows you to search for a specific file.

       The  "Swap panels" command swaps the contents of the two directory pan‐
       els.

       The "Switch panels on/off" command shows the output of the  last	 shell
       command.	 This works only on xterm and on Linux and FreeBSD console.

       The  "Compare  directories"  command compares the directory panels with
       each other. You can then use the Copy (F5) command to make  the	panels
       identical.  There  are three compare methods. The quick method compares
       only file size  and  file  date.	 The  thorough	method	makes  a  full
       byte-by-byte  compare.  The  thorough  method  is  not available if the
       machine does not support the mmap(2) system call.  The  size-only  com‐
       pare  method  just  compares the file sizes and does not check the con‐
       tents or the date times, it just checks the file size.

       The "External panelize" allows you to execute an external program,  and
       make the output of that program the contents of the current panel.

       The  "Command  history"	command	 shows	a  list of typed commands. The
       selected command is copied to the command line. The command history can
       also be accessed by typing Alt-p or Alt-n.

       The "Directory hotlist" command makes changing of the current directory
       to often used directories faster.

       The "Screen list" command shows a dialog window with the list  of  cur‐
       rently running internal editors, viewers and other MC modules that sup‐
       port this mode.

       The "Edit extension file" command allows you  to	 specify  programs  to
       executed	 when  you  try to execute, view, edit and do a bunch of other
       thing on files with certain extensions (filename endings).

       The "Edit Menu File" command may be used	 for  editing  the  user  menu
       (which appears by pressing F2).

    Directory Tree
       The  Directory Tree command shows a tree figure of the directories. You
       can select a directory from the	figure	and  Midnight  Commander  will
       change to that directory.

       There  are two ways to invoke the tree. The real directory tree command
       is available from Commands menu. The other way is to select  tree  view
       from the Left or Right menu.

       To  get	rid of long delays, Midnight Commander creates the tree figure
       by scanning only a small subset of all the directories. If  the	direc‐
       tory which you want to see is missing, move to its parent directory and
       press C-r (or F2).

       You can use the following keys:

       General movement keys are accepted.

       Enter.  In the directory tree, exits the directory tree and changes  to
       this  directory in the current panel. In the tree view, changes to this
       directory in the other panel and stays in tree view mode in the current
       panel.

       C-r, F2 (Rescan).  Rescan this directory. Use this when the tree figure
       is out of date: it is missing subdirectories or shows some  subdirecto‐
       ries which don't exist any more.

       F3  (Forget).   Delete this directory from the tree figure. Use this to
       remove clutter from the figure. If you want the directory back  to  the
       tree figure press F2 in its parent directory.

       F4  (Static/Dynamic).   Toggle  between	the  dynamic  navigation  mode
       (default) and the static navigation mode.

       In the static navigation mode you can use  the  Up  and	Down  keys  to
       select a directory. All known directories are shown.

       In  the	dynamic	 navigation  mode  you can use the Up and Down keys to
       select a sibling directory, the Left key to move to the	parent	direc‐
       tory,  and the Right key to move to a child directory. Only the parent,
       sibling and children directories are shown, others are  left  out.  The
       tree figure changes dynamically as you traverse.

       F5 (Copy).  Copy the directory.

       F6 (RenMov).  Move the directory.

       F7 (Mkdir).  Make a new directory below this directory.

       F8 (Delete).  Delete this directory from the file system.

       C-s,  Alt-s.   Search the next directory matching the search string. If
       there is no such directory these keys will move one line down.

       C-h, Backspace.	Delete the last character of the search string.

       Any other character.  Add the character to the search string  and  move
       to  the	next directory which starts with these characters. In the tree
       view you must first activate the	 search	 mode  by  pressing  C-s.  The
       search string is shown in the mini status line.

       The  following  actions	are available only in the directory tree. They
       aren't supported in the tree view.

       F1 (Help).  Invoke the help viewer and show this section.

       Esc, F10.  Exit the directory tree. Do not change the directory.

       The mouse is supported. A double-click behaves like Enter. See also the
       section on mouse support.

    Find File
       The Find File feature first asks for the start directory for the search
       and the filename to be searched for. By pressing the  Tree  button  you
       can select the start directory from the directory tree figure.

       The  "File name" input field contains a filename pattern to be searched
       for. It is interpreted as a shell pattern or as	a  regular  expression
       depending on the state of the "Using shell patterns" checkbox. An empty
       value is valid and matches any file name.

       The "Content" input field contains a string to search  for  within  the
       files. Leave this field empty to disable searching file contents.

       Option  "Whole words" allows select only those files containing matches
       that form whole words. Like grep -w.

       You can start the search by pressing the OK button.  During the	search
       you can stop from the Stop button and continue from the Start button.

       You  can browse the filelist with the up and down arrow keys. The Chdir
       button will change to the directory of the currently selected file. The
       Again  button  will  ask	 for the parameters for a new search. The Quit
       button quits the search operation. The Panelize button will  place  the
       found  files  to	 the  current directory panel so that you can do addi‐
       tional operations on them (view, copy, move,  delete  and  so  on).  To
       return to the normal file listing, change directory to "..".

       The 'Enable ignore directories' checkbox and input field below it allow
       one to set up the list of directories that should be  skip  during  the
       search  files  (for example, you may want to avoid searches on a CD-ROM
       or on a NFS directory that is mounted across a slow link). List	compo‐
       nents must be separated with a colon, here is an example:

       /cdrom:/nfs/wuarchive:/afs

       Relative	 paths	are supported also. The following example shows how to
       skip special directories of version control systems:
       /cdrom:/nfs/wuarchive:/afs:.svn:.git:CVS

       Attention: input field can contain a dot (.), this  means  the  current
       absolute path.

       You  may	 consider  using the External panelize command for some opera‐
       tions. Find file command is for simple queries only, while using Exter‐
       nal panelize you can do as mysterious searches as you would like.

    External panelize
       The  External  panelize	allows you to execute an external program, and
       make the output of that program the contents of the current panel.

       For example, if you want to manipulate in one of	 the  panels  all  the
       symbolic links in the current directory, you can use external paneliza‐
       tion to run the following command:

       find . -type l -print

       Upon command completion, the directory contents of the  panel  will  no
       longer  be  the directory listing of the current directory, but all the
       files that are symbolic links.

       If you want to panelize all of the files that have been downloaded from
       your  FTP server, you can use this awk command to extract the file name
       from the transfer log files:

       awk '$9 ~! /incoming/ { print $9 }' < /var/log/xferlog

       You may want to save often used panelize commands under	a  descriptive
       name,  so  that	you can recall them quickly. You do this by typing the
       command on the input line and pressing Add new button. Then you enter a
       name  under which you want the command to be saved. Next time, you just
       choose that command from the list and do not have to type it again.

    Hotlist
       The Directory hotlist command shows the labels of  the  directories  in
       the  directory hotlist. Midnight Commander will change to the directory
       corresponding to the selected label.  From the hotlist dialog, you  can
       remove  already created label/directory pairs and add new ones.	To add
       new directories quickly, you can use the Add to	hotlist	 command  (C-x
       h), which adds the current directory into the directory hotlist, asking
       just for the label for the directory.

       This makes cd to often used directories faster. You may consider	 using
       the CDPATH variable as described in internal cd command description.

    Edit Extension File
       This will invoke your editor on the file ~/.config/mc/mc.ext.  The for‐
       mat of this file following:

       All lines starting with # or empty lines are thrown away.

       Lines starting in the first column should have following format:

       keyword/expr, i.e. everything after the slash until new line is expr.

       keyword can be:

       shell  - expr is an extension (no wildcards).  File matches it its name
	      ends with expr.  Example: shell/.tar matches *.tar.

       regex  -	 expr  is  a  regular  expression.   File  matches if its name
	      matches the regular expression.

       directory
	      - expr is a regular expression.  File matches if it is a	direc‐
	      tory and its name matches the regular expression.

       type   -	 expr  is a regular expression.	 File matches if the output of
	      file %f without the initial  "filename:"	part  matches  regular
	      expression expr.

       default
	      - matches any file.  expr is ignored.

       include
	      - denotes a common section.  expr is the name of the section.

       Other  lines should start with a space or tab and should be of the for‐
       mat: keyword=command (with no spaces around =),	where  keyword	should
       be:  Open  (invoked  on Enter or double click), View (F3), Edit (F4) or
       Include (to add	rules  from  the  common  section).   command  is  any
       one-line shell command, with the simple macro substitution.

       Rules  are matched from top to bottom, thus the order is important.  If
       the appropriate action is missing, search continues  as	if  this  rule
       didn't  match  (i.e.  if	 a file matches the first and second entry and
       View action is missing in the first one, then on pressing F3  the  View
       action  from  the second entry will be used).  default should match all
       the actions.

    Background Jobs
       This lets you control the state of any  background  Midnight  Commander
       process	(only  copy and move files operations can be done in the back‐
       ground).	 You can stop, restart and kill a background job from here.

    Edit Menu File
       The user menu is a menu of useful actions that can be customized by the
       user. When you access the user menu, the file .mc.menu from the current
       directory is used if it exists, but only if it is owned by user or root
       and is not world-writable.  If no such file found, ~/.config/mc/menu is
       tried in the same way, and otherwise mc uses  the  default  system-wide
       menu /usr/share/mc/mc.menu.

       The  format of the menu file is very simple. Lines that start with any‐
       thing but space or tab are considered entries for the menu (in order to
       be  able to use it like a hot key, the first character should be a let‐
       ter). All the lines that start with a space or a tab are	 the  commands
       that will be executed when the entry is selected.

       When  an	 option	 is  selected  all the command lines of the option are
       copied  to  a  temporary	 file  in  the	temporary  directory  (usually
       /usr/tmp)  and  then that file is executed. This allows the user to put
       normal shell constructs in the menus. Also  simple  macro  substitution
       takes  place  before executing the menu code. For more information, see
       macro substitution.

       Here is a sample mc.menu file:

       A    Dump the currently selected file
	    od -c %f

       B    Edit a bug report and send it to root
	    I=`mktemp ${MC_TMPDIR:-/tmp}/mail.XXXXXX` || exit 1
	    vi $I
	    mail -s "Midnight Commander bug" root < $I
	    rm -f $I

       M    Read mail
	    emacs -f rmail

       N    Read Usenet news
	    emacs -f gnus

       H    Call the info hypertext browser
	    info

       J    Copy current directory to other panel recursively
	    tar cf - . | (cd %D && tar xvpf -)

       K    Make a release of the current subdirectory
	    echo -n "Name of distribution file: "
	    read tar
	    ln -s %d `dirname %d`/$tar
	    cd ..
	    tar cvhf ${tar}.tar $tar

       = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n
       X       Extract the contents of a compressed tar file
	    tar xzvf %f

       Default Conditions

       Each menu entry may be preceded by  a  condition.  The  condition  must
       start  from  the first column with a '=' character. If the condition is
       true, the menu entry will be the default entry.

       Condition syntax:   = <sub-cond>
	 or:		   = <sub-cond> | <sub-cond> ...
	 or:		   = <sub-cond> & <sub-cond> ...

       Sub-condition is one of following:

	 y <pattern>	   syntax of current file matching pattern?
		      (for edit menu only)
	 f <pattern>	   current file matching pattern?
	 F <pattern>	   other file matching pattern?
	 d <pattern>	   current directory matching pattern?
	 D <pattern>	   other directory matching pattern?
	 t <type>	   current file of type?
	 T <type>	   other file of type?
	 x <filename>	   is it executable filename?
	 ! <sub-cond>	   negate the result of sub-condition

       Pattern is a normal shell pattern or a regular expression, according to
       the  shell  patterns  option.  You can override the global value of the
       shell patterns option by writing "shell_patterns=x" on the  first  line
       of the menu file (where "x" is either 0 or 1).

       Type is one or more of the following characters:

	 n  not a directory
	 r  regular file
	 d  directory
	 l  link
	 c  character device
	 b  block device
	 f  FIFO (pipe)
	 s  socket
	 x  executable file
	 t  tagged

       For example 'rlf' means either regular file, link or fifo. The 't' type
       is a little special because it acts on the panel instead of  the	 file.
       The  condition  '=t t' is true if there are tagged files in the current
       panel and false if not.

       If the condition starts with '=?' instead of '=' a debug trace will  be
       shown whenever the value of the condition is calculated.

       The conditions are calculated from left to right. This means
	    = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n
       is calculated as
	    ( (f *.tar.gz) | (f *.tgz) ) & (t n)

       Here is a sample of the use of conditions:

       = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n
       L    List the contents of a compressed tar-archive
	    gzip -cd %f | tar xvf -

       Addition Conditions

       If  the condition begins with '+' (or '+?') instead of '=' (or '=?') it
       is an addition condition. If the condition is true the menu entry  will
       be  included in the menu. If the condition is false the menu entry will
       not be included in the menu.

       You can combine default and addition conditions by  starting  condition
       with  '+='  or '=+' (or '+=?' or '=+?' if you want debug trace). If you
       want to use two different conditions, one for adding  and  another  for
       defaulting,  you can precede a menu entry with two condition lines, one
       starting with '+' and another starting with '='.

       Comments are started with '#'. The additional comment lines must	 start
       with '#', space or tab.

  Options Menu
       Midnight	 Commander  has some options that may be toggled on and off in
       several dialogs which  are  accessible  from  this  menu.  Options  are
       enabled if they have an asterisk or "x" in front of them.

       The  Configuration  command  pops up a dialog from which you can change
       most of settings of Midnight Commander.

       The Layout command pops up a dialog from which you specify a  bunch  of
       options how mc looks like on the screen.

       The  Panel  options  command  pops  up  a dialog from which you specify
       options of file manager panels.

       The Confirmation command pops up a dialog from which you specify	 which
       actions you want to confirm.

       The  Appearance	command	 pops  up  a dialog from which you specify the
       skin.

       The Display bits command pops up a dialog from  which  you  may	select
       which characters is your terminal able to display.

       The  Learn  keys command pops up a dialog from which you test some keys
       which are not working on some terminals and you may fix them.

       The Virtual FS command pops up a dialog from which you specify some VFS
       related options.

       The  Save  setup	 command saves the current settings of the Left, Right
       and Options menus. A small number of other settings is saved, too.

    Configuration
       The options in this dialog are divided into several groups: "File oper‐
       ation options", "Esc key mode", "Pause after run" and "Other options".

       File operation options

       Verbose	operation.   This  toggles  whether  the file Copy, Rename and
       Delete operations are verbose (i.e., display  a	dialog	box  for  each
       operation).  If	you  have a slow terminal, you may wish to disable the
       verbose operation. It is automatically turned off if the speed of  your
       terminal is less than 9600 bps.

       Compute totals.	If this option is enabled, Midnight Commander computes
       total byte sizes and total number of files prior to  any	 Copy,	Rename
       and  Delete  operations.	 This  will  provide  you with a more accurate
       progress bar at the expense of some speed. This option has  no  effect,
       if Verbose operation is disabled.

       Classic	progressbar.   If  this	 option is enabled, the progressbar of
       Copy/Move/Delete operations is always grown form left to right. If dis‐
       abled,  the  growing  direction	of progressbar follows to direction of
       Copy/Move/Delete operation: from left  panel  to	 right	one  and  vice
       versa. Enabled by default.

       Mkdir autoname.	When you press F7 to create a new directory, the input
       line in popup dialog will be filled by name of current file  or	direc‐
       tory in active panel.  Disabled by default.

       Preallocate  space.  Preallocate space for whole target file, if possi‐
       ble, before copy operation.  Disabled by default.

       Esc key mode.

       By default, Midnight Commander treats the ESC  key  as  a  key  prefix.
       Therefore,  you should press Esc code twice to exit a dialog. But there
       is a possibility to use a single press of ESC key for that action.

       Single press.  By default this option is disabled. If you'll enable it,
       the  ESC	 key  will  act	 as a prefix key for set up time interval (see
       Timeout option below), and if no extra keys have arrived, then the  ESC
       key is interpreted as a cancel key (ESC ESC).

       Timeout.	 This options is used to setup the time interval (in microsec‐
       onds) for single press of ESC key. By default,  this  interval  is  one
       second  (1000000	 microseconds).	 Also  the timeout can be set via KEY‐
       BOARD_KEY_TIMEOUT_US environment variable (also in microseconds), which
       has higher priority than Timeout option value.

       Pause after run

       After  executing	 your  commands, Midnight Commander can pause, so that
       you can examine the output of the command.  There  are  three  possible
       settings for this variable:

       Never.	Means  that you do not want to see the output of your command.
       If you are using the Linux or FreeBSD console or an xterm, you will  be
       able to see the output of the command by typing C-o.

       On  dumb	 terminals.   You will get the pause message on terminals that
       are not capable of showing the output of the last command executed (any
       terminal that is not an xterm or the Linux console).

       Always.	The program will pause after executing all of your commands.

       Other options

       Use internal editor.  If this option is enabled, the built-in file edi‐
       tor is used to edit files. If the option is disabled, the editor speci‐
       fied in the EDITOR environment variable is used.	 If no editor is spec‐
       ified, vi is used.  See the section on the internal file editor.

       Use internal viewer.  If this option  is	 enabled,  the	built-in  file
       viewer  is  used	 to  view  files. If the option is disabled, the pager
       specified in the PAGER environment variable is used.  If	 no  pager  is
       specified,  the	view command is used.  See the section on the internal
       file viewer.

       Ask new file name.  If this option  is  enabled,	 file  name  is	 asked
       before open new file in editor.

       Auto  menus.   If this option is enabled, the user menu will be invoked
       at startup.  Useful for building menus for non-unixers.

       Drop down menus.	 When this option is enabled, the pull down menus will
       be  activated as soon as you press the F9 key. Otherwise, you will only
       get the menu title, and you will have to activate the menu either  with
       the  arrow keys or with the hotkeys. It is recommended if you are using
       hotkeys.

       Shell Patterns.	By default the Select, Unselect	 and  Filter  commands
       will  use shell-like regular expressions. The following conversions are
       performed to achieve this: the '*' is replaced by '.*'  (zero  or  more
       characters);  the  '?'	is replaced by '.' (exactly one character) and
       '.' by the literal dot. If the option is	 disabled,  then  the  regular
       expressions are the ones described in ed(1).

       Complete:  show all.  By default, Midnight Commander pops up all possi‐
       ble completions if the completion is  ambiguous	only  when  you	 press
       Alt-Tab	for the second time.  For the first time, it just completes as
       much as possible and beeps in  the  case	 of  ambiguity.	  Enable  this
       option  if you want to see all possible completions even after pressing
       Alt-Tab the first time.

       Rotating dash.  If this option is enabled, the Midnight Commander shows
       a rotating dash in the upper right corner as a work in progress indica‐
       tor.

       Cd follows links.  This option, if set, causes  Midnight	 Commander  to
       follow the logical chain of directories when changing current directory
       either in the panels, or using the cd  command.	This  is  the  default
       behavior	 of  bash.  When  unset,  Midnight  Commander follows the real
       directory structure, so cd .. if you've entered that directory  through
       a  link will move you to the current directory's real parent and not to
       the directory where the link was present.

       Safe delete.  If this option is enabled, deleting files	and  directory
       hotlist	entries	 unintentionally  becomes more difficult.  The default
       selection in the confirmation dialogs for deletion changes  from	 "Yes"
       to "No".	 This option is disabled by default.

       Auto  save  setup.   If	this option is enabled, when you exit Midnight
       Commander, the configurable options of Midnight Commander are saved  in
       the ~/.config/mc/ini file.

    Layout
       The  layout dialog gives you a possibility to change the general layout
       of screen. The options in this dialog are divided into several  groups:
       "Panel split", "Console output" and "Other options".

       Panel split

       The  rest  of the screen area is used for the two directory panels. You
       can specify whether the area is split to the panels in Vertical or Hor‐
       izontal	direction. Panel layout can be changed using Alt-, (Alt-comma)
       shortcut.

       Equal split.  By default, panels have equal sizes.  Using  this	option
       you can specify an unequal split.

       Console output

       On  the	Linux  or  FreeBSD  console you can specify how many lines are
       shown in the output window. This option is available if	Midnight  Com‐
       mander runs on native console only.

       Other options

       Menu  bar  visible.   If	 enabled,  main	 menu of Midnight Commander is
       always visible on the top  row  of  screen  above  panels.  Enabled  by
       default.

       Command	prompt.	  If  enabled,	command	 line is available. Enabled by
       default.

       Keybar visible.	If enabled, 10 labels associated with F1-F10 keys  are
       located at the bottom row of screen. Enabled by default.

       Hintbar visible.	 If enabled, the one-line hints are visible below pan‐
       els. Enabled by default.

       XTerm window title.  When run in a terminal emulator for X11,  Midnight
       Commander  sets the terminal window title to the current working direc‐
       tory and updates it when necessary.  If your terminal emulator is  bro‐
       ken  and you see some incorrect output on startup and directory change,
       turn off this option.  Enabled by default.

       Show free space.	 If enabled, free space and  total  space  of  current
       file system is shown at the bottom frame of panel. Enabled by default.

    Panel options
       Main panel options

       Show mini-status.  If enabled, one line of status information about the
       currently selected item is shown at the bottom of the  panels.  Enabled
       by default.

       Use  SI size units.  If this option is enabled, Midnight Commander will
       use SI prefixes (base 10) when displaying any byte sizes.  If  disabled
       (default), Midnight Commander will use IEC prefixes (base 2).

       Mix  all	 files.	  If this option is enabled, all files and directories
       are shown mixed together.  If the option is disabled (default),	direc‐
       tories  (and  links  to	directories) are shown at the beginning of the
       listing, and other files below.

       Show backup files.  If enabled, Midnight Commander will show files end‐
       ing with a tilde.  Otherwise, they won't be shown (like GNU's ls option
       -B). Enabled by default.

       Show hidden files.  If enabled, Midnight Commander will show all	 files
       that start with a dot (like ls -a). Disabled by default.

       Fast  directory	reload.	 If this option is enabled, Midnight Commander
       will use a trick to determine if the directory contents	have  changed.
       The  trick  is to reload the directory only if the i-node of the direc‐
       tory has changed; this means that reloads only happen  when  files  are
       created	or  deleted.   If what changes is the i-node for a file in the
       directory (file size changes, mode or owner changes, etc)  the  display
       is not updated.	In these cases, if you have the option on, you have to
       rescan the directory manually (with C-r). Disabled by default.

       Mark moves down.	 If enabled, the selection bar will move down when you
       mark a file (with Insert key). Enabled by default.

       Reverse	files  only.  Allow revert selection of files only. Enabled by
       default.	 If enabled, the reverse selection is applied to  files	 only,
       not to directories.  The selection of directories is untouched. If off,
       the reverse selection is applied to files as well to  directories:  all
       unselected items become selected, and vice versa.

       Simple  swap.   If  both panels contain file listing, simple swap means
       that panels exchange its screen positions: left panel become right one,
       and  vice  versa.  If  this  option  is	unchecked, file listing panels
       exchange its content keeping listing format and sort options. Unchecked
       by default.

       Auto  save panels setup.	 If this option is enabled, when you exit Mid‐
       night Commander, the current  settings  of  panels  are	saved  in  the
       ~/.config/mc/panels.ini file.  Disabled by default.

       Navigation

       Lynx-like  motion.   If	this option is enabled, you may use the arrows
       keys to automatically chdir if the current selection is a  subdirectory
       and the shell command line is empty. By default, this setting is off.

       Page  scrolling.	  If  set (the default), panel will scroll by half the
       display when the cursor reaches the end or the beginning of the	panel,
       otherwise it will just scroll a file at a time.

       Center  scrolling.   If	set, panel will scroll when the cursor reaches
       the middle of the panel column, only hitting the top or bottom  of  the
       panel  when  actually  on the first or last file. This behavior applies
       when scrolling one file at a time, and  does  not  apply	 to  the  page
       up/down keys.

       Mouse page scrolling.  Controls whenever scrolling with the mouse wheel
       is done by pages or line by line on the panels.

       File highlight

       You can specify whether permissions and	file  types  should  be	 high‐
       lighted	with  distinctive  Colors.   If the permission highlighting is
       enabled, the parts of the perm and mode display fields which  apply  to
       the  user  running  Midnight  Commander	are highlighted with the color
       defined by the selected keyword.	 If  the  file	type  highlighting  is
       enabled,	 file  names  are  colored  according  to  rules  described in
       /etc/mc/filehighlight.ini file. See Filenames Highlight for more info.

       Quick search

       You can specify how the Quick search mode should	 work:	case  insensi‐
       tively,	case  sensitively  or be matched to the panel sort order: case
       sensitive or not.

    Confirmation
       In this dialog you configure the confirmation options  for  file	 dele‐
       tion, overwriting files, execution by pressing enter, quitting the pro‐
       gram, directory hotlist entries deletion and history cleanup.

    Appearance
       In this dialog you can select the skin to be used.

       See the Skins section for technical details about the  skin  definition
       files.

    Display bits
       This  is	 used  to  configure  the  range  of visible characters on the
       screen.	This setting may be 7-bits if  your  terminal/curses  supports
       only  seven  output bits, ISO-8859-1 displays all the characters in the
       ISO-8859-1 map and full 8 bits is for those terminals that can  display
       full 8 bit characters.

    Learn keys
       This  dialog  allows  you  to test and redefine functional keys, cursor
       arrows and some other keys to make them work properly on your terminal.
       They  often don't, since many terminal databases are incomplete or bro‐
       ken.

       You can move around with the Tab key and with the vi moving  keys  ('h'
       left, 'j' down, 'k' up and 'l' right).  Once you press any cursor move‐
       ment key and it is recognized, you can use that key as well.

       You can test keys just by pressing each of them.	 When you press a  key
       and  it	is  recognized	properly, OK should appear next to the name of
       that key.  Once a key is marked OK it starts working as	usually,  e.g.
       F1  pressed  the	 first time will just check that the F1 key works, but
       after that it will show help.  The same applies to the arrow keys.  The
       Tab key should be working always.

       If  some	 keys  do not work properly then you won't see OK appear after
       pressing one of these.  Then you may want to redefine  it.   Do	it  by
       pressing	 the  button with the name of that key (either by the mouse or
       by Enter or Space after selecting the button with Tab or arrows).  Then
       a message box will appear asking you to press that key.	Do it and wait
       until the message box disappears.  If you want  to  abort,  just	 press
       Escape once and wait.

       When  you finish with all the keys, you can Save them.  The definitions
       for the keys you have  redefined	 will  be  written  into  the  [termi‐
       nal:TERM] section of your ~/.config/mc/ini file (where TERM is the name
       of your current terminal).  The	definitions  of	 the  keys  that  were
       already working properly are not saved.

    Virtual FS
       This  option  gives  you	 control over the settings of the Virtual File
       System.

       Midnight Commander keeps in memory the information related to  some  of
       the  virtual  file  systems  to speed up the access to the files in the
       file system (for example, directory listings fetched from FTP servers).

       Also, in order to access the contents of compressed files (for example,
       compressed  tar	files),	 Midnight  Commander needs to create temporary
       uncompressed files on your disk.

       Since both the information in memory and the temporary  files  on  disk
       take  up	 resources,  you may want to tune the parameters of the cached
       information to decrease your resource usage or to maximize the speed of
       access to frequently used file systems.

       Because	of the format of the tar archives, the Tar filesystem needs to
       read the whole file just to load the  file  entries.   Since  most  tar
       files  are  usually  kept  compressed  (plain  tar files are species in
       extinction), the tar file system has to uncompress the file on the disk
       in a temporary location and then access the uncompressed file as a reg‐
       ular tar file.

       Now, since we all love to browse files and tar files all over the disk,
       it's  common that you will leave a tar file and then re-enter it later.
       Since decompression is slow, Midnight Commander will cache the informa‐
       tion  in	 memory for a limited time.  When the timeout expires, all the
       resources associated with the file system are  released.	  The  default
       timeout is set to one minute.

       The  FTP File System (ftpfs) allows you to browse directories on remote
       FTP servers.  It has several options.

       ftp anonymous password is the password used when you login  as  "anony‐
       mous".	Some sites require a valid e-mail address.  On the other hand,
       you probably don't want to give your real e-mail address	 to  untrusted
       sites, especially if you are not using spam filtering.

       ftpfs  keeps  the  directory  listing it fetches from a FTP server in a
       cache.  The cache expire time is configurable with the ftpfs  directory
       cache  timeout option.  A low value for this option may slow down every
       operation on the ftpfs because every operation would require sending  a
       request to the FTP server.

       You  can define an FTP proxy host for doing FTP.	 Note that most modern
       firewalls are fully transparent at least for passive FTP	 (see  below),
       so FTP proxies are considered obsolete.

       If Always use ftp proxy is not set, you can use the exclamation sign to
       enable proxy for certain hosts.	See FTP File System for examples.

       If this option is set, the program will	do  two	 things:  consult  the
       /usr/lib/mc/mc.no_proxy	file  for lines containing host names that are
       local (if the host name starts with a  dot,  it	is  assumed  to	 be  a
       domain)	and  to	 assume that any hostnames without dots in their names
       are directly accessible.	 All other hosts will be accessed through  the
       specified FTP proxy.

       You  can	 enable using ~/.netrc file, which keeps login names and pass‐
       words for ftp servers.  See netrc (5) for the description of the .netrc
       format.

       Use  passive  mode  enables using FTP passive mode, when the connection
       for data transfer is initiated by the client, not by the server.	  This
       option is recommended and enabled by default.  If this option is turned
       off, the data connection is initiated by the server.  This may not work
       with some firewalls.

    Save Setup
       At startup, Midnight Commander will try to load initialization informa‐
       tion from the ~/.config/mc/ini file. If this  file  doesn't  exist,  it
       will  load  the	information  from  the system-wide configuration file,
       located in /usr/share/mc/mc.ini. If the system-wide configuration  file
       doesn't exist, MC uses the default settings.

       The  Save Setup command creates the ~/.config/mc/ini file by saving the
       current settings of the Left, Right and Options menus.

       If you activate the auto save setup option, MC  will  always  save  the
       current settings when exiting.

       There  also  exist  settings  which can't be changed from the menus. To
       change these settings you  have	to  edit  the  setup  file  with  your
       favorite	 editor. See the section on Special Settings for more informa‐
       tion.

Executing operating system commands
       You may execute commands by typing them directly	 in  Midnight  Comman‐
       der's  input line, or by selecting the program you want to execute with
       the selection bar in one of the panels and hitting Enter.

       If you press Enter over a file that is not executable, Midnight Comman‐
       der checks the extension of the selected file against the extensions in
       the Extensions File.  If a match is found then the code associated with
       that  extension	is executed. A very simple macro expansion takes place
       before executing the command.

  The cd internal command
       The cd command is interpreted by Midnight Commander, it is  not	passed
       to  the command shell for execution.  Thus it may not handle all of the
       nice macro expansion and substitution that your shell does, although it
       does some of them:

       Tilde  substitution.  The (~) will be substituted with your home direc‐
       tory, if you append a username after the tilde, then it will be substi‐
       tuted with the login directory of the specified user.

       For  example,  ~guest  is  the home directory for the user guest, while
       ~/guest is the directory guest in your home directory.

       Previous directory.  You can jump to the directory you were  previously
       by using the special directory name '-' like this: cd -

       CDPATH  directories.   If  the directory specified to the cd command is
       not in the current directory, then Midnight Commander uses the value in
       the  environment	 variable CDPATH to search for the directory in any of
       the named directories.

       For example you could  set  your	 CDPATH	 variable  to  ~/src:/usr/src,
       allowing	 you to change your directory to any of the directories inside
       the ~/src and /usr/src directories, from any place in the  file	system
       by  using  its  relative	 name  (for example cd linux could take you to
       /usr/src/linux).

  Macro Substitution
       When accessing a user menu, or executing an  extension  dependent  com‐
       mand,  or running a command from the command line input, a simple macro
       substitution takes place.

       The macros are:

       %i     The indent of blank space, equal	the  cursor  column  position.
	      For edit menu only.

       %y     The syntax type of current file. For edit menu only.

       %k     The block file name.

       %e     The error file name.

       %m     The current menu name.

       %f and %p
	      The current file name.

       %x     The extension of current file name.

       %b     The current file name without extension.

       %d     The current directory name.

       %F     The current file in the unselected panel.

       %D     The directory name of the unselected panel.

       %t     The currently tagged files.

       %T     The tagged files in the unselected panel.

       %u and %U
	      Similar  to  the %t and %T macros, but in addition the files are
	      untagged.	 You can use this macro only once per menu file	 entry
	      or  extension  file  entry,  because  next time there will be no
	      tagged files.

       %s and %S
	      The selected files: The tagged files if there are any. Otherwise
	      the current file.

       %cd    This  is	a  special  macro  that	 is used to change the current
	      directory to the directory specified in front of	it.   This  is
	      used primarily as an interface to the Virtual File System.

       %view  This  macro  is  used to invoke the internal viewer.  This macro
	      can be used alone, or with arguments.  If you pass any arguments
	      to this macro, they should be enclosed in brackets.

	      The  arguments  are:  ascii to force the viewer into ascii mode;
	      hex to force the viewer into hex mode; nroff to tell the	viewer
	      that  it	should	interpret  the bold and underline sequences of
	      nroff; unformatted to tell the viewer  to	 not  interpret	 nroff
	      commands for making the text bold or underlined.

       %%     The % character

       %{some text}
	      Prompt  for the substitution. An input box is shown and the text
	      inside the braces is used as a prompt. The macro is  substituted
	      by  the text typed by the user. The user can press ESC or F10 to
	      cancel. This macro doesn't work on the command line yet.

       %var{ENV:default}
	      If environment variable ENV is unset,  the  default  is  substi‐
	      tuted.  Otherwise, the value of ENV is substituted.

  The subshell support
       The  subshell  support  is  a  compile time option, that works with the
       shells: bash, ash (BusyBox and Debian), tcsh, zsh and fish.

       When the subshell support is active, Midnight Commander	will  spawn  a
       concurrent  copy	 of  your shell (the one defined in the SHELL variable
       and if it is not defined, then the one in the /etc/passwd file) and run
       it  in a pseudo terminal, instead of invoking a new shell each time you
       execute a command, the command will be passed to the subshell as if you
       had  typed  it.	 This  also allows you to change the environment vari‐
       ables, use shell functions and define aliases that are valid until  you
       quit Midnight Commander.

       bash  users  may	 specify  startup commands in ~/.local/share/mc/bashrc
       (fallback    ~/.bashrc)	  and	  special     keyboard	   maps	    in
       ~/.local/share/mc/inputrc (fallback ~/.inputrc).

       ash/dash	 users	(BusyBox  or  Debian)  may specify startup commands in
       ~/.local/share/mc/ashrc (fallback ~/.profile).

       tcsh, zsh, fish users cannot specify mc-specific	 startup  commands  at
       present. They have to rely on shell-specific startup files.

       The following paragraphs are relevant only when the subshell support is
       active:

       You can suspend applications at any time with the sequence C-o and jump
       back  to	 Midnight Commander, if you interrupt an application, you will
       not be able to run other external commands until you quit the  applica‐
       tion you interrupted.

       The  basic  prompt  displayed  by  Midnight  Commander  is  of the form
       "user@host:current_path$ ". When using a capable shell, like Bash,  the
       prompt displayed by Midnight Commander will be the same prompt that you
       are currently using in your shell.

       (There's a known problem when using fish: the prompt is displayed  only
       in full screen mode (Ctrl-o), not when the panels are visible.)

       The  OPTIONS  section  has more information on how you can control sub‐
       shell usage (-U/-u).  Furthermore, to set a specific subshell different
       from your current SHELL variable or login shell defined in /etc/passwd,
       you may call MC like this: SHELL=/bin/myshell mc

Chmod
       The Chmod window is used to change the attribute bits  in  a  group  of
       files  and  directories.	 It can be invoked with the C-x c key combina‐
       tion.

       The Chmod window has two parts - Permissions and File.

       In the File section are displayed the name of the file or directory and
       its permissions in octal form, as well as its owner and group.

       In the Permissions section there is a set of check buttons which corre‐
       spond to the file attribute bits.  As you change	 the  attribute	 bits,
       you can see the octal value change in the File section.

       To  move	 between the widgets (buttons and check buttons) use the arrow
       keys or the Tab key.  To change the state of the check  buttons	or  to
       select a button use Space.  You can also use the hotkeys on the buttons
       to quickly activate them.  Hotkeys are shown as highlighted letters  on
       the buttons.

       To set the attribute bits, use the Enter key.

       When  working  with  a group of files or directories, you just click on
       the bits you want to set or clear.  Once you have selected the bits you
       want  to	 change,  you  select one of the action buttons (Set marked or
       Clear marked).

       Finally, to set the attributes exactly to those specified, you can  use
       the [Set all] button, which will act on all the tagged files.

       [Marked all] set only marked attributes to all selected files

       [Set marked] set marked bits in attributes of all selected files

       [Clean marked] clear marked bits in attributes of all selected files

       [Set] set the attributes of one file

       [Cancel] cancel the Chmod command

Chown
       The  Chown command is used to change the owner/group of a file. The hot
       key for this command is C-x o.

Advanced Chown
       The Advanced Chown command is the Chmod and Chown command combined into
       one  window. You can change the permissions and owner/group of files at
       once.

File Operations
       When you copy, move or delete files, Midnight Commander shows the  file
       operations  dialog.   It	 shows the files currently being processed and
       uses up to three progress bars.	The file bar indicates the  percentage
       of  the	current	 file  that  has been processed so far.	 The count bar
       shows how many of the tagged files have been handled.   The  bytes  bar
       indicates the percentage of the total size of the tagged files that has
       been handled.  If the verbose option is off, the file  and  bytes  bars
       are not shown.

       There  are  two	buttons at the bottom of the dialog. Pressing the Skip
       button will skip the rest of the current file. Pressing the Abort  but‐
       ton will abort the whole operation, the rest of the files are skipped.

       There  are  three  other dialogs which you can run into during the file
       operations.

       The error dialog informs about error conditions and has three  choices.
       Normally	 you  select  either  the  Skip button to skip the file or the
       Abort button to abort the operation altogether.	You  can  also	select
       the Retry button if you fixed the problem from another terminal.

       The  replace dialog is shown when you attempt to copy or move a file on
       the top of an existing file.  The dialog shows the dates and  sizes  of
       the  both  files.   Press  the Yes button to overwrite the file, the No
       button to skip the file, the All button to overwrite all the files, the
       None  button  to	 never overwrite and the Update button to overwrite if
       the source file is newer than the target file.  You can abort the whole
       operation by pressing the Abort button.

       The recursive delete dialog is shown when you try to delete a directory
       which is not empty.  Press the  Yes  button  to	delete	the  directory
       recursively,  the  No  button  to skip the directory, the All button to
       delete all the  directories  and	 the  None  button  to	skip  all  the
       non-empty  directories.	 You can abort the whole operation by pressing
       the Abort button.  If you selected the Yes or All button	 you  will  be
       asked  for  a confirmation.  Type "yes" only if you are really sure you
       want to do the recursive delete.

       If you have tagged files and perform an	operation  on  them  only  the
       files on which the operation succeeded are untagged. Failed and skipped
       files are left tagged.

Mask Copy/Rename
       The copy/move operations let you translate the names  of	 files	in  an
       easy  way.   To	do it, you have to specify the correct source mask and
       usually in the trailing part of the destination specify some wildcards.
       All  the files matching the source mask are copied/renamed according to
       the target mask.	 If there are tagged  files,  only  the	 tagged	 files
       matching the source mask are renamed.

       There are other options which you can set:

       Follow links

       determines whether make the symlinks and hardlinks in the source direc‐
       tory (recursively in subdirectories) new links in the target  directory
       or whether would you like to copy their content.

       Dive into subdirs

       determines  the	behavior  when	the  source  directory	is about to be
       copied, but the target directory already exists.	 The default action is
       to copy the contents of the source directory into the target directory.
       Enabling this option causes copying the source  directory  itself  into
       the target directory.

       For  example,  you  want	 to copy directory /foo containing file bar to
       /bla/foo, which is an already existing directory.  Normally (when  Dive
       into  subdirs  is  not  set), mc would copy file /foo/bar into the file
       /bla/foo/bar.  By enabling this option the /bla/foo/foo directory  will
       be created, and /foo/bar will be copied into /bla/foo/foo/bar.

       Preserve attributes

       determines  whether to preserve the permissions, timestamps and (if you
       are root) the ownership of the original files.  If this option  is  not
       set, the current value of the umask will be respected.

       Use shell patterns

       When  this  option  is  on you can use the '*' and '?' wildcards in the
       source mask. They work like they do in the shell. In  the  target  mask
       only  the '*' and '\<digit>' wildcards are allowed. The first '*' wild‐
       card in the target mask corresponds to the first wildcard group in  the
       source  mask, the second '*' corresponds to the second group and so on.
       The '\1' wildcard corresponds to the first wildcard group in the source
       mask,  the  '\2' wildcard corresponds to the second group and so on all
       the way up to '\9'.  The '\0' wildcard is the  whole  filename  of  the
       source file.

       Two examples:

       If  the	source mask is "*.tar.gz", the destination is "/bla/*.tgz" and
       the file to be copied is "foo.tar.gz", the copy will  be	 "foo.tgz"  in
       "/bla".

       Suppose	you want to swap basename and extension so that "file.c" would
       become "c.file" and so on.  The source mask for this is "*.*"  and  the
       destination is "\2.\1".

       Use shell patterns off

       When  the  shell	 patterns  option  is  off the MC doesn't do automatic
       grouping anymore. You must use '\(...\)' expressions in the source mask
       to  specify  meaning for the wildcards in the target mask. This is more
       flexible but also requires more typing. Otherwise target masks are sim‐
       ilar to the situation when the shell patterns option is on.

       Two examples:

       If   the	  source  mask	is  "^\(.*\)\.tar\.gz$",  the  destination  is
       "/bla/*.tgz" and the file to be copied is "foo.tar.gz", the  copy  will
       be "/bla/foo.tgz".

       Let's  suppose you want to swap basename and extension so that "file.c"
       will  become  "c.file"  and  so	on.  The  source  mask	for  this   is
       "^\(.*\)\.\(.*\)$" and the destination is "\2.\1".

       Case Conversions

       You can also change the case of the filenames.  If you use '\u' or '\l'
       in the target mask, the next character will be converted	 to  uppercase
       or lowercase correspondingly.

       If you use '\U' or '\L' in the target mask, the next characters will be
       converted to uppercase or lowercase correspondingly up to the next '\E'
       or next '\U', '\L' or the end of the file name.

       The '\u' and '\l' are stronger than '\U' and '\L'.

       For  example,  if  the  source  mask is '*' ( Use shell patterns on) or
       '^\(.*\)$' ( Use shell patterns off) and the target mask is '\L\u*' the
       file  names  will be converted to have initial upper case and otherwise
       lower case.

       You can also use '\' as a quote character. For example, '\\' is a back‐
       slash and '\*' is an asterisk.

       Stable symlinks

       commands Midnight Commander, that it should change symlinks in the tar‐
       get, so that they'll point to the same location as it did before.  With
       absolute	 symbolic  links this does nothing, but if you have a relative
       one, it will recompute its value, adding necessary ../ and other direc‐
       tory  parts  and	 making	 the  value  as short as possible (most modern
       filesystems keep short symlinks inside inodes and thus don't waste much
       disk space).

Select/Unselect Files
       The  dialog  of group of files and directories selection or uselection.
       The input line allow enter the regular  expression  of  filenames  that
       will be selected/unselected.

       When  Files only checkbox is on, only files will be selected.  If Files
       only is off, as files as directories will be selected.  When Shell Pat‐
       terns  checkbox is on, the regular expression is much like the filename
       globbing in the shell (* standing for zero or  more  characters	and  ?
       standing for one character). If Shell Patterns is off, then the tagging
       of files is done with normal regular expressions	 (see  ed  (1)).  When
       Case  sensitive	checkbox  is  on, the selection will be case sensitive
       characters.  If Case sensitive is off, the case will be ignored.

Internal Diff Viewer
       The mcdiff is a visual diff tool. You can compare two  files  and  edit
       them  in-place (diffs are updated dynamically). You can browse and view
       a working copy from popular version control systems  (GIT,  Subversion,
       etc).

       Following  shortcuts  are available in internal diff viewer of Midnight
       Commander.

       F1 Invoke the built-in hypertext help viewer.

       F2 Save modified files.

       F4 Edit file of the left panel in the internal editor.

       F14 Edit file of the right panel in the internal editor.

       F5 Merge the current hunk. Only the current hunk will be merged.

       F7 Start search.

       F17 Continue search.

       F10, Esc, q Exit from diff viewer.

       Alt-s, s Toggle show of hunk status.

       Alt-n, l Toggle show of line numbers.

       f Maximize left panel.

       = Make panels equal in width.

       > Reduce the size of the right panel.

       < Reduce the size of the left panel.

       c Toggle show of trailing carriage return (CR) symbol as ^M.

       2, 3, 4, 8 Set tabulation size

       C-u Swap contents of diff panels.

       C-r Refresh the screen.

       C-o Switch to the subshell and show the command screen.

       Enter, Space, n Find next diff hunk.

       Backspace, p Find previous diff hunk.

       g Go to line.

       Down Scroll one line forward.

       Up Scroll one line backward.

       PageUp Move one page up.

       PageDown Mves one page down.

       Home, A1 Moves to the line beginning.

       End Moves to the line end.

       C-Home Move to the file beginning.

       C-End, C1 Move to the file end.

Internal File Viewer
       The internal file viewer provides two display modes: ASCII and hex.  To
       toggle between modes, use the F4 key.

       The  viewer  will try to use the best method provided by your system or
       the file type to display the information.   Some	 character  sequences,
       which  appear  most  often  in preformatted manual pages, are displayed
       bold and underlined, thus making a pretty display of your files.

       When in hex mode, the search function accepts text in quotes  and  con‐
       stant  numbers.	 Text  in quotes is matched exactly after removing the
       quotes.	Each number matches one byte.  You can mix  quoted  text  with
       constants like this:

       "String" 34 0xBB 012 "more text"

       Numbers	are  always  interpreted in hex. In the example above, "34" is
       interpreted as 0x34. The prefix "0x" isn't really needed: we could type
       "BB"  instead  of  "0xBB".  And "012" is interpreted as 0x12, not as an
       octal number.

       Here is a listing of the actions associated with each key that the Mid‐
       night Commander handles in the internal file viewer.

       F1 Invoke the built-in hypertext help viewer.

       F2 Toggle the wrap mode.

       F4 Toggle the hex mode.

       F5  Goto line.  This will prompt you for a line number and will display
       that line.

       F6, /.  Regular expression search.

       ?, Reverse regular expression search.

       F7 Normal search / hex mode search.

       C-s, F17, n.  Start normal search  if  there  was  no  previous	search
       expression else find next match.

       C-r.   Start  reverse search if there was no previous search expression
       else find next match.

       F8 Toggle Raw/Parsed mode: This will show the file as found on disk  or
       if  a processing filter has been specified in the mc.ext file, then the
       output from the filter. Current mode is always the other	 than  written
       on the button label, since on the button is the mode which you enter by
       that key.

       F9 Toggle the format/unformat mode: when format mode is on  the	viewer
       will  interpret	some  string sequences to show bold and underline with
       different colors. Also, on button label is the other mode than current.

       F10, Esc.  Exit the internal file viewer.

       next-page, space, C-v.  Scroll one page forward.

       prev-page, Alt-v, C-b, Backspace.  Scroll one page backward.

       down-key Scroll one line forward.

       up-key Scroll one line backward.

       C-l Refresh the screen.

       C-o Switch to the subshell and show the command screen.

       [n] m Set the mark n.

       [n] r Jump to the mark n.

       C-f Jump to the next file.

       C-b Jump to the previous file.

       Alt-r Toggle the ruler.

       Alt-e to change charset of displayed text may use M-e (Alt-e).	Recod‐
       ing  is made from selected codepage into system codepage. To cancel the
       recoding you may select "<No translation>" in charset selection dialog.

       It's possible to instruct the file viewer how to display a  file,  look
       at the Edit Extension File section

Internal File Editor
       The internal file editor is a full-featured full screen editor.	It can
       edit files up to 64 megabytes.  It is possible to  edit	binary	files.
       The  internal  file editor is invoked using F4 if the use_internal_edit
       option is set in the initialization file.

       The features it presently supports are: block copy, move, delete,  cut,
       paste;  key  for	 key undo; pull-down menus; file insertion; macro com‐
       mands; regular expression search and replace;  shift-arrow  text	 high‐
       lighting	 (if supported by the terminal); insert-overwrite toggle; word
       wrap; autoindent; tunable tab size;  syntax  highlighting  for  various
       file  types;  and  an option to pipe text blocks through shell commands
       like indent and ispell.

       Sections:

	      Options of editor in ini-file

       The editor is very easy to use and requires no tutoring.	 To  see  what
       keys  do	 what, just consult the appropriate pull-down menu. Other keys
       are: Shift movement keys do text highlighting.  Ctrl-Ins copies to  the
       file mcedit.clip and Shift-Ins pastes from mcedit.clip.	Shift-Del cuts
       to mcedit.clip, and Ctrl-Del deletes highlighted text. Mouse highlight‐
       ing also works, and you can override the mouse as usual by holding down
       the shift key while dragging the mouse to  let  normal  terminal	 mouse
       highlighting work.

       To  define  a macro, press Ctrl-R and then type out the key strokes you
       want to be executed. Press Ctrl-R again when  finished.	You  can  then
       assign the macro to any key you like by pressing that key. The macro is
       executed when you press Ctrl-A and then the assigned key. The macro  is
       also  executed  if  you	press Meta, Ctrl, or Esc and the assigned key,
       provided that the key is not used for any other function. Once defined,
       the	 macro	     commands	    go	     into	the	  file
       ~/.local/share/mc/mcedit/mcedit.macros You can delete a macro by delet‐
       ing the appropriate line in this file.

       To  change  charset of displayed text may use M-e (Alt-e).  Recoding is
       made from selected codepage into system codepage. To cancel the	recod‐
       ing you may select "<No translation>" in charset selection dialog.

       F19 will format the currently highlighted block (plain text or C or C++
       code   or    another).	 This	 is    controlled    by	   the	  file
       /usr/share/mc/edit.indent.rc	  which	      is       copied	    to
       ~/.local/share/mc/mcedit/edit.indent.rc	in  your  home	directory  the
       first time you use it.

       The  editor also displays non-us characters (160+). When editing binary
       files, you should set display bits to 7 bits in	the  options  menu  to
       keep the spacing clean.

Options of editor in ini-file
       Some editor options of ini-file are described in this section.  Options
       are placed in [Midnight-Commander] section

       editor_wordcompletion_collect_entire_file
	      Search autocomplete candidates in entire of file	or  just  from
	      begin of file to cursor position (0)

Screen selector
       Midnight Commander supports running many internal modules (such as edi‐
       tor, viewer and diff viewer) simultaneously and switching between  them
       without closing open files. Using several file managers at a time, how‐
       ever, is not currently supported.

       Let's call each of these modules a screen.  There  are  three  ways  to
       switch between screens, using one of these global shortcuts:

       Alt-}  switch to the next screen;

       Alt-{  switch to the previous screen;

       Alt-`  open a dialog window with the list of currently open screens (or
	      use the "Screen list" menu item).

Completion
       Let Midnight Commander type for you.

       Attempt to perform completion on the text before current position.   MC
       attempts	 completion  treating the text as variable (if the text begins
       with $), username (if the text begins with ~), hostname	(if  the  text
       begins  with @) or command (if you are on the command line in the posi‐
       tion where you might type a command, possible completions then  include
       shell  reserved words and shell built-in commands as well) in turn.  If
       none of these matches, filename completion is attempted.

       Filename, username, variable and hostname completion works on all input
       lines,  command completion is command line specific.  If the completion
       is ambiguous (there are more different possibilities), MC beeps and the
       following  action  depends  on  the  setting  of the Complete: show all
       option in the Configuration dialog.  If it is enabled, a	 list  of  all
       possibilities  pops  up next to the current position and you can select
       with the arrow keys and Enter the correct entry.	 You can also type the
       first  letters in which the possibilities differ to move to a subset of
       all possibilities and complete as  much	as  possible.	If  you	 press
       Alt-Tab	again, only the subset will be shown in the listbox, otherwise
       the first item which matches all the previous characters will be	 high‐
       lighted.	  As soon as there is no ambiguity, dialog disappears, but you
       can hide it by canceling keys Esc, F10 and left and right  arrow	 keys.
       If Complete: show all is disabled, the dialog pops up only if you press
       Alt-Tab for the second time, for the first time MC just beeps.

       Apply escaping of ?, * and & symbols (as \?, \*, \& ) in	 filenames  to
       disallow	 use them as metasymbols in regular expressions when substitu‐
       tion is performed in the input line.

Virtual File System
       Midnight Commander is provided with a code layer	 to  access  the  file
       system;	this  code  layer  is known as the virtual file system switch.
       The virtual file system switch allows Midnight Commander to  manipulate
       files not located on the Unix file system.

       Currently,  Midnight  Commander is packaged with some Virtual File Sys‐
       tems (VFS): the local file system, used for accessing the regular  Unix
       file system; the ftpfs, used to manipulate files on remote systems with
       the FTP protocol; the tarfs, used to manipulate tar and compressed  tar
       files;  the undelfs, used to recover deleted files on ext2 file systems
       (the default file system for Linux  systems),  fish  (for  manipulating
       files  over  shell  connections	such as rsh and ssh).  If the code was
       compiled with sftpfs (for manipulating files  over  SFTP	 connections).
       If  the	code was compiled with smbfs support, you can manipulate files
       on remote systems with the SMB (CIFS) protocol.

       A generic extfs (EXTernal virtual File System) is provided in order  to
       easily expand VFS capabilities using scripts and external software.

       The  VFS switch code will interpret all of the path names used and will
       forward them to the correct file system, the formats used for each  one
       of the file systems is described later in their own section.

  FTP File System
       The  FTP	 File  System (ftpfs) allows you to manipulate files on remote
       machines.  To actually use it, you can use the FTP  link	 item  in  the
       menu  or directly change your current directory using the cd command to
       a path name that looks like this:

       ftp://[!][user[:pass]@]machine[:port][remote-dir]

       The user, port and remote-dir elements are optional.   If  you  specify
       the  user  element, Midnight Commander will login to the remote machine
       as that user, otherwise it will use anonymous login or the  login  name
       from the ~/.netrc file.	The optional pass element is the password used
       for the connection.  Using the password in the VFS  directory  name  is
       not  recommended, because it can appear on the screen in clear text and
       can be saved to the directory history.

       To enable using FTP proxy, prepend !   (an  exclamation	sign)  to  the
       hostname.

       Examples:

	   ftp://ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx/linux/local
	   ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages
	   ftp://!behind.firewall.edu/pub
	   ftp://guest@remote-host.com:40/pub
	   ftp://miguel:xxx@server/pub

       Please check the Virtual File System dialog box for ftpfs options.

  Tar File System
       The  tar	 file  system  provides	 you with read-only access to your tar
       files and compressed tar files by using the chdir command.   To	change
       your  directory to a tar file, you change your current directory to the
       tar file by using the following syntax:

       /filename.tar/utar://[dir-inside-tar]

       The mc.ext file already provides a shortcut for tar files,  this	 means
       that  usually  you  just	 point to a tar file and press return to enter
       into the tar file, see the Edit Extension File section for  details  on
       how this is done.

       Examples:

	   mc-3.0.tar.gz/utar://mc-3.0/vfs
	   /ftp/GCC/gcc-2.7.0.tar/utar://

       The latter specifies the full path of the tar archive.

  FIle transfer over SHell filesystem
       The  fish file system is a network based file system that allows you to
       manipulate the files in a remote machine as if they were local. To  use
       this,  the  other  side	has  to either run fish server, or has to have
       bash-compatible shell.

       To connect to a remote machine, you just need to chdir into  a  special
       directory which name is in the following format:

       sh://[user@]machine[:options]/[remote-dir]

       The user, options and remote-dir elements are optional.	If you specify
       the user element, Midnight Commander will try to login  on  the	remote
       machine as that user, otherwise it will use your login name.

       The available options are:
	 'C' - use compression;
	 'r' - use rsh instead of ssh;
	 port - specify the port used by remote server.
       If  the	remote-dir  element  is present, your current directory on the
       remote machine will be set to this one.

       Examples:

	   sh://onlyrsh.mx:r/linux/local
	   sh://joe@want.compression.edu:C/private
	   sh://joe@noncompressed.ssh.edu/private
	   sh://joe@somehost.ssh.edu:2222/private

  SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) filesystem
       The SFTP file system is a network based file system that allows you  to
       manipulate the files in a remote machine as if they were local.

       To  connect  to a remote machine, you just need to chdir into a special
       directory which name is in the following format:

       sftp://[user@]machine:[port]/[remote-dir]

       The user, port and remote-dir elements are optional.   If  you  specify
       the  user  element,  Midnight Commander will try to login on the remote
       machine as that user, otherwise it will use your login  name.   port  -
       specify	the  port  used	 by  remote  server  (22  by default).	If the
       remote-dir element is present, your current  directory  on  the	remote
       machine will be set to this one.

       Examples:

	   sftp://onlyrsh.mx/linux/local
	   sftp://joe:password@want.compression.edu/private
	   sftp://joe@noncompressed.ssh.edu/private
	   sftp://joe@somehost.ssh.edu:2222/private

  Undelete File System
       On  Linux  systems,  if	you asked configure to use the ext2fs undelete
       facilities, you will have the undelete file system available.  Recovery
       of  deleted files is only available on ext2 file systems.  The undelete
       file system is just an interface to the ext2fs library to retrieve  all
       of the deleted files names on an ext2fs and provides and to extract the
       selected files into a regular partition.

       To use this file system, you have to chdir into the special  file  name
       formed by the "undel://" prefix and the file name where the actual file
       system resides.

       For example, to recover deleted files on the second  partition  of  the
       first SCSI disk on Linux, you would use the following path name:

	   undel://sda2

       It  may	take  a while for the undelfs to load the required information
       before you start browsing files there.

  SMB File System
       The smbfs allows you to manipulate files on remote  machines  with  SMB
       (or  CIFS)  protocol.   These  include  Windows for Workgroups, Windows
       9x/ME/XP, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Samba.  To actually use it,  you
       may  try	 to  use the panel command "SMB link..."  (accessible from the
       menubar) or you may directly change your current directory to it	 using
       the cd command to a path name that looks like this:

       smb://[user@]machine[/service][/remote-dir]

       The  user,  service  and	 remote-dir  elements are optional.  The user,
       domain and password can be specified in an input dialog.

       Examples:

	   smb://machine/Share
	   smb://other_machine
	   smb://guest@machine/Public/Irlex

  EXTernal File System
       extfs allows you to integrate numerous features and file types into GNU
       Midnight Commander in an easy way, by writing scripts.

       Extfs filesystems can be divided into two categories:

       1.  Stand-alone filesystems, which are not associated with any existing
       file.  They represent certain system-wide data  as  a  directory	 tree.
       You  can	 invoke them by typing 'cd fsname://' where fsname is an extfs
       short name (see below).	Examples of  such  filesystems	include	 audio
       (list  audio  tracks  on the CD) or apt (list of all Debian packages in
       the system).

       For example, to list CD-Audio tracks on your CD-ROM drive, type

	 cd audio://

       2. 'Archive' filesystems (like rpm, patchfs and more), which  represent
       contents of a file as a directory tree.	It can consist of 'real' files
       compressed in an archive (urar, rpm) or virtual files, like messages in
       a  mailbox  (mailfs)  or	 parts	of  a patch (patchfs).	To access such
       filesystems 'fsname://' should be appended to the archive  name.	  Note
       that the archive itself can be on another vfs.

       For example, to list contents of a zip archive documents.zip type

	 cd documents.zip/uzip://

       In  many	 aspects, you could treat extfs like any other directory.  For
       instance, you can add it to the hotlist or change to it from  directory
       history.	  An important limitation is that you cannot invoke shell com‐
       mands inside extfs, just like any other non-local VFS.

       Common extfs scripts included with Midnight Commander are:

       a      access 'A:' DOS/Windows diskette (cd a://).

       apt    front end to Debian's APT package management system (cd apt://).

       audio  audio   CD   ripping   and   playing   (cd   audio://   or    cd
	      device/audio://).

       bpp    package	 of    Bad    Penguin	GNU/Linux   distribution   (cd
	      file.bpp/bpp://).

       deb    package of Debian GNU/Linux distribution (cd file.deb/deb://).

       dpkg   Debian GNU/Linux installed packages (cd deb://).

       hp48   view and copy files to/from a HP48 calculator (cd hp48://).

       lslR   browsing of lslR listings	 as  found  on	many  FTPs  (cd	 file‐
	      name/lslR://).

       mailfs mbox-style mailbox files support (cd mailbox/mailfs://).

       patchfs
	      extfs   to   handle   unified   and   context  diffs  (cd	 file‐
	      name/patchfs://).

       rpm    RPM package (cd filename/rpm://).

       rpms   RPM database management (cd rpms://).

       ulha, urar, uzip, uzoo, uar, uha
	      archivers (cd archive/xxxx:// where xxxx is one of: ulha,	 urar,
	      uzip, uzoo, uar, uha).

       You  could  bind file type/extension to specified extfs as described in
       the Edit Extension File section.	 Here is an example entry  for	Debian
       packages:

	 regex/.deb$
		 Open=%cd %p/deb://

Colors
       Midnight	 Commander  will try to detect if your terminal supports color
       using the terminal database and your terminal name.  Sometimes it  gets
       confused,  so  you may force color mode or disable color mode using the
       -c and -b flag respectively.

       If the program is compiled with the Slang  screen  manager  instead  of
       ncurses,	 it  will  also check the variable COLORTERM, if it is set, it
       has the same effect as the -c flag.

       You may specify terminals that always force color mode  by  adding  the
       color_terminals	variable  to  the Colors section of the initialization
       file.  This will prevent Midnight Commander from trying	to  detect  if
       your terminal supports color.  Example:

       [Colors]
       color_terminals=linux,xterm
       color_terminals=terminal-name1,terminal-name2...

       The  program  can be compiled with both ncurses and slang, ncurses does
       not provide a way to force color mode: ncurses uses just	 the  informa‐
       tion in the terminal database.

       Midnight	 Commander  provides a way to change the default colors.  Cur‐
       rently  the  colors  are	 configured  using  the	 environment  variable
       MC_COLOR_TABLE or the Colors section in the initialization file.

       In  the	Colors	section,  the  default	color  map  is loaded from the
       base_color variable.  You can specify an alternate color map for a ter‐
       minal by using the terminal name as the key in this section.  Example:

       [Colors]
       base_color=
       xterm=menu=magenta:marked=,magenta:markselect=,red

       The format for the color definition is:

	 <keyword>=<fgcolor>,<bgcolor>,<attributes>:<keyword>=...

       The  colors  are optional, and the keywords are: normal, selected, dis‐
       abled, marked, markselect, errors,  input,  inputmark,  inputunchanged,
       commandlinemark,	 reverse, gauge, header, inputhistory, commandhistory.
       Button bar colors are: bbarhotkey, bbarbutton. Status bar  color:  sta‐
       tusbar. Menu colors are: menunormal, menusel, menuhot, menuhotsel, men‐
       uinactive. Dialog colors are: dnormal, dfocus,  dhotnormal,  dhotfocus,
       dtitle.	Error  dialog colors are: errdfocus, errdhotnormal, errdhotfo‐
       cus, errdtitle.	Help colors  are:  helpnormal,	helpitalic,  helpbold,
       helplink,  helpslink,  helptitle.  Viewer colors are: viewnormal, view‐
       bold, viewunderline, viewselected. Editor colors are: editnormal, edit‐
       bold, editmarked, editwhitespace, editlinestate. Popup menu colors are:
       pmenunormal, pmenusel, pmenutitle.

       header determines the color of panel header,  the  line	that  contains
       column titles and sort mode indicator.

       input determines the color of input lines used in query dialogs.

       gauge  determines  the  color  of  the  filled part of the progress bar
       (gauge), which is used to show the user the  progress  of  file	opera‐
       tions, such as copying.

       disabled determines the color of the widget that cannot be selected.

       The dialog boxes use the following colors: dnormal is used for the nor‐
       mal text, dfocus is the color used for the  currently  selected	compo‐
       nent, dhotnormal is the color used to differentiate the hotkey color in
       normal components, whereas the dhotfocus color is used  for  the	 high‐
       lighted color in the currently selected component.

       Menus  use  the	same scheme but uses the menunormal, menusel, menuhot,
       menuhotsel and menuinactive tags instead.

       Help uses the following colors: helpnormal is  used  for	 normal	 text,
       helpitalic is used for text which is emphasized in italic in the manual
       page, helpbold is used for text which is emphasized in bold in the man‐
       ual page, helplink is used for not selected hyperlinks and helpslink is
       used for selected hyperlink.

       Popup menu uses following colors: pmenunormal is used for  non-selected
       menu  items  and as a main color of popup menu window, pmenusel is used
       for selected menu item, pmenutitle is used for popup menu title.

       The possible colors are: black, gray, red,  brightred,  green,  bright‐
       green,  brown,  yellow, blue, brightblue, magenta, brightmagenta, cyan,
       brightcyan, lightgray and white. And there is  a	 special  keyword  for
       transparent background. It is 'default'. The 'default' can only be used
       for background color. Another special keyword "base"  means  mc's  main
       colors.	When 256 colors are available, they can be specified either as
       color16 to color255, or as rgb000 to rgb555 and gray0 to gray23.	 Exam‐
       ple:

       [Colors]
       base_color=normal=white,default:marked=magenta,default

       Attributes  can	be  any of bold, italic, underline, reverse and blink,
       appended by a plus sign if more than one are desired.  The special word
       "none"  means  no  attributes,  without	attempting  to	fall  back  to
       base_color.  Example:

       menuhotsel=yellow;black;bold+underline

Skins
       You can change the appearance of Midnight Commander.  To do  this,  you
       must  specify  a	 file that contain descriptions of colors and lines to
       draw boxes. Redefining of the colors is entirely	 compatible  with  the
       assignment of colors, as described in Section Colors.

       If your skin contains any true-color definitions, you should define the
       'truecolors' key set to TRUE value in [skin] section. If true-color  is
       not used but 256-color is, you should define '256colors' instead.

       A  skin-file  is	 searched on the following algorithm (to the first one
       found):

	      1) command line option -S <skin> or --skin=<skin>
	      2) Environment variable MC_SKIN
	      3) Parameter skin	 in  section  [Midnight-Commander]  in	config
	      file.
	      4) File /etc/mc/skins/default.ini
	      5) File /usr/share/mc/skins/default.ini

       Command	line option, environment variable and parameter in config file
       may contain the absolute path to the skin-file (with the extension .ini
       or  without  it).  Search  of skin-file will occur in (to the first one
       found):

	      1) ~/.local/share/mc/skins/
	      2) /etc/mc/skins/
	      3) /usr/share/mc/skins/

       For getting extended info, refer to:

	      Description of section and parameters
	      Color pair definitions
	      Color and attribute aliases
	      Draw lines
	      Compatibility

  Description of section and parameters
       Section [skin] contain metainfo for  skin-file.	Parameter  description
       contain short text about skin.

       Section	[filehighlight]	 contain descriptions of color pairs for file‐
       names highlighting.  Name of parameters must be equal to names of  sec‐
       tions into filehighlight.ini file.  See Filenames Highlight for getting
       more info.

       Section [core] describes the elements that are used everywhere.

       _default_
	      Default color pair. Used in all other sections if they not  con‐
	      tain color definitions

       selected
	      cursor

       marked selected data

       markselect
	      cursor on selected data

       gauge  color of the filled part of the progress bar

       input  color of input lines used in query dialogs

       inputmark
	      color of input selected text

       inputunchanged
	      color of input text before first modification or cursor movement

       commandlinemark
	      color of selected text in command line

       reverse
	      reverse color

       Section	[dialog] describes the elements that are placed on dialog win‐
       dows (except error dialogs).

       _default_
	      Default color for this section.  Used  [core]._default_  if  not
	      specified

       dfocus Color of active element (in focus)

       dhotnormal
	      Color of hotkeys

       dhotfocus
	      Color of hotkeys in focused element

       Section	[error] describes the elements that are placed on error dialog
       windows

       _default_
	      Default color for this section.  Used  [core]._default_  if  not
	      specified

       errdhotnormal
	      Color of hotkeys

       errdhotfocus
	      Color of hotkeys in focused element

       Section	[menu]	describes  the	elements that are placed in menu. This
       section describes system menu (called by	 F9)  and  user-defined	 menus
       (called by F2 in panels and by F11 in editor).

       _default_
	      Default  color  for  this	 section. Used [core]._default_ if not
	      specified

       entry  Color of menu items

       menuhot
	      Color of menu hotkeys

       menusel
	      Color of active menu item (in focus)

       menuhotsel
	      Color of menu hotkeys in focused menu item

       menuinactive
	      Color of inactive menu

       Section [help] describes the elements that are placed on help window.

       _default_
	      Default color for this section.  Used  [core]._default_  if  not
	      specified

       helpitalic
	      Color pair for element with italic attribute

       helpbold
	      Color pair for element with bold attribute

       helplink
	      Color of links

       helpslink
	      Color of active link (on focus)

       Section [editor] describes the colors of elements placed in editor.

       _default_
	      Default  color  for  this	 section. Used [core]._default_ if not
	      specified

       editbold
	      Color pair for element with bold attribute

       editmarked
	      Color of selected text

       editwhitespace
	      Color of tabs and trailing spaces highlighting

       editlinestate
	      Color for line state area

       Section [viewer] describes the colors of elements placed in viewer.

       viewunderline
	      Color pair for element with underline attribute

  Color pair definitions
       Any parameter in skin-file contain definition of color pair.

       Color pairs described as two colors and the optional  attributes	 sepa‐
       rated  by ';'. First field sets the foreground color, second field sets
       background color, third field sets the attributes.  Any of  the	fields
       may  be	omitted,  in  this case value will be taken from default color
       pair (global color pair or from default color pair of this section).

       Example:
       [core]
	   # green on black
	   _default_=green;black
	   # green (default) on blue
	   selected=;blue
	   # yellow on black (default)
	   # underlined yellow on black (default)
	   marked=yellow;;underline

       Possible colors (names) and attributes are described in	Colors.	  sec‐
       tion.

  Color and attribute aliases
       This optional section might define aliases for single colors (not color
       pairs) as well as combination of attributes; in other words, for	 semi‐
       colon-separated	fragments  of  parameters.  Aliases can refer to other
       aliases as long as they don't form a loop.

       Example:
       [aliases]
	   myfavfg=green
	   myfavbg=black
	   myfavattr=bold+italic
       [core]
	   _default_=myfavfg;myfavbg;myfavattr

  Draw lines
       Lines sets in section [Lines] into skin-file. By default	 single	 lines
       are  used,  but you may redefine to usage of any utf-8 symbols (like to
       lines, for example).

       WARNING!!!  When you build Midnight Commander with the  Ncurses	screen
       library	usage  of  drawing  lines is limited!  Possible only drawing a
       single lines.  For all questions and comments please contact the devel‐
       opers of Ncurses.

       Descriptions of parameters [Lines]:

       lefttop
	      left-top line fragment.

       righttop
	      right-top line fragment.

       centertop
	      down branch of horizontal line

       centerbottom
	      up branch of horizontal line

       leftbottom
	      left-bottom line fragment

       rightbottom
	      right-bottom line fragment

       leftmiddle
	      right branch of vertical line

       rightmiddle
	      left branch of vertical line

       centermiddle
	      cross of lines

       horiz  horizontal line

       vert   vertical line

       thinhoriz
	      thin horizontal line

       thinvert
	      thin vertical line

  Compatibility
       Appointment  of color  by skin-files fully compatible with the appoint‐
       ment of the colors described in Colors.	section.

       In this case, reassignment of colors has priority over  the  skin  file
       and is complementary.

Filenames Highlight
       Section	[filehighlight]	 in  current  skin-file	 contains key names as
       highlight groups and values as color pairs. Color pairs	is  documented
       in Skins section.

       Rules  of  filenames  highlight	are  placed in /usr/share/mc/filehigh‐
       light.ini file (~/.config/mc/filehighlight.ini).	 Name  of  section  in
       this  file must be equal to parameters names in [filehighlight] section
       (in current skin-file).

       Keys in these groups are:

       type   file type. If present, all other options are ignored.

       regexp regular expression. If present, 'extensions' option is ignored.

       extensions
	      list of extensions of files. Separated by ';' sign.

       extensions_case
	      (make sense only with 'extensions' parameter) make  'extensions'
	      rule case sensitive (true) or not (false).

       `type' key may have values:
       - FILE (all files)
	 - FILE_EXE
       - DIR (all directories)
	 - LINK_DIR
       - LINK (all links except stale link)
	 - HARDLINK
	 - SYMLINK
       - STALE_LINK
       - DEVICE (all device files)
	 - DEVICE_BLOCK
	 - DEVICE_CHAR
       - SPECIAL (all special files)
	 - SPECIAL_SOCKET
	 - SPECIAL_FIFO
	 - SPECIAL_DOOR

Special Settings
       Most of Midnight Commander settings can be changed from the menus. How‐
       ever, there are a small number of settings which can only be changed by
       editing the setup file.

       These variables may be set in your ~/.config/mc/ini file:

       clear_before_exec
	      By  default, Midnight Commander clears the screen before execut‐
	      ing a command.  If you would prefer to see  the  output  of  the
	      command  at the bottom of the screen, edit your ~/.config/mc/ini
	      file and change the value of the field clear_before_exec to 0.

       confirm_view_dir
	      If you press F3 on a directory, normally MC enters  that	direc‐
	      tory.   If this flag is set to 1, then MC will ask for confirma‐
	      tion before changing the directory if you have files tagged.

       ftpfs_retry_seconds
	      This value is the number of seconds Midnight Commander will wait
	      before  attempting to reconnect to an FTP server that has denied
	      the login.  If the value is zero, the login will no be retried.

       max_dirt_limit
	      Specifies how many screen updates can be skipped at most in  the
	      internal	file  viewer.  Normally this value is not significant,
	      because the code automatically adjusts the number of updates  to
	      skip  according to the rate of incoming keystrokes.  However, on
	      very slow machines  or  terminals	 with  a  fast	keyboard  auto
	      repeat, a big value can make screen updates too jumpy.

	      It  seems	 that  setting	max_dirt_limit	to  10 causes the best
	      behavior, and that is the default value.

       mouse_move_pages_viewer
	      Controls if scrolling with the mouse is done by pages or line by
	      line on the internal file viewer.

       only_leading_plus_minus
	      Allow  special  treatment	 for '+', '-', '*' in the command line
	      (select, unselect, reverse selection) only if the	 command  line
	      is  empty.  You don't need to quote those characters in the mid‐
	      dle of the command line.	On the other hand, you cannot use them
	      to change selection when the command line is not empty.

       show_output_starts_shell
	      This  variable only works if you are not using the subshell sup‐
	      port.  When you use the C-o keystroke to go  back	 to  the  user
	      screen,  if this one is set, you will get a fresh shell.	Other‐
	      wise, pressing any key will bring you back to  Midnight  Comman‐
	      der.

       timeformat_recent
	      Change  the time format used to display dates less than 6 months
	      from now.	 See strftime or date man page for the format specifi‐
	      cation. If this option is absent, default timeformat is used.

       timeformat_old
	      Change  the  time	 format	 used  to  display  dates older than 6
	      months from now or for dates in the  future.   See  strftime  or
	      date  man	 page  for the format specification. If this option is
	      absent, default timeformat is used.

       torben_fj_mode
	      If this flag is set, then	 the  home  and	 end  keys  will  work
	      slightly	different  on the panels, instead of moving the selec‐
	      tion to the first and last files in the panels, they will act as
	      follows:

	      The  home	 key will: Go up to the middle line, if below it; else
	      go to the top line unless it is already on the top line, in this
	      case it will go to the first file in the panel.

	      The  end key has a similar behavior: Go down to the middle line,
	      if over it; else go to the bottom line unless you already are at
	      the  bottom line, in such case it will move the selection to the
	      last file name in the panel.

       use_file_to_guess_type
	      If this variable is on (the default) it will spawn the file com‐
	      mand to match the file types listed on the mc.ext file.

       xtree_mode
	      If this variable is on (default is off) when you browse the file
	      system on a Tree panel, it will automatically reload  the	 other
	      panel with the contents of the selected directory.

       fish_directory_timeout
	      This  variable  holds the lifetime of a directory cache entry in
	      seconds. The default value is 900 seconds.

       clipboard_store
	      This variable contains path (with options) to the external clip‐
	      board  utility  like  'xclip' to read text into X selection from
	      file.  For example:

       clipboard_store=xclip -i

       clipboard_paste
	      This variable contains path (with options) to the external clip‐
	      board  utility  like  'xclip' to print the selection to standard
	      out.  For example:

       clipboard_paste=xclip -o

       autodetect_codeset
	      This option allows use the `enca' command to autodetect  codeset
	      of  text files in internal viewer and editor. List of valid val‐
	      ues can be obtain by the `enca --list languages | cut -d :  -f1'
	      command. Option must be located in the [Misc] section.

       For example:

       autodetect_codeset=russian

Parameters for external editor or viewer
       Midnight	 Commander  provides a way for specify an options for external
       editors and viewers. Midnight Commander tries to search the  "[External
       editor or viewer parameters]" section in the system initialization file
       (the mc.lib file located in Midnight Commander's library directory) and
       then  in	 the ~/.config/mc/ini file. The option name should be equal to
       the name (full pathname) of external editor or viewer. The option value
       can contain following variables:

       %filename
	      The filename to edit/view.

       %lineno
	      The start line in the opening file.

       For example:

       [External editor or viewer parameters]
	   vi=%filename +%lineno
	   joe=%filename +%lineno
	   more=%filename +%lineno

       Start line is passed to the external editor/viewer only if it is called
       from the Find file results window.

       If external editor/viewer is launched via F4/F3	keys,  MC  hopes  that
       program	(at  least  "joe", but probably others too) has an own feature
       that by default opens the file where it was last open. MC doesn't  pre‐
       vent  external  editor/viewer  to  save	and restore position in opened
       files.

Terminal databases
       Midnight Commander provides a way to fix your system terminal  database
       without	requiring  root privileges. Midnight Commander searches in the
       system initialization file (the mc.lib file located in Midnight Comman‐
       der's  library directory) and in the ~/.config/mc/ini file for the sec‐
       tion "terminal:your-terminal-name" and then  for	 the  section  "termi‐
       nal:general",  each  line of the section contains a key symbol that you
       want to define, followed by an equal sign and the  definition  for  the
       key.  You can use the special \e form to represent the escape character
       and the ^x to represent the control-x character.

       The possible key symbols are:

       f0 to f20     Function keys f0-f20
       bs	     backspace
       home	     home key
       end	     end key
       up	     up arrow key
       down	     down arrow key
       left	     left arrow key
       right	     right arrow key
       pgdn	     page down key
       pgup	     page up key
       insert	     the insert character
       delete	     the delete character
       complete	     to do completion

       For example, to define the key insert to be the Escape + [ + O + p, you
       set this in the ini file:

       insert=\e[Op

       Also now you can use extended learn keys.  For example:

	   ctrl-alt-right=\e[[1;6C
	   ctrl-alt-left=\e[[1;6D

       This  means  that  ctrl+alt+left	 sends	a \e[[1;6D escape sequence and
       therefore Midnight Commander interprets "\e[[1;6D" as Ctrl-Alt-Left.

       The complete key symbol represents the escape sequences used to	invoke
       the  completion	process,  this	is  invoked  with Alt-tab, but you can
       define other keys to do the same work (on those keyboard with  tons  of
       nice and unused keys everywhere).

FILES
       Full  paths  below  may	vary  between  installations.	They  are also
       affected by the MC_DATADIR environment variable. If it's set, its value
       is used instead of /usr/share/mc in the paths below.

       /usr/share/mc/mc.hlp

	      The help file for the program.

       /usr/share/mc/mc.ext

	      The default system-wide extensions file.

       ~/.config/mc/mc.ext

	      User's  own extension, view configuration and edit configuration
	      file.  They override the contents of the system  wide  files  if
	      present.

       /usr/share/mc/mc.ini

	      The  default system-wide setup for Midnight Commander, used only
	      if the user doesn't have his own ~/.config/mc/ini file.

       /usr/share/mc/mc.lib

	      Global settings for Midnight Commander. Settings	in  this  file
	      affect  all  users,  whether  they have ~/.config/mc/ini or not.
	      Currently, only terminal settings are loaded from mc.lib.

       ~/.config/mc/ini

	      User's own setup. If this file is	 present  then	the  setup  is
	      loaded from here instead of the system-wide startup file.

       /usr/share/mc/mc.hint

	      This file contains the hints displayed by the program.

       /usr/share/mc/mc.menu

	      This file contains the default system-wide applications menu.

       ~/.config/mc/menu

	      User's  own application menu. If this file is present it is used
	      instead of the system-wide applications menu.

       ~/.cache/mc/Tree

	      The directory list for the directory tree	 and  tree  view  fea‐
	      tures.

       ~/.local/share/mc.menu

	      Local  user-defined  menu.  If  this file is present, it is used
	      instead of the home or system-wide applications menu.

       To change default root directory of MC,	you  can  use  MC_PROFILE_ROOT
       environment  variable. The value of MC_PROFILE_ROOT must be an absolute
       path.  If MC_PROFILE_ROOT is unset or empty, HOME variable is used.  If
       HOME is unset or empty, MC directories are get from GLib library.

LICENSE
       This  program  is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
       License as published by the Free Software Foundation. See the  built-in
       help for details on the License and the lack of warranty.

AVAILABILITY
       The  latest  version  of	 this  program can be found at http://ftp.mid‐
       night-commander.org/.

SEE ALSO
       ed(1), gpm(1), terminfo(1), view(1), sh(1), bash(1), tcsh(1), zsh(1).

       Midnight Commander's page on the World Wide Web:
	    http://www.midnight-commander.org/

AUTHORS
       Authors and contributors are listed in the AUTHORS file in  the	source
       distribution.

BUGS
       See  the	 file TODO in the distribution for information on what remains
       to be done.

       If you want to report a problem with the program, please create	bugre‐
       port at http://www.midnight-commander.org/.

       Provide	a  detailed description of the bug, the version of the program
       you are running (mc -V displays this information), the operating system
       you  are	 running  the  program	on.   If the program crashes, we would
       appreciate a stack trace.

MC Version 4.8.19		  August 2017				 MC(1)
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