Midnight Commander

mc or Midnight Commander is a powerful file manager working in a shell terminal.

ini file

• mc will only save the option ini file if there is a directory ~/.mc in home directory:

mkdir ~/.mc

• To use vi as standard editor/viewer

First menu Options → Configuration... → uncheck use internal edIt and Use internal view.

Next, at the end of file .mc/bindings:

default/*
    Open=
    View=view %f
    Edit=%var{EDITOR:vi} %f

Keyboard shorcuts

• Gnome-Terminal — To solve the conflicts with Gnome Terminal, disable the Terminal menu shortcut key (to enable F10) and Menu Access Keys (to enable A-h...) in Gnome-Terminal.
• Auto-Complete — The usual shortcut for auto-complete Meta-Tab (i.e. Alt-Tab) doesn't work in graphical environment because it is used for switching between windows. As a replacement, one can use Esc-Tab, or can define a new shortcut with Options... → Learn Keys... (e.g. use Ctrl-N as in Vim).
• Frequently used keyboard shortcut

key	description
F10	Exit Midnight Commander
Esc-Tab Ctrl-N	Auto-Complete Auto-Complete (custom)
Ctrl-O	open sub-shell (with selected tab as current directory)
Ins	select highlighted file and move to next
Ctrl-\	Open directory menu
Ctrl-X D	Compare directories
Ctrl-R	Rescan (refresh panel contents)
Ctrl-O	Hide panels
Meta-*	Reverse selection
Alt-?	Find file
Ctrl-X Q	Quick view
Ctrl-X C	Change file and directory rights - chmod
Ctrl-X O	Change file and directory owner - chown
Ctrl-X S	Make symlink

• Other frequently used keyboard shortcuts (custom shortcuts defined with Learn Keys... are underlined)

General: C-k C-l Down Up Shell Command Line A-Enter C-S-Enter E-Tab or C-n C-x t C-x C-t C-x p C-x or C-t A-p A-n A-h Copy current selection Copy fullpath current selection Auto-complete Copy tagged files Copy tagged files (other panel) Copy current path Copy current path (other panel) Previous command in history Next command in history Command history

Directory panels Tab Insert or C-t A-g A-r A-j C-s A-s A-t C-\ C-x h + \ A-o A-i A-y A-u A-S-h PgDn or C-v PgUp or A-v Home or A-< End or A-> C-PgUp C-PgDn Panel switch Tag/untag Select top file Select middle file Select bottom file Filename search Toggle current display listing Show directory hotlist Quick add to directory hostlist Group select Group unselect Load directory/parent directory in other panel Duplicate current panel Previous directory in history Next directory in history View history PgDn PgUp Home End Cd .. Cd current selection

External links:

• Cool review of mc in action
• The GNOME Commander, a X alternative of mc under Gnome
• Krusader, a X alternative of mc under KDE