NAME

mcommander - twin-panel text-mode file manager

SYNOPSIS

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

DESCRIPTION

M-Commander is a twin-panel text-mode file manager based on GNU Midnight Commander. Its architecture is built around a compact core and dynamically loaded panel plugins. The plugins provide a uniform panel interface for archives, remote file systems, repositories, and other data sources. Commands are run in a built-in terminal. M-Commander also includes a text editor with syntax highlighting and a viewer that supports both text and binary formats.

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.

--configure-options

Display configure options.

-d, --nomouse

Disable mouse support.

-e [file], --edit[=file]

Start the internal editor. If the file is specified, open it on startup. See also mcedit6(1).

-f, --datadir

Display the compiled-in search paths for M-Commander files.

-F, --datadir-info

Display extended info about compiled-in paths for M-Commander.

-g, --oldmouse

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

-K file, --keymap=file

Specify a name of keymap file in the command line.

--nokeymap

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

-P file, --printwd=file

Print the last working directory to the specified file. This option is not meant to be used directly. Instead, it's used from a special shell script that automatically changes the current directory of the shell to the last directory M-Commander was in. Source the file /usr/lib/mcommander/mc6.sh (bash and zsh users), /usr/lib/mcommander/mc6.csh (tcsh users), or /usr/lib/mcommander/mc6.fish (fish users) respectively to define mcommander 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 verbose mode off.

-S arg, --skin=arg

Specify a name of skin in the command line. Technology of skins is documented in the Skins section.

-t, --termcap

Used only if the code was compiled with S-Lang and terminfo: it makes M-Commander use the value of the TERMCAP variable for the terminal information instead of the information on the system wide terminal database

-v file, --view=file

Start the internal viewer to view the specified file. See also mview(1).

-V, --version

Display the version of the program.

-x, --xterm

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

-X, --no-x11

Do not use X11 to get the state of modifiers Alt, Ctrl, Shift

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

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

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

Overview

The screen of M-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 visible, but appears if you click the topmost line with the mouse or press the F9 key.

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

Mouse Support

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

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

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

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

The default auto repeat rate for the mouse buttons is 400 milliseconds. This may be changed to other values by editing the ~/.config/mc6/ini file and changing the mouse_repeat_rate parameter.

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

Keys

Some commands in M-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 abbreviations:

C-<chr>

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

Alt-<chr>

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

S-<chr>

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

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

You may redefine key bindings. See redefine hotkey bindings

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

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

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

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

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

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

Redefine hotkey bindings

The same can be done in the program itself, from the Options menu. The Key bindings dialog lists every action with the keys it answers to, changes them and writes the result to ~/.config/mc6/keymap.ini, so the file the option looks for is the file that dialog keeps. The Learn keys dialog is about the other end of the problem: it teaches the program the sequences a terminal sends for keys it gets wrong. The Key sniffer shows what arrives for a key that is pressed, with the action it is bound to in the current keymap, which is what to look at when a binding seems to do nothing.

Hotkey bindings may be read from external file (keymap-file). Initially, M-Commander creates key bindings using keymap defined in the source code. Then, two files /usr/share/mcommander/keymap.ini and /etc/mcommander/keymap.ini are loaded always, sequentially reassigned key bindings defined earlier. The package puts its own keymaps in /etc/mcommander: keymap.default.ini, keymap.emacs.ini and keymap.vim.ini, with keymap.ini a link to the default one. The option --nokeymap leaves every file out and keeps the bindings of the source code.

User-defined keymap-file is searched on the following algorithm (to the first one found):

1) command line option -K <keymap>, --keymap=<keymap>
2) environment variable MC_KEYMAP
3) parameter keymap of the [Midnight-Commander] section
4) file ~/.config/mc6/keymap.ini

The first three take a name or an absolute path. A name that does not end in .keymap gets that extension added, and is looked for in (to the first one found):

1) ~/.config/mc6/
2) /usr/share/mcommander/

Because of that extension the keymaps of the package, whose names end in .ini, cannot be chosen this way. To take one of them, copy or link it to ~/.config/mc6/keymap.ini, which is read last and needs no option:

ln -s /etc/mcommander/keymap.vim.ini ~/.config/mc6/keymap.ini

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 M-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 M-Commander.

C-x c

run the Chmod command on a file or on the tagged files.

C-x o

run the Chown command on the current file or on the tagged files.

C-x l

run the hard link command.

C-x s

run the absolute symbolic link command.

C-x v

run the relative symbolic link command. See the File Menu section for more information about symbolic links.

C-x i

set the other panel display mode to information.

C-x q

set the other panel display mode to quick view.

C-x !

execute the External panelize command.

C-x h

run the add directory to hotlist command.

Alt-!

executes the Filtered view command, described in the view command.

Alt-?

executes the Find file command.

Alt-c

pops up the quick cd dialog.

C-o

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

You can type C-o at any time and you will be taken back to M-Commander's main screen, to return to your application just type C-o. If you have an application suspended by using this trick, you won't be able to execute other programs from M-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, left-key, right-key

change the current panel. The old other panel becomes the new current panel and the old current panel becomes the new other panel. The selection bar moves from the old current panel to the new current panel.

Insert, C-t

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

Alt-e

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

Alt-g, Alt-r, Alt-j

used to select the top file in a panel, the middle file and the bottom one, respectively.

Alt-t

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

C-\ (control-backslash)

show the directory hotlist and change to the selected directory.

+ (plus)

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

\ (backslash)

use the "\" key to unselect a group of files. This is the opposite of the Plus key.

up-key, C-p

move the selection bar to the previous entry in the panel.

down-key, C-n

move the selection bar to the next entry in the panel.

home, a1, Alt-<

move the selection bar to the first entry in the panel.

end, c1, Alt->

move the selection bar to the last entry in the panel.

next-page, C-v

move the selection bar one page down.

prev-page, Alt-v

move the selection bar one page up.

Alt-(, Alt-)

scroll long filenames to the right or left.

Alt-o

If the currently selected file is a directory, load that directory on the other panel and moves the selection to the next file. If the currently selected file is not a directory, load the parent directory on the other panel and moves the selection to the next file.

Alt-i

make the current directory of the current panel also the current directory of the other panel. Put the other panel to the listing mode if needed. If the current panel is panelized, the other panel doesn't become panelized.

C-PageUp, C-PageDown

only when supported by the terminal: change to ".." and to the currently selected directory respectively.

Alt-y

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

Alt-u

moves to the next directory in the history, equivalent to clicking the > with the mouse.

Alt-S-h, Alt-H

displays the directory history, equivalent to depressing the 'v' with the mouse.

Quick search and quick filter

The Quick search mode allows you to perform fast file search in a file panel. Press C-s or Alt-s to start a filename search in the directory listing. Press Alt-Shift-s to start Quick filter, which uses the same pattern but hides entries that do not contain it. The parent directory entry is always shown.

When either mode is active, the user input will be added to the shared pattern instead of the command line. If the Show mini-status option is enabled, the pattern is shown on the mini-status line. When typing, the selection bar will move to the next file starting with the typed letters; in Quick filter mode the list is also reduced to matching entries. The Backspace or DEL keys can be used to correct typing mistakes.

Pressing C-s or Alt-s while Quick filter is active switches to Quick search and shows all entries without losing the pattern or current file. Pressing Alt-Shift-s while Quick search is active switches back to Quick filter. Repeating the shortcut of the active mode searches for the next match.

Navigation keys such as the arrows, Home, End, PageUp and PageDown move within the filtered list without closing Quick filter.

Files can be marked and unmarked while Quick filter is active. Their marks are preserved when switching modes or closing the filter.

If either mode is started by pressing its shortcut twice, the previous pattern will be used.

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

Shell Command Line

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

Alt-Enter

copy the currently selected file name to the command line.

C-Enter

same a Alt-Enter. May not work on remote systems and some terminals.

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 terminals.

Alt-Tab

does the filename, command, variable, username and hostname completion 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 command 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 otherwise interpreted by M-Commander (like the '+' symbol)

Alt-p, Alt-n

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

Alt-h

displays the history for the current input line.

General Movement Keys

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

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

Up, C-p

moves one line backward.

Down, C-n

moves one line forward.

Prev Page, Page Up, Alt-v

moves one page up.

Next Page, Page Down, C-v

moves one page down.

Home, A1

moves to the beginning.

End, C1

move to the end.

The help viewer and the file viewer accept the following keys in addition the to ones mentioned above:

b, C-b, C-h, Backspace, Delete

moves one page up.

Space bar

moves one page down.

u, d

moves one half of a page up or down.

g, G

moves to the beginning or to the end.

Input Line Keys

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

C-a

puts the cursor at the beginning of line.

C-e

puts the cursor at the end of the line.

C-b, move-left

move the cursor one position left.

C-f, move-right

move the cursor one position right.

Alt-f

moves one word forward.

Alt-b

moves one word backward.

C-h, Backspace

delete the previous character.

C-d, Delete

delete the character in the point (over the cursor).

C-@

sets the mark for cutting.

C-w

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

Alt-w

copies the text between the cursor and the mark to a kill buffer.

C-y

yanks back the contents of the kill buffer.

C-k

kills the text from the cursor to the end of the line.

Ctrl-Insert

copies the selected text to the clipfile and to the external clipboard. With nothing selected: the marked files of the panel on screen, one per line; else the whole line; else the file under the panel cursor.

Shift-Delete

cuts the selected text to the clipfile and to the external clipboard.

Shift-Insert

pastes the clipfile into the line as one line: line breaks and other control characters become spaces. On the command line it works with the panels shown or hidden. More than 2 KB of text is pasted only after a confirmation.

Alt-p, Alt-n

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

Alt-C-h, Alt-Backspace

delete one word backward.

Alt-Tab

does the filename, command, variable, username and hostname completion 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 six menus: "Left", "File", "Attributes", "Command", "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 Attributes Menu lists the commands that change the permissions, the owner and the file system flags of the same 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 M-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).

Panel modes

A panel mode is a named, reusable listing format. The list of modes is shared between both panels and is edited and applied through two dialogs.

Alt-t (also the Panel modes... entry of the Left and Right menus) opens the switcher: a plain list of the defined modes. Press Enter on a mode to apply it to the panel (the menu's panel, or the active panel for Alt-t), or Esc to leave the panel unchanged.

The File panel modes... entry of the Options menu opens the manager: the same list, edited with keys. Insert creates a new mode, F4 (or Enter) edits the selected one, F5 duplicates it, and Delete (or F8) removes it. The Defaults button replaces the list with the built-in modes. Ok saves the list; Cancel (or Esc) discards every change made in the dialog. The manager edits the global list of modes; it does not switch any panel.

The mode editor has separate inputs for the column field types and their widths, and for the mini-status line, using the field names described under Listing Format... . A field type list is comma-separated, one entry per column; a column may contain several space-separated fields (for example type name). A width of 0 (or empty) leaves the field at its automatic width. A complete format string (for example half name | size:7) may also be pasted into a types input: the | separators and :width suffixes are converted into the two lists.

The defined modes and each panel's selected mode are saved across sessions.

File Menu

M-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 parentheses):

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 M-Commander.

View (F3, F13)

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

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

Filtered View (Alt-!)

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

Edit (F4, F14)

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

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

Copy (F5, F15)

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

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

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

Link (C-x l)

Create a hard link to the current file.

Absolute symlink (C-x s)

Create a absolute symbolic link to the current file.

Relative symLink (C-x v)

Create a relative symbolic link to the current file.

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

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

A symbolic link is a reference to the name of the original file. If the original file is deleted the symbolic link is useless. It is quite easy to notice that the files represent the same image. M-Commander shows an "@"-sign in front of the file name if it is a symbolic link to somewhere (except to directory, where it shows a tilde (~)). The 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rename/Move (F6, F16)

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

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

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

Mkdir (F7)

Pop up an input dialog and creates the directory specified.

Delete (F8)

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

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

Select group (+)

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

Unselect group (\)

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

Invert selection (*)

Select (tag) all items that are currently unselected, and unselect (untag) all items that are currently selected. Applies to only files or to both files and directories, depending on whether 'Reverse files only' is enabled.

Quit (F10, S-F10)

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

Attributes Menu

The commands of this menu change what the file system knows about a file, not what the file holds: the access permissions, the owner and the group, and the flags of the file system. Each of them works on the selected file, or on the tagged files when there are any.

Chmod... (C-x c)

Set the access permissions in the Chmod dialog.

Chown... (C-x o)

Set the owner and the group in the Chown dialog.

Advanced chown...

Set the permissions, the owner and the group in one dialog, see Advanced Chown.

Chattr flags... (C-x e)

Set the flags of an ext2, ext3 or ext4 file system in the Chattr dialog. The item is there only when the program is built with support for those flags.

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

The "Compare directories" command compares the directory panels with each other. You can then use the Copy (F5) command to make the panels identical. There are three compare methods. The quick method compares only file size and file date. The thorough method makes a full byte-by-byte compare. The size-only compare method just compares the file sizes and does not check the contents or the date times, it just checks the file size.

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

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

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

The "Screen list" command shows a dialog window with the list of currently running internal editors, viewers and other M-Commander modules that support this mode.

/cdrom:/nfs/wuarchive:/afs

/cdrom:/nfs/wuarchive:/afs:.svn:.git:CVS

find . -type l -print

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

Enter        change to the selected location
Alt-o        open the selected location in the other panel
Ctrl-Enter   put "cd location" into the command line
Alt-Enter    the same, for terminals without Ctrl-Enter
Insert       add the current location
Shift-F4     new entry: ask for a label and a location
F7           new group
F4           edit the label and location of the selected entry
Delete       remove the selected entry
Ctrl-Up      move the selected entry one line up
Ctrl-Down    move the selected entry one line down
F6           move the selected entry into another group: the dialog lists


             the groups, Enter opens one, Move or F6 again puts the entry at


             the end of the group shown, the starting group included
F9           sort the current group by label, groups first
Ctrl-s       search the list as you type, Ctrl-s again finds the next match
Right, Left  enter and leave a group

Enter       run the entry
Ins         add an entry
F4          edit the entry
F5          import entries from a menu file written by hand
Shift-F4    open the file the entry is kept in
Del         delete the entry
Ctrl-Up     move the entry up
Ctrl-Down   move the entry down

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 "M-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

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

  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

	= f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n

	( (f *.tar.gz) | (f *.tgz) ) & (t n)

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

Options Menu

M-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 menu holds, in this order:

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

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

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

The File panel modes command opens the list of the named listing formats, where one is created, edited and removed.

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

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

The 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 Key bindings command opens the list of the actions with the keys they answer to, where a key is reassigned and the result written to the keymap file.

The Key sniffer command shows what a terminal sends for the key that is pressed, and the action that key is bound to.

The Diff viewer options, Viewer options and Editor options commands pop up the dialogs of the three programs that show a file: the compare view, the viewer and the editor. The same dialogs are in the Options menu of each of them; here they are reachable without opening a file first. The compare view takes its options when it starts, so a view already on the screen keeps the ones it was opened with.

The Manage plugins command lists the plugins that are loaded, switches one off and opens its settings.

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

The Edit highlighting group file command opens the file that says which names and which file types the panel shows in which color, see Filenames Highlight.

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

The About command shows the version of the program and who wrote it.

Executing operating system commands

You may execute commands by typing them directly in M-Commander'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, M-Commander checks the extension of the selected file against the extensions in the Extensions File. If a match is found then the code associated with that extension is executed. A very simple macro expansion takes place before executing the command.

The cd internal command

The cd command is interpreted by M-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 directory, if you append a username after the tilde, then it will be substituted 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 M-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 command, 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.

%b

The block file name.

%e

The error file name.

%m

The current menu name.

%f and %p

In file manager user menu: the current file name in selected panel. In mcedit6 user menu: the name of opened file.

%x

The extension of current file name.

%n

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.

%v and %V

Similar to the %t and %T, but expands to full names of tagged files. %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 % 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 substituted. Otherwise, the value of ENV is substituted.

The terminal

M-Commander runs your shell in a pseudo terminal behind the panels. It works with the shells: bash, ash (BusyBox and Debian), (o/m)ksh, tcsh, zsh and fish.

The shell is the one defined in the SHELL variable and if it is not defined, then the one in the /etc/passwd file. Rather than invoking a new shell each time you execute a command, the command is passed to that shell as if you had typed it. This also allows you to change the environment variables, use shell functions and define aliases that are valid until you quit M-Commander.

bash users may specify startup commands in ~/.local/share/mc6/bashrc (fallback ~/.bashrc) and special keyboard maps in ~/.local/share/mc6/inputrc (fallback ~/.inputrc).

ash/dash users (BusyBox or Debian) may specify startup commands in ~/.local/share/mc6/ashrc (fallback ~/.profile).

ksh/oksh users (PD ksh variants) may specify startup commands in ~/.local/share/mc6/kshrc (fallback ENV or ~/.profile).

mksh users (MirBSD ksh) may specify startup commands in ~/.local/share/mc6/mkshrc (fallback ENV or ~/.mkshrc).

zsh users may specify startup commands in ~/.local/share/mc6/.zshrc (fallback ~/.zshrc).

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

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

Behind the panels the terminal keeps a scrollback of everything the shell has printed, and while no panel is on screen it can be read, marked and cleared. The cursor keys walk the output and the shifted cursor keys mark it, both while the terminal itself holds the focus; the keys that only move the view work whoever is typing. Every key not named below is typed into the shell.

Ctrl-Insert    copy the marked output to the clipboard
Ctrl-Shift-u   take the mark back
Alt-s          search the output for what is typed next
Alt-Shift-s    show only the rows that match what is typed next
Ctrl-l         clear the screen, keeping the scrollback
Ctrl-Shift-l   clear the screen and the scrollback both


               (also Ctrl-Alt-l)

Alt-s and Alt-Shift-s take a pattern the way they do in the panels: it is typed on the top row of the screen, and the output follows it as it grows. Case does not matter. A search goes down the output from the cursor and marks the nearest match; Alt-s again marks the one below it, and past the newest row the search goes round to the oldest. Where the shell is typing nothing has been read yet, and the search takes the output from its oldest row. A filter shows the rows that match and no others, and the cursor keys walk them while the pattern is still being typed; Alt-Shift-s again moves the cursor to the row below. The search_direction setting turns both round, to run up the output the way less does. Pressed with nothing typed, either key takes the pattern it had last. Backspace takes a character back, and a character that nothing matches is not taken. Enter ends the typing and leaves the view on what was found, the match still marked; Esc ends it and puts back the view of before the typing: the cursor where it was reading, or at the prompt where nothing was read, and the filter and the mark that were there. Any other key ends the typing and then does what it does.

With no panel on screen most function keys are the terminal's own and the button bar names them. The file manager's View, Edit, Copy, RenMov and Delete are not on offer there: they work on the file the panel cursor stands on, and that cursor cannot be seen. F8 is left empty on purpose, so that the reach for Delete does nothing rather than something else. F7 makes a directory and Shift-F4 edits a new file, as they do with the panels up: both work in the directory of the panel, which is the one the shell is in.

F2           copy the marked output to the clipboard
F3           mark the whole output, or take back the mark there is
F4           cut the output down to the rows that match the mark,


             or the word under the cursor
F5           turn that filter off, and on again
F6           clear the screen and the scrollback both

F1, F7, Shift-F4, F9 and F10 stay the file manager's while the shell waits at its prompt, and F1 opens the help on this section. Once a command is running the screen and every key on it are that command's, these among them. The five above are the exception: they stay the terminal's while a command is running. A full-screen application, an editor or a pager, takes every key itself, those included. All of them are listed in the [mcterm] section of the keymap file and can be redefined there.

If you type mcommander without arguments at the shell prompt behind the hidden panels, the running M-Commander shows its panels again instead of starting a second copy. Pass an argument, a directory name for example, to start a nested M-Commander as before.

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

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

To set a specific shell different from your current SHELL variable or login shell defined in /etc/passwd, you may call M-Commander like this: SHELL=/bin/myshell mcommander

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 combination.

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 correspond 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.

Chattr

The Chattr window is used to change the attributes of a group of files and directories on a Linux file system. It can be invoked with the C-x e key combination.

Not all attributes are supported or utilized by all filesystems. List of available attribute flags is represented as a set of check buttons which correspond to the attribute flags (see chattr(1) for details). As you change the attribute flags, you can see the symbolic value change below file name.

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.

To set the attributes, use the Enter key.

When working with a group of files or directories, you just click on the flags you want to set or clear. Once you have selected the flags 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 flags in attributes of all selected files.

[Clean marked] clear marked flags in attributes of all selected files.

[Set] set the attributes of one file.

[Cancel] cancel the Chattr command.

File Operations

When you copy, move or delete files, M-Commander shows the file operations dialog. It shows the files currently being processed and uses up to two progress bars. The file bytes bar indicates the percentage of the current file that has been processed so far. The total bytes bar indicates the percentage of the total size of the tagged files that has been handled. Counters that show how many of the tagged files have been handled are displayed. If the Verbose option is off, the file bytes bar and total bytes bar are not shown.

There are three buttons at the bottom of the dialog:

[Skip]

button to skip the rest of the current file.

[Suspend]

button to suspend the file operation and button transforms to the [Continue] one which continue the suspended operation.

[Abort]

button to 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 four choices:

[Ignore]

button to ignore this error.

[Ignore all]

button to ignore this and all future errors.

[Abort]

button to abort the operation altogether.

[Retry]

button to continue if you fixed the problem from another terminal.

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 directory (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), mcommander 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.

Preserve ext2 attributes

determines whether to preserve the attributes of files and directories on an ext2/3/4 file system.

Use shell patterns

When this option is on you can use the '*' and '?' wildcards in the source mask. They work like they do in the shell. In the target mask only the '*' and '\<digit>' wildcards are allowed. The first '*' 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 M-Commander 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 similar to the situation when the shell patterns option is on.

Two examples:

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

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

Case Conversions

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

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

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

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

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

Stable symlinks

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

Select/Unselect Files

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

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

Regex Quick Reference

Common Tokens

A single character of: a, b or c        [abc]
A character except: a, b or c           [^abc]
A character in the range: a-z           [a-z]
A character not in the range: a-z       [^a-z]
A character in the range: a-z or A-Z    [a-zA-Z]
Any single character                    .
Alternate - match either a or b         a|b
Any whitespace character                \s
Any non-whitespace character            \S
Any digit                               \d
Any non-digit                           \D
Any word character                      \w
Any non-word character                  \W
Non-capturing group                     (?:...)
Capturing group                         (...)
Zero or one of a                        a?
Zero or more of a                       a*
One or more of a                        a+
Exactly 3 of a                          a{3}
3 or more of a                          a{3,}
Between 3 and 6 of a                    a{3,6}
Start of string                         ^
End of string                           $
A word boundary                         \b
Non-word boundary                       \B

Anchors

Start of match                          \G
Start of string                         ^
End of string                           $
Start of string                         \A
End of string                           \Z
Absolute end of string                  \z
A word boundary                         \b
Non-word boundary                       \B

General Tokens

Newline                                 \n
Carriage return                         \r
Tab                                     \t
Null character                          \0

Meta Sequences

Any single character                    .
Alternate: match a or b                 a|b
Any whitespace character                \s
Any non-whitespace character            \S
Any digit                               \d
Any non-digit                           \D
Any word character                      \w
Any non-word character                  \W
Unicode seq., linebreaks included       \X
Unicode newlines                        \R
Match anything but a newline            \N
Vertical whitespace character           \v
Negation of \v                          \V
Horizontal whitespace character         \h
Negation of \h                          \H
Reset match                             \K
Match subpattern number #               \#
Unicode property X                      \pX
Unicode property or script category     \p{...}
Negation of \pX                         \PX
Negation of \p{...}                     \P{...}
Quote; treat as literals                \Q...\E
Match subpattern 'name'                 \k{name}
Match subpattern 'name'                 \k<name>
Match subpattern 'name'                 \k'name'
Match nth subpattern                    \gn
Match nth subpattern                    \g{n}
Nth relative previous subpattern        \g{-n}
Nth capture group expression            \g<n>
Nth upcoming capture group expr.        \g<+n>
Nth capture group expression            \g'n'
Nth upcoming subpattern expr.           \g'+n'
Match named capture group               \g{letter}
Named capture group expression          \g<letter>
Named capture group expression          \g'letter'
Hex character YY                        \xYY
Hex character YYYY                      \x{YYYY}
Octal character ddd                     \ddd
Control character Y                     \cY
Backspace character                     [\b]
Makes any character literal             \

Quantifiers

Zero or one of a                        a?
Zero or more of a                       a*
One or more of a                        a+
Exactly 3 of a                          a{3}
3 or more of a                          a{3,}
Between 3 and 6 of a                    a{3,6}
Greedy quantifier                       a*
Lazy quantifier                         a*?
Possessive quantifier                   a*+

Character Classes

A single character of: a, b or c        [abc]
A character except: a, b or c           [^abc]
A character in the range: a-z           [a-z]
A character not in the range: a-z       [^a-z]
Character in range: a-z or A-Z          [a-zA-Z]
Letters and digits                      [[:alnum:]]
Letters                                 [[:alpha:]]
ASCII codes 0-127                       [[:ascii:]]
Space or tab only                       [[:blank:]]
Control characters                      [[:cntrl:]]
Decimal digits                          [[:digit:]]
Visible characters (not space)          [[:graph:]]
Lowercase letters                       [[:lower:]]
Visible characters                      [[:print:]]
Visible punctuation characters          [[:punct:]]
Whitespace                              [[:space:]]
Uppercase letters                       [[:upper:]]
Word characters                         [[:word:]]
Hexadecimal digits                      [[:xdigit:]]
Start of word                           [[:<:]]
End of word                             [[:>:]]

Flags/Modifiers

Multiline                               m
Case insensitive                        i
Ignore whitespace / verbose             x
Single line                             s
Unicode                                 u
eXtra                                   X
Ungreedy                                U
Anchor                                  A
Duplicate group names                   J
Non-capturing groups                    n
Ignore all whitespace / verbose         xx

Group Constructs

Non-capturing group                 (?:...)
Capturing group                     (...)
Atomic group (non-capturing)        (?>...)
Reset subpattern group number       (?|...)
Comment group                       (?#...)
Named capturing group               (?'name'...)
Named capturing group               (?<name>...)
Named capturing group               (?P<name>...)
Inline modifiers                    (?imsxUJnxx)
Localized inline modifiers          (?imsxUJnxx:...)
Conditional statement               (?(1)yes|no)
Conditional statement               (?(R)yes|no)
Recursive conditional statement     (?(R#)yes|no)
Conditional statement               (?(R&name)yes|no)
Lookahead conditional               (?(?=...)yes|no)
Lookbehind conditional              (?(?<=...)yes|no)
Recurse entire pattern              (?R)
Match expr. in capture group 1      (?1)
First relative capture group        (?+1)
Named capture group expression      (?&name)
Match subpattern 'name'             (?P=name)
Match expr. in group '{name}'       (?P>name)
Pre-define patterns before use      (?(DEFINE)...)
Positive lookahead                  (?=...)
Negative lookahead                  (?!...)
Positive lookbehind                 (?<=...)
Negative lookbehind                 (?<!...)
Alphabetic lookaround assertions    (*pla:...)
Non-atomic lookaround assertion     (*non_atomic_positive_lookahead:...)
Script run assertion                (*script_run:...)
Script run (shorthand)              (*sr:...)
Control verb                        (*ACCEPT)
Control verb                        (*FAIL)
Control verb                        (*MARK:NAME)
Control verb                        (*COMMIT)
Control verb                        (*PRUNE)
Control verb                        (*SKIP)
Control verb                        (*THEN)

Screen selector

M-Commander supports running many internal modules (such as editor, viewer and diff viewer) simultaneously and switching between them without closing open files. Using several file managers at a time, however, is not currently supported.

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

Alt-}

switch to the next screen;

Alt-{

switch to the previous screen;

Alt-`

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

Completion

Let M-Commander type for you.

Attempt to perform completion on the text before current position. M-Commander 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 position 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), M-Commander beeps and the following action depends on the setting of the Complete: show all option in the Configuration dialog. If it is enabled, a list of all possibilities pops up next to the current position and you can select with the arrow keys and Enter the correct entry. You can also type the first letters in which the possibilities differ to move to a subset of all possibilities and complete as much as possible. If you press Alt-Tab again, only the subset will be shown in the listbox, otherwise the first item which matches all the previous characters will be highlighted. As soon as there is no ambiguity, dialog disappears, but you can hide it by canceling keys Esc, F10 and left and right arrow keys. If Complete: show all is disabled, the dialog pops up only if you press Alt-Tab for the second time, for the first time M-Commander just beeps.

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

Virtual File System

M-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 M-Commander to manipulate files not located on the Unix file system.

Two virtual file systems are built into the program besides the local one, which is the regular Unix file system: extfs, which turns a file or a system-wide list into a directory tree with a script of its own, and sfs, which passes a single file through a command and shows what comes out. Everything that needs a connection to another machine, and the archives, are panel plugins now, not file systems of the switch.

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.

Panel plugins

A panel is not bound to a file system: a plugin can fill it with whatever it can list. The plugins that come with the program are

arcmc        archives, and what is inside them
ftp, sftp    files on another machine
shell-link   files on another machine over ssh
samba        shares of an SMB server
s3           buckets of an S3 storage
git          the state of a repository
docker       containers, images and their logs
k8s          the objects of a cluster
mongo        the collections of a database
sqlite       the tables of a database
systemd      the units of the system
panelize     the result of a command as a panel
mcpeek       a look inside a file
mcstruct     a binary file as a tree of named fields
skineditor   the skin of the program

Every plugin carries its own help, which F1 opens inside its panel or its dialog. The Manage plugins item of the Options menu lists what is loaded, switches a plugin off and opens its settings. A plugin panel is reached from the Left and Right menus, from the hotlist, or by typing the address of the plugin on the command line.

EXTernal File System

extfs allows you to integrate numerous features and file types into M-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 commands inside extfs, just like any other non-local VFS.

Common extfs scripts included with M-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://).

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 filename/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 Edit Extension File section. Here is an example entry for Debian packages:

  regex/\.deb$


          Open=%cd %p/deb://

Single File fileSystem

sfs passes one file through a command and shows the result as a file of its own, which is how a compressed file is read without unpacking it by hand. The name of the file system is appended to the name of the file, as with extfs:

  cd documents.gz/ugz://

The commands are listed in /etc/mcommander/sfs.ini, one to a line: the name of the file system, a slash, the number of the command, a tab, and the command itself, where %1 is the file the panel is on and %3 the file to write. The file that comes with the program holds the pairs that pack and unpack gz, bz2, lz, lz4, lzma, lzo, xz and zst, and a few more.

Colors

M-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 S-Lang 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 M-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 S-Lang, ncurses does not provide a way to force color mode: ncurses uses just the information in the terminal database.

Skins

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

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

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

1) command line option -S <skin>, --skin=<skin>
2) environment variable MC_SKIN
3) parameter skin of the [Midnight-Commander] section
4) file /etc/mcommander/skins/default.ini
5) file /usr/share/mcommander/skins/default.ini

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

1) ~/.local/share/mc6/skins/
2) /etc/mcommander/skins/
3) /usr/share/mcommander/skins/

The format of skin files is described in /usr/share/mcommander/skins/README.txt.

Filenames Highlight

Section [filehighlight] in current skin-file contains key names as highlight groups and values as color pairs.

Rules of filenames highlight are placed in /usr/share/mcommander/filehighlight.ini file (~/.config/mc6/filehighlight.ini). Name of section in this file must be equal to parameters names in [filehighlight] section (in current skin-file).

Keys in these groups are:

type

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

regexp

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

extensions

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

extensions_case

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

`type' key may have values:

- FILE (all files)


  - FILE_EXE
- DIR (all directories)


  - LINK_DIR
- LINK (all links except stale link)


  - HARDLINK


  - SYMLINK
- STALE_LINK
- DEVICE (all device files)


  - DEVICE_BLOCK


  - DEVICE_CHAR
- SPECIAL (all special files)


  - SPECIAL_SOCKET


  - SPECIAL_FIFO


  - SPECIAL_DOOR

Special Settings

Most of M-Commander settings 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 ~/.config/mc6/ini file:

clear_before_exec

By default, M-Commander clears the screen before executing a command. If you would prefer to see the output of the command at the bottom of the screen, edit your ~/.config/mc6/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 M-Commander enters that directory. If this flag is set to 1, then M-Commander will ask for confirmation before changing the directory if you have files tagged.

vfs_timeout

The lifetime of the cache of a virtual file system, in seconds. After leaving an archive or a compressed file, the listing that was read and the temporary file that was unpacked are kept for that long, so that going back in is immediate, and are released when the time is up. 60 by default; 0 releases them at once.

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 middle of the command line. On the other hand, you cannot use them to change selection when the command line is not empty.

alternate_plus_minus

If true, use '+', '-', '\' and '*' keys normally. For select/unselect, use 'Alt-+', 'Alt--' and 'Alt-*'.

show_output_starts_shell

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. Otherwise, pressing any key will bring you back to M-Commander.

timeformat_recent

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

timeformat_old

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

use_file_to_guess_type

If this variable is on (the default) it will spawn the file command to match the file types listed on the extensions.ini file.

xtree_mode

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

shell_directory_timeout

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

clipboard_store

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

clipboard_store=xclip -i
    

clipboard_paste

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

clipboard_paste=xclip -o
    

autodetect_codeset

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

For example:

autodetect_codeset=russian

The settings of the internal file viewer are in the [Viewer] section of the same file. They are all in the Viewer options dialog as well; the names here are what that dialog writes.

wrap

Wrap a line wider than the screen onto the next screen line. True by default.

syntax

Color the text by the syntax rules of the editor. False by default.

mouse_move_pages

Scroll with the mouse by pages rather than line by line. In ASCII mode the left button selects text, so this scrolling uses the right or middle button there. True by default.

remember_file_position

Open a file at the place it was left the last time. False by default.

structured_auto

Open supported files (json, yaml, yml, xml, html, htm) in the structured (tree) mode right away. When a file fails to parse, the plain text view is used silently. False by default.

eof

The text printed after the last line of the file. Empty by default.

structured_max_size

The largest file the structured (tree) view parses, in bytes. A larger one is refused before it is read. 67108864 (64 MB) by default.

structured_max_nodes

The largest tree the structured view builds, counted in nodes. A dense document, such as XML of small tags, meets this limit before the size one: it spends about a node per twelve bytes, and every node costs memory. 10000000 by default, which holds some 120 MB of such a file in about 1.5 GB.

dirt_limit

How many screen updates may be skipped at most while a file is being read. Normally this value is not significant, because the code 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. The default is 10, which behaves best.

Older versions kept these settings in the main section under longer names (wrap_mode, viewer_syntax_highlighting, mouse_move_pages_viewer, mcview_remember_file_position, mcview_structured_auto, mcview_eof and max_dirt_limit). They are read from there once and written back to the [Viewer] section.

The settings of the terminal that runs the shell behind the panels are in the [Terminal] section of the same file. No dialog writes them.

search_direction

Which way Alt-s looks through the output of the shell, and which way Alt-Shift-s steps from one row of a filter to the next: "down" goes from the cursor towards the newest row and past it round to the oldest, "up" goes towards the oldest row and round to the newest, the way less searches. "down" by default.

Parameters for external editor or viewer

M-Commander provides a way for specify an options for external editors and viewers. M-Commander tries to search the "[External editor or viewer parameters]" section in the system initialization file (the defaults.ini file located in M-Commander's library directory) and then in the ~/.config/mc6/ini file. The option name should be equal to the name (full pathname) of external editor or viewer. The option value can contain following variables:

%filename

The filename to edit/view.

%lineno

The start line in the opening file.

For example:

[External editor or viewer parameters]


    vi=%filename +%lineno


    joe=%filename +%lineno


    more=%filename +%lineno

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

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

Terminal databases

M-Commander provides a way to fix your system terminal database without requiring root privileges. M-Commander searches in the system initialization file (the defaults.ini file located in M-Commander's library directory) and in the ~/.config/mc6/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 character and the ^x to represent the control-x character.

The possible key symbols are:

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

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

insert=\e[Op

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

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


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

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

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

ENVIRONMENT

The variables below are the ones M-Commander reads, and the ones it sets for the programs it starts. Variables such as TERM, SHELL, HOME or PATH are not listed here: the program reads them to find out where it runs, not to be configured by them.

Read at start up

MC_DATADIR

The directory the data files are taken from, in place of the one built in. See FILES.

MC_PROFILE_ROOT

The root of the user files, as an absolute path. See FILES.

MC_SKIN

The skin to use, by name or by path. See Skins.

MC_KEYMAP

The keymap file to use. See Keys.

MC_TMPDIR

The directory for the temporary files of the program.

MC_NO_LUA

Set to 1 to start without the Lua runtime. No Lua package is loaded, and nothing that needs one is available.

MC_SIXEL

Set to 0 to say the terminal has no sixel graphics, or to 1 to say it has. Without the variable the terminal itself is asked.

KEYBOARD_KEY_TIMEOUT_US

How long to wait for the rest of an escape sequence, in microseconds.

COLORTERM

Read when the colours are chosen. See Colors.

CDPATH

The directories the internal cd command searches.

EDITOR, VIEWER, PAGER

The external programs used when the built-in editor or viewer is turned off. See Parameters for external editor or viewer.

Set for the programs M-Commander starts

These are not meant to be set by hand. The program writes them so that a copy of itself started from the built-in terminal can tell that it is already running inside one.

MC_SID

The session the program runs in. A copy started from that session opens no panels of its own.

MC_PID

The process id of the running program.

MC_TTY

The terminal the program was started on.

Debug logs

A log is written only when it is turned on, and the switch takes the value 1. The plugin variables fall back to the general ones, so setting the general pair alone logs everything.

MC_LOG_ENABLE, MC_LOG_FILE

The general log. Without MC_LOG_FILE the file named by logfile in the [Logging] section of the ini file is used, and without that entry mc.log beside the other user files.

MC_FTP_LOG_ENABLE, MC_FTP_LOG_FILE

The log of the ftp panel plugin. The file falls back to /tmp/mc-ftp.log.

MC_SMB_LOG_ENABLE, MC_SMB_LOG_FILE

The log of the samba panel plugin. The file falls back to /tmp/mc-samba.log.

MC_SPELL_LOG

The file the spell checker writes to. It has no switch of its own: the log is written when the variable names a file.

To keep the log of a failing ftp connection:

MC_FTP_LOG_ENABLE=1 MC_FTP_LOG_FILE=/tmp/ftp.log mcommander

FILES

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

/usr/share/mcommander/help/mcommander.md

The help file for the program.

/usr/share/mcommander/extensions.ini

The default system-wide extensions file.

~/.config/mc6/extensions.ini

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

/etc/mcommander/mc.ini /usr/share/mcommander/mc.ini

System-wide setup files for M-Commander, used only if the user doesn't have his own ~/.config/mc6/ini file. If /etc/mcommander/mc.ini exists, /usr/share/mcommander/mc.ini isn't used.

/usr/share/mcommander/defaults.ini

Global settings for M-Commander. Settings in this file affect all users, whether they have ~/.config/mc6/ini or not. Currently, only terminal settings are loaded from defaults.ini.

~/.config/mc6/ini

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

/usr/share/mcommander/hints/hint

This file contains the hints displayed by the program.

~/.config/mc6/menu

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

~/.config/mc6/menu.ini

The user menu that edits itself, one group per entry. Where this file exists, it is the menu F2 opens, and a .mc6menu of the current directory is shown along with it.

~/.cache/mc6/Tree

The directory list for the directory tree and tree view features.

./.usermenu

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

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

LICENSE

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

AVAILABILITY

The latest version of this program can be found at https://github.com/blue-panels/mcommander/releases .

SEE ALSO

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

M-Commander's page on the World Wide Web:
	https://github.com/blue-panels/mcommander

AUTHORS

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

BUGS

If you want to report a problem with the program, please create bugreport at https://github.com/blue-panels/mcommander/issues .

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