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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.

       -d, --nomouse
	      Disable mouse support.

       -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.

       -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.

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

       -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 the Midnight
	      Commander was in.	 Source the file  /usr/mpkg/share/mc/bin/mc.sh
	      (bash  and  zsh  users)  or  /usr/mpkg/share/mc/bin/mc.csh (tcsh
	      users) respectively to define mc as an alias to the  appropriate
	      shell script.

       -s, --slow
	      Turn  on	the  slow terminal mode, in this mode the program will
	      not draw expensive line drawing characters and will toggle  ver‐
	      bose mode off.

       -t, --termcap
	      Used  only  if the code was compiled with Slang and terminfo: it
	      makes the Midnight Commander use the value of the TERMCAP	 vari‐
	      able  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  the
	      Midnight	Commander  has	been  built with concurrent shell sup‐
	      port).

       -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).

       If specified, the first path name is  the  directory  to	 show  in  the
       selected	 panel;	 the  second path name is the directory to be shown in
       the other panel.

Overview
       The screen of the  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.

       The 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
       current 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 the Midnight Commander  by	simply
       typing them. Everything you type will appear on the shell command line,
       and when you press Enter the Midnight Commander will execute  the  com‐
       mand  line  you	typed; read the Shell Command Line and Input Line Keys
       sections to learn more about the command line.

Mouse Support
       The Midnight Commander comes with mouse support.	 It is activated when‐
       ever 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.

       If  a  mouse  button  is clicked on the top frame line of the directory
       panel, it is scrolled one page up.  Likewise, a	click  on  the	bottom
       frame  line will cause scrolling one page down.	This frame line method
       works also in the Help Viewer and the Directory Tree.

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

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

Keys
       Some commands in the 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.

       M-<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 the Midnight Commander use an approximation  to  the
       GNU Emacs editor's key bindings.

       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.

  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 the 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 link command.

       C-x s  run the symbolic link command.

       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.

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

       M-?    executes the Find file command.

       M-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, the 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 the Midnight Commander  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  the	 Midnight  Commander until you terminate the suspended
       application.

  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) or the C-t (Control-t) sequence. To untag files,  just
	      retag a tagged file.

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

       C-s, M-s
	      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 typing, 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.

       M-t    toggle  the  current  display  listing  to show the next display
	      listing mode.  With this it is possible to quickly  switch  from
	      long  listing  to	 regular  listing and the user defined listing
	      mode.

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

       +  (plus)
	      this is used to select (tag) a group of files. The Midnight Com‐
	      mander  will  prompt  for	 a  regular  expression describing the
	      group. When Shell Patterns are enabled, the  regular  expression
	      is  much	like  the regular expressions 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)).

       If the expression starts or ends with a slash (/), then it will	select
       directories instead of files.

       \ (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, M-<
	      move the selection bar to the first entry in the panel.

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

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

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

       M-o    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.

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

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

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

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

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

       C-Enter
	      same a M-Enter.  May not work on remote systems and some	termi‐
	      nals.

       C-S-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.

       M-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 the Midnight Commander (like the '+' sym‐
	      bol)

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

       M-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	 the  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, M-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.

       M-f    moves one word forward.

       M-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.

       M-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.

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

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

       M-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 the
       Midnight 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 two columns (there‐
       fore showing twice as many files as other views). The long view is sim‐
       ilar  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 the two columns mode on the
       panel, this is done by adding the number "2" to the user 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 creation 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 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.	 If  you  have
       panelized file names in a panel this will reload the directory contents
       and remove the panelized information (See the section External panelize
       for more information).

  File Menu
       The 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 the Midnight Commander.

       View (F3, Shift-F3)

       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 PAGER environment	variable.   If
       PAGER is undefined, the "view" command is invoked.  If you use Shift-F3
       instead, the viewer will be invoked without  doing  any	formatting  or
       preprocessing to the file.

       Filtered View (M-!)

       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)

       Currently it invokes the vi editor, or the editor specified in the EDI‐
       TOR environment variable, or the Internal File Editor if the use_inter‐
       nal_edit option is on.

       Copy (F5)

       Pop  up an input dialog with destination that defaults to the directory
       in the non-selected panel and copies the currently  selected  file  (or
       the  tagged  files, if there is at least one file tagged) to the direc‐
       tory specified by the user in the input dialog.	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 destina‐
       tion see Mask copy/rename.

       On some systems, it is possible to do the copy  in  the	background  by
       clicking	 on the background button (or pressing M-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.

       SymLink (C-x s)

       Create a 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. The Midnight Comman‐
       der 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 original 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.

       Rename/Move (F6)

       Pop up an input dialog that defaults  to	 the  directory	 in  the  non-
       selected	 panel	and  moves  the currently selected file (or the tagged
       files if there is at least one tagged file) to the directory  specified
       by  the user in the input dialog. During the process, you can press C-c
       or ESC to abort the operation. For more details look at Copy  operation
       above, most of the things are quite similar.

       On  some	 systems,  it  is possible to do the copy in the background by
       clicking on the background button (or pressing M-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  (M-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. The  Midnight  Commander
       will  prompt  for a regular expression describing the group. When Shell
       Patterns are enabled, 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)).

       To  mark directories instead of files, the expression must start or end
       with a '/'.

       Unselect group (\)

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

       Quit (F10, Shift-F10)

       Terminate  the  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 the Midnight Commander, instead
       it will stay at the directory where you started the 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 panels.

       The "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 (C-x d) 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  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 M-p or M-n.

       The  Directory  hotlist	(C-\)  command	makes  changing of the current
       directory to often used directories faster.

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

       Extension  file edit 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 Menu file edit
       command may be used for editing the user menu (which appears by	press‐
       ing F2).

    Directory Tree
       The  Directory Tree command shows a tree figure of the directories. You
       can select a directory from the figure and the 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 the Midnight Commander creates the tree fig‐
       ure by scanning only a small subset of  all  the	 directories.  If  the
       directory  which	 you want to see is missing, move to its parent direc‐
       tory 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,  M-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  contents  field  accepts  regular expressions similar to egrep(1).
       That means you have to escape characters	 with  a  special  meaning  to
       egrep  with  "\",  e.g.	if  you search for "strcmp (" you will have to
       input "strcmp \(" (without the double quotes).

       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).	 After
       panelizing you can press C-r to return to the normal file listing.

       It is possible to have a list of directories that the Find File command
       should skip during the search (for  example,  you  may  want  to	 avoid
       searches	 on  a	CD-ROM	or on a NFS directory that is mounted across a
       slow link).

       Directories  to	be   skipped   should	be   set   on	the   variable
       find_ignore_dirs in the Misc section of your ~/.etc/mc/ini file.

       Directory components should be separated with a colon, here is an exam‐
       ple:

       [Misc]
       find_ignore_dirs=/cdrom:/nfs/wuarchive:/afs

       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 }' < /usr/adm/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.  The  Midnight  Commander	 will  change  to  the
       directory  corresponding	 to the selected label.	 From the hotlist dia‐
       log, 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.

    Extension File Edit
       This will invoke your editor on the file ~/.etc/mc/bindings.  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.

    Menu File Edit
       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,  ~/.etc/mc/menu  is
       tried  in  the  same way, and otherwise mc uses the default system-wide
       menu /usr/mpkg/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
       The 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 the 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 Confirmation command pops up a dialog from which you specify	 which
       actions you want to confirm.

       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  three groups: Panel
       Options, Pause after run and Other Options.

       Panel Options

       Show Backup Files.  If enabled, the Midnight Commander will show	 files
       ending  with  a	tilde.	 Otherwise, they won't be shown (like GNU's ls
       option -B).

       Show Hidden Files.  If enabled, the Midnight Commander  will  show  all
       files that start with a dot (like ls -a).

       Mark moves down.	 If enabled, the selection bar will move down when you
       mark a file (with either C-t or the Insert key).

       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.

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

       Fast directory reload.  If this option is enabled, the Midnight Comman‐
       der 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 directory 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).

       Pause after run

       After executing your commands, the Midnight  Commander  can  pause,  so
       that you can examine the output of the command.	There are three possi‐
       ble 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

       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, the Midnight Commander com‐
       putes  total  byte  sizes  and total number of files prior to any Copy,
       Rename and Delete operations. This will provide you with a  more	 accu‐
       rate  progress  bar  at	the  expense of some speed. This option has no
       effect, if Verbose operation is disabled.

       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).

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

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

       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.

       Complete: show all.  By default the Midnight Commander pops up all pos‐
       sible completions if the completion is ambiguous only when you press M-
       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 M-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.

       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.

       Cd follows links.  This option, if set, causes the  Midnight  Commander
       to follow the logical chain of directories when changing current direc‐
       tory either in the panels, or using the cd command. This is the default
       behavior	 of  bash. When unset, the 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 unintentionally
       becomes	more  difficult.   The	default	 selection in the confirmation
       dialogs for deletion changes from "Yes" to "No".	 This option  is  dis‐
       abled by default.

    Layout
       The  layout dialog gives you a possibility to change the general layout
       of screen. You can specify whether the menubar, the command prompt, the
       hintbar	and  the  function keybar are visible. On the Linux or FreeBSD
       console you can specify how many lines are shown in the output window.

       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. The split can be equal or you can specify an unequal
       split.

       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, files are colored according to their file  type	 (e.g.	direc‐
       tory, core file, executable, and so on).

       If  the Show Mini-Status option is enabled, one line of status informa‐
       tion about the currently selected item is shown at the  bottom  of  the
       panels.

       When  run  in  a terminal emulator for X11, Midnight Commander sets the
       terminal window title to the current working directory and  updates  it
       when  necessary.	  If your terminal emulator is broken and you see some
       incorrect output on startup and directory change, turn  off  the	 Xterm
       Window Title option.

    Confirmation
       In  this menu you configure the confirmation options for file deletion,
       overwriting, execution by pressing enter and quitting the program.

    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 ~/.etc/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.

       The  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) the 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 the re-enter  it	later.
       Since  decompression  is	 slow,	the  Midnight Commander will cache the
       information 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/mpkg/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 the Midnight	Commander  will	 try  to  load	initialization
       information from the ~/.etc/mc/ini file. If this file doesn't exist, it
       will load the information  from	the  system-wide  configuration	 file,
       located	in /usr/mpkg/share/mc/mc.ini. If the system-wide configuration
       file doesn't exist, MC uses the default settings.

       The Save Setup command creates the ~/.etc/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 the Midnight Com‐
       mander'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, the Midnight
       Commander checks the extension of the selected file against the	exten‐
       sions  in the Extensions File.  If a match is found then the code asso‐
       ciated 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 the 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 The 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, tcsh and zsh.

       When the subshell code is activated the 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 the Midnight Commander.

       If you are using bash you can specify startup commands for the subshell
       in  your	 ~/.etc/mc/bashrc  file	 and  special  keyboard	 maps  in  the
       ~/.etc/mc/inputrc file.	tcsh users may specify startup commands in the
       ~/.etc/mc/tcshrc file.

       When  the  subshell  code  is used, you can suspend applications at any
       time with the sequence C-o and jump back to the Midnight Commander,  if
       you  interrupt an application, you will not be able to run other exter‐
       nal commands until you quit the application you interrupted.

       An extra added feature of using the subshell is that  the  prompt  dis‐
       played  by  the Midnight Commander is the same prompt that you are cur‐
       rently using in your shell.

       The OPTIONS section has more information on how	you  can  control  the
       subshell code.

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 the 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 per‐
       centage 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 on

       When the shell patterns option is on you can use the '*' and '?'	 wild‐
       cards 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 '*' wildcard 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	'*'  (shell  patterns  on)  or
       '^\(.*\)$' (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.

Internal File Viewer
       The internal file viewer provides two display modes: ASCII and hex.  To
       toggle between modes, use the F4 key.  If you have the GNU gzip program
       installed, it will be used to automatically  decompress	the  files  on
       demand.

       The  viewer  will try to use the best method provided by your system or
       the file type to display the information.   The	internal  file	viewer
       will  interpret	some  string  sequences	 to set the bold and underline
       attributes, 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" -1 0xBB 012 "more text"

       Note that 012 is an octal number.  -1 is converted to 0xFF.

       Some  internal  details	about  the viewer: On systems that provide the
       mmap(2) system call, the program maps the file instead of  loading  it;
       if  the	system	does  not  provide the mmap(2) system call or the file
       matches an action that requires a filter, then the viewer will use  its
       growing	buffers,  thus	loading	 only those parts of the file that you
       actually access (this includes compressed files).

       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, M-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.

       !  Like C-o, but run a new shell if the subshell is not running.

       [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.

       M-r Toggle the ruler.

       It's possible to instruct the file viewer how to display a  file,  look
       at the Extension File Edit 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 (and our own  scanf-printf
       search and replace); shift-arrow text highlighting (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.

       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  cooledit.clip and Shift-Ins pastes from cooledit.clip.  Shift-Del
       cuts to cooledit.clip, and Ctrl-Del  deletes  highlighted  text.	 Mouse
       highlighting  also  works,  and	you can override the mouse as usual by
       holding down the shift key while dragging the mouse to let normal  ter‐
       minal 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 .etc/mc/cedit/cooledit.macros in
       your home directory. You can delete a macro by deleting the appropriate
       line in this file.

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

       You  can	 use scanf search and replace to search and replace a C format
       string. First take a look at the sscanf and sprintf man	pages  to  see
       what  a format string is and how it works.  Consider following example.
       Suppose you want to replace all occurrences of an open  bracket,	 three
       comma separated numbers, and a close bracket, with the word apples, the
       third number, the word oranges and then the second number.   Then  fill
       in the Replace dialog box as follows:

	Enter search string:
	 (%d,%d,%d)
	Enter replacement string:
	 apples %d oranges %d
	Enter replacement argument order:
	 3,2

       The  last  line specifies that the third and then the second number are
       to be used in place of the first and second.

       It is advisable to use this feature with Prompt on replace on,  because
       a  match	 is thought to be found whenever the number of arguments found
       matches the number given, which is not always a real match. Scanf  also
       treats  whitespace  as being elastic.  Note that the scanf format %[ is
       very useful for scanning strings, and whitespace.

       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.

Completion
       Let the 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 M-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
       M-Tab for the second time, for the first time MC just beeps.

Virtual File System
       The 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 the Midnight Commander to manipu‐
       late files not located on the Unix file system.

       Currently  the  Midnight	 Commander  is packaged with some Virtual File
       Systems (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 sys‐
       tems (the default file system for Linux systems), fish (for  manipulat‐
       ing  files  over shell connections such as rsh and ssh) and finally the
       mcfs (Midnight Commander file system), a network based file system.  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,  the	 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 direc‐
       tory  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 Extension File Edit 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, the Midnight Commander	 will  try  to	login  on  the
       remote machine as that user, otherwise it will use your login name.

       The options are 'C' - use compression and 'rsh' use rsh instead of ssh.
       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

  Network File System
       The  Midnight  Commander file system is a network base file system that
       allows you to manipulate the files in a remote machine as if they  were
       local.	To  use this, the remote machine must be running the mcserv(8)
       server program.

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

       /#mc:[user@]machine[:port][remote-dir]

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

       The port element is used when the remote server is running on a special
       port (see the mcserv(8) manual page for more information about  ports);
       finally,	 if  the remote-dir element is present, your current directory
       on the remote machine will be set to this one.

       Examples:

	   /#mc:ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx/linux/local
	   /#mc:joe@foo.edu:11321/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  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 filename#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 Extension File Edit section.	 Here is an example entry  for	Debian
       packages:

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

Colors
       The  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 the 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.

       The  Midnight  Commander	 provides  a way to change the default colors.
       Currently 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>=<foregroundcolor>,<backgroundcolor>:<keyword>= ...

       The  colors  are	 optional,  and	 the  keywords	are: normal, selected,
       marked, markselect, errors, input, reverse, gauge.   Menu  colors  are:
       menu,  menusel,	menuhot, menuhotsel.  Dialog colors are: dnormal, dfo‐
       cus, dhotnormal, dhotfocus.  Help colors are:  helpnormal,  helpitalic,
       helpbold,  helplink,  helpslink.	 Viewer color is: viewunderline.  Spe‐
       cial highlighting colors are: executable, directory,  link,  stalelink,
       device,	special, core.	Editor colors are: editnormal, editbold, edit‐
       marked.

       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.

       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	 menu,	menusel,  menuhot  and
       menuhotsel 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.

       Special	highlight  colors  determine how files are displayed when file
       highlighting is enabled (see the section on Layout).  directory is used
       for  directories	 or symbolic links to directories; executable for exe‐
       cutable files; link is used for symbolic links which are neither	 stale
       nor  linked to a directory; stalelink is used for stale symbolic links;
       device - character and block  devices;  special	is  used  for  special
       files, such as pipes and sockets; core is for core files.

       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. Example:

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

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

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

       clear_before_exec
	      By  default the Midnight Commander clears the screen before exe‐
	      cuting a command.	 If you would prefer to see the output of  the
	      command  at  the	bottom	of the screen, edit your ~/.etc/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 the 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
	      Controls	whenever  scrolling with the mouse is done by pages or
	      line by line on the panels.

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

       old_esc_mode
	      By  default  the	Midnight Commander treats the ESC key as a key
	      prefix   (old_esc_mode=0).     If	   this	   option    is	   set
	      (old_esc_mode=1),	 the  ESC key will act as a prefix key for one
	      second, and if no extra keys have arrived, then the ESC  key  is
	      interpreted as a cancel key (ESC ESC).

       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.

       panel_scroll_pages
	      If set (the default), panel will scroll by half the display when
	      the cursor reaches the end or the beginning of the panel, other‐
	      wise it will just scroll a file at a time.

       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 the Midnight  Com‐
	      mander.

       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.

       xterm_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.

Terminal databases
       The Midnight Commander provides a way to fix your system terminal data‐
       base   without  requiring  root	privileges.   The  Midnight  Commander
       searches in the system initialization file (the mc.lib file located  in
       the Midnight Commander library directory) and in the ~/.etc/mc/ini file
       for the section "terminal:your-terminal-name" and then for the  section
       "terminal: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 char‐
       acter 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

       The  complete key symbol represents the escape sequences used to invoke
       the completion process, this is invoked with M-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/mpkg/share/mc in the paths below.

       /usr/mpkg/share/mc/mc.hlp

	      The help file for the program.

       /usr/mpkg/share/mc/mc.ext

	      The default system-wide extensions file.

       ~/.etc/mc/bindings

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

       /usr/mpkg/share/mc/mc.ini

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

       /usr/mpkg/share/mc/mc.lib

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

       ~/.etc/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/mpkg/share/mc/mc.hint

	      This file contains the hints displayed by the program.

       /usr/mpkg/share/mc/mc.menu

	      This file contains the default system-wide applications menu.

       ~/.etc/mc/menu

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

       ~/.etc/mc/Tree

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

       ./.etc/mc.menu

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

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 ftp://ftp.ibib‐
       lio.org/pub/Linux/utils/file/managers/mc/.

SEE ALSO
       ed(1),  gpm(1),	mcserv(8),  terminfo(1),  view(1),   sh(1),   bash(1),
       tcsh(1), zsh(1).

       The Midnight Commander page on the World Wide Web:
	    http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/

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 send mail to
       this address: mc-devel@gnome.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 4.6.1		   June 2005				 MC(1)
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