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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.

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

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

       -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/local/share/mc/bin/mc.sh
	      (bash and zsh  users)  or	 /usr/local/share/mc/bin/mc.csh	 (tcsh
	      users)  respectively to define mc as an alias to the appropriate
	      shell script.

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

	      You can redefine the following variables:

       lefttop
	      left-top corner

       righttop
	      right-top corner

       centertop
	      center-top cross

       centerbottom
	      center-bottom cross

       leftbottom
	      left-bottom corner

       rightbottom
	      right-bottom corner

       leftmiddle
	      left-middle cross

       rightmiddle
	      right-middle cross

       centermiddle
	      center cross

       horiz  default horizontal line

       vert   default vertical line

       thinhoriz
	      thin horizontal line

       thinvert
	      thin vertical line

       -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.

       The default auto repeat rate for the mouse buttons is 400 milliseconds.
       This may be changed to other values by editing the ~/.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.

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

       You may redefine key bindings. See redefine hotkey bindings

       for more info. All other key bindings (described in this manual)	 rela‐
       tive to default behavior.

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

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

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

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

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

  Redefine hotkey bindings
       Hotkey  bindings	 may  be  read	from  external	file (keymap-file).  A
       keymap-file is searched on the following algorithm (to  the  first  one
       found):

		1)  command  line  option -K <keymap> or --keymap=<keymap>  2)
	      Environment variable MC_KEYMAP   3)  In  config  file  parameter
	      keymap in section [Midnight-Commander]  4) File ~/.mc/mc.keymap
	      5) File ${prefix}/etc/mc/mc.keymap
	      6) File /usr/local/share/mc/mc.keymap

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

	      1) ~/.mc/	 2) ${prefix}/etc/mc/  3) /usr/local/share/mc/

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

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

       C-l    repaint all the information in 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 hard link command.

       C-x s  run the absolute symbolic link command.

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

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

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

       C-x !  execute the External panelize command.

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

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

       Alt-?  executes the Find file command.

       Alt-c  pops up the quick cd dialog.

       C-o    when the program is being run in the Linux or FreeBSD console or
	      under an xterm, it will show you the output of the previous com‐
	      mand.  When ran on the Linux  console,  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).  To untag files, just retag a tagged file.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       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	 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, Alt-v
	      moves one page up.

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

       Home, A1
	      moves to the beginning.

       End, C1
	      move to the end.

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

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

       Space bar
	      moves one page down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Alt-f  moves one word forward.

       Alt-b  moves one word backward.

       C-h, Backspace
	      delete the previous character.

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

       C-@    sets the mark for cutting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       The  Options  Menu  lists  the actions which allow you to customize 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 status change time.

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

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

       nlink  the number of links to the file.

       ngid   the GID (numeric).

       nuid   the UID (numeric).

       owner  the owner of the file.

       group  the group of the file.

       inode  the inode of the file.

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

       space  a space in the display format.

       |      add a vertical line to the display format.

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

       For example, the Full display corresponds to this format:

       half type name | size | mtime

       And the Long display corresponds to this format:

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

       This is a nice user display format:

       half name | size:7 | type mode:3

       Panels may also be set to the following modes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       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.

       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.  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 desti‐
       nation 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. 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Rename/Move (F6, F16)

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

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

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

       Mkdir (F7)

       Pop up an input dialog and creates the directory specified.

       Delete (F8)

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

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

       Select group (+)

       This is used to select (tag) a group of files. The  Midnight  Commander
       will  prompt  for  a selection options. When Files only checkbox is on,
       only files will be selected.  If Files only is off, as files as	direc‐
       tories will be selected.	 When Shell Patterns checkbox is on, the regu‐
       lar expression is much like the	filename  globbing  in	the  shell  (*
       standing	 for  zero  or more characters and ?  standing for one charac‐
       ter). 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 sensi‐
       tive is off, the case will be ignored.

       Unselect group (\)

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

       Quit (F10, Shift-F10)

       Terminate 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 pan‐
       els.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Directory Tree
       The  Directory Tree command shows a tree figure of the directories. You
       can select a directory from the figure and 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,  Alt-s.   Search the next directory matching the search string. If
       there is no such directory these keys will move one line down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Option form whole words. Like grep -w.

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

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

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

       [FindFile]
       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 }' < /var/log/xferlog

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

    Hotlist
       The Directory hotlist command shows the labels of  the  directories  in
       the  directory  hotlist.	  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 ~/.mc/bindings.	 The format 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, ~/.mc/menu is tried
       in the same way, and otherwise mc uses  the  default  system-wide  menu
       /usr/local/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  Panel  options  command  pops  up  a dialog from which you specify
       options of file manager panels.

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

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

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

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

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

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

       File operation options

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

       Compute totals.	If this option is enabled, 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.

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

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

       Esc key mode.

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

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

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

       Pause after run

       After  executing	 your  commands,  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.

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

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

       Other options

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Cd  follows  links.  This option, if set, causes 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 and directory
       hotlist entries unintentionally becomes more  difficult.	  The  default
       selection  in  the confirmation dialogs for deletion changes from "Yes"
       to "No".	 This option is disabled by default.

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

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

       Panel split

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

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

       Console output

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

       Other options

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Panel options
       Main panel options

       Use  SI size units.  If this option is enabled, Midnight Commander will
       use SI units (powers of 1000) when displaying any byte sizes. The  suf‐
       fixes  (k,  m ...) are shown in lowercase.  If disabled (default), Mid‐
       night Commander will use binary units (powers of 1024) and the suffixes
       are shown in upper case (K, M ...)

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

       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). Enabled by default.

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

       Fast directory reload.  If this option is enabled, 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). Disabled by default.

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

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

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

       Navigation

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

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

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

       File highlight

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

       Quick search

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

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

    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  ~/.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 then 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/local/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 ~/.mc/ini file. If this  file  doesn't  exist,  it
       will  load  the	information  from  the system-wide configuration file,
       located in /usr/local/share/mc/mc.ini. If the system-wide configuration
       file doesn't exist, MC uses the default settings.

       The Save Setup command creates the ~/.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 ~/.mc/bashrc file and special keyboard maps in the  ~/.mc/inpu‐
       trc  file.  tcsh users may specify startup commands in the ~/.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.

       Stable symlinks

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

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

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

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

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

       F1 Invoke the built-in hypertext help viewer.

       F2 Save modified files.

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

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

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

       F7 Start search.

       F17 Continue search.

       F10, Esc, q Exit from diff viewer.

       Alt-s, s Toggle show of hunk status.

       Alt-n, l Toggle show of line numbers.

       f Maximize left panel.

       = Make panels equal in width.

       > Reduce the size of the right panel.

       < Reduce the size of the left panel.

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

       2, 3, 4, 8 Set tabulation size

       C-u Swap contents of diff panels.

       C-r Refresh the screen.

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

       Enter, Space, n Find next diff hunk.

       Backspace, p Find previous diff hunk.

       g Go to line.

       Down Scroll one line forward.

       Up Scroll one line backward.

       PageUp Move one page up.

       PageDown Mves one page down.

       Home, A1 Moves to the line beginning.

       End Moves to the line end.

       C-Home Move to the file beginning.

       C-End, C1 Move to the file end.

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

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

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

       "String" -1 0xBB 012 "more text"

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

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

       F1 Invoke the built-in hypertext help viewer.

       F2 Toggle the wrap mode.

       F4 Toggle the hex mode.

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

       F6, /.  Regular expression search.

       ?, Reverse regular expression search.

       F7 Normal search / hex mode search.

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

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

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

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

       F10, Esc.  Exit the internal file viewer.

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

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

       down-key Scroll one line forward.

       up-key Scroll one line backward.

       C-l Refresh the screen.

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

       !  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.

       Alt-r Toggle the ruler.

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

       It's  possible  to instruct the file viewer how to display a file, look
       at the 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; shift-arrow text high‐
       lighting (if supported by the terminal); insert-overwrite toggle;  word
       wrap;  autoindent;  tunable  tab	 size; syntax highlighting for various
       file types; and an option to pipe text blocks  through  shell  commands
       like indent and ispell.

       Sections:

	      Options of editor in ini-file

       The  editor  is	very easy to use and requires no tutoring. To see what
       keys do what, just consult the appropriate pull-down menu.  Other  keys
       are:  Shift movement keys do text highlighting.	Ctrl-Ins copies to the
       file 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 .mc/cedit/cooledit.macros  in  your
       home directory. You can delete a macro by deleting the appropriate line
       in this file.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Alt-}  switch to the next screen;

       Alt-{  switch to the previous screen;

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

Completion
       Let 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
       Alt-Tab again, only the subset will be shown in the listbox,  otherwise
       the  first item which matches all the previous characters will be high‐
       lighted.	 As soon as there is no ambiguity, dialog disappears, but  you
       can  hide  it by canceling keys Esc, F10 and left and right arrow keys.
       If Complete: show all is disabled, the dialog pops up only if you press
       Alt-Tab for the second time, for the first time MC just beeps.

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

       Examples:

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

  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, dis‐
       abled, marked, markselect, errors,  input,  inputmark,  inputunchanged,
       commandlinemark,	 reverse, gauge, header, inputhistory, commandhistory.
       Button bar colors are: bbarhotkey, bbarbutton. Status bar  color:  sta‐
       tusbar. Menu colors are: menunormal, menusel, menuhot, menuhotsel, men‐
       uinactive. Dialog colors are: dnormal, dfocus,  dhotnormal,  dhotfocus,
       dtitle.	Error  dialog colors are: errdfocus, errdhotnormal, errdhotfo‐
       cus, errdtitle.	Help colors  are:  helpnormal,	helpitalic,  helpbold,
       helplink, helpslink, helptitle.	Viewer color are: viewbold, viewunder‐
       line, viewselected.  Editor colors  are:	 editnormal,  editbold,	 edit‐
       marked,	editwhitespace,	 editlinestate.	  Popup	 menu colors are: pme‐
       nunormal, pmenusel, pmenutitle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       The  possible  colors  are: black, gray, red, brightred, green, bright‐
       green, brown, yellow, blue, brightblue, magenta,	 brightmagenta,	 cyan,
       brightcyan,  lightgray  and  white.  And there is a special keyword for
       transparent background. It is 'default'. The 'default' can only be used
       for background color. Example:

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

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

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

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

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

	      1) ~/.mc/skins/
	      2) ${prefix}/etc/mc/skins/
	      3) /usr/local/share/mc/skins/

       For getting extended info, refer to:

	      Description of section and parameters
	      Color pair definitions
	      Draw lines
	      Compatibility

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

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

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

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

       selected
	      cursor

       marked selected data

       markselect
	      cursor on selected data

       gauge  color of the filled part of the progress bar

       input  color of input lines used in query dialogs

       inputmark
	      color of input selected text

       inputunhanged
	      color of input text before first modification or cursor movement

       commandlinemark
	      color of selected text in command line

       reverse
	      reverse color

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

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

       dfocus Color of active element (in focus)

       dhotnormal
	      Color of hotkeys

       dhotfocus
	      Color of hotkeys in focused element

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

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

       errdhotnormal
	      Color of hotkeys

       errdhotfocus
	      Color of hotkeys in focused element

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

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

       entry  Color of menu items

       menuhot
	      Color of menu hotkeys

       menusel
	      Color of active menu item (in focus)

       menuhotsel
	      Color of menu hotkeys in focused menu item

       menuinactive
	      Color of inactive menu

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

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

       helpitalic
	      Color pair for element with italic attribute

       helpbold
	      Color pair for element with bold attribute

       helplink
	      Color of links

       helpslink
	      Color of active link (on focus)

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

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

       editbold
	      Color pair for element with bold attribute

       editmarked
	      Color of selected text

       editwhitespace
	      Color of tabs and trailing spaces highlighting

       editlinestate
	      Color for line state area

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

       viewunderline
	      Color pair for element with underline attribute

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

       Color pairs described as two colors separated by ';'. First color  sets
       the  foreground	color, second color sets background color.  One of the
       colors may be omitted, in this case color will be  taken	 from  default
       color  pair (global color pair  or from default color pair of this sec‐
       tion).

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

       Possible colors (names) described in Colors.  section.

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

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

       Descriptions of parameters [Lines]:

       lefttop
	      left-top line fragment.

       righttop
	      right-top line fragment.

       centertop
	      down branch of horizontal line

       centerbottom
	      up branch of horizontal line

       leftbottom
	      left-bottom line fragment

       rightbottom
	      right-bottom line fragment

       leftmiddle
	      right branch of vertical line

       rightmiddle
	      left branch of vertical line

       centermiddle
	      cross of lines

       horiz  horizontal line

       vert   vertical line

       thinhoriz
	      thin horizontal line

       thinvert
	      thin vertical line

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

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

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

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

       Keys in these groups are:

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

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

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

       extensions_case
	      (make sense only with 'extensions' parameter) make  'extensions'
	      rule case sentitive (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 the Midnight 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 ~/.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 ~/.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_viewer
	      Controls if scrolling with the mouse is done by pages or line by
	      line on the internal file viewer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       clipboard_store=xclip -i

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

       clipboard_pastee=xclip -o

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

       For example:

       autodetect_codeset=russian

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 ~/.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

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

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

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

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

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

       /usr/local/share/mc/mc.hlp

	      The help file for the program.

       /usr/local/share/mc/mc.ext

	      The default system-wide extensions file.

       ~/.mc/bindings

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

       /usr/local/share/mc/mc.ini

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

       /usr/local/share/mc/mc.lib

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

       ~/.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/local/share/mc/mc.hint

	      This file contains the hints displayed by the program.

       /usr/local/share/mc/mc.menu

	      This file contains the default system-wide applications menu.

       ~/.mc/menu

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

       ~/.mc/Tree

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

       ./.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.gnu.org/gnu/mc/.

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

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

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

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

       If  you	want to report a problem with the program, please 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 4.7.5	      @DATE_OF_MAN_PAGE@			 MC(1)
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