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NAME

       mc - Visual shell for Unix-like systems.

SYNOPSIS

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

DESCRIPTION

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

OPTIONS

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

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

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

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

       --configure-options
              Display configure options.

       -d, --nomouse
              Disable mouse support.

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

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

       -F, --datadir-info
              Display extended info about compiled-in paths for Midnight Commander.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overview

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

       Midnight  Commander provides a view of two directories at the same time. One of the panels
       is the current panel (a selection bar is in the 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 Midnight Commander by simply typing them.  Everything
       you  type  will  appear  on  the  shell  command  line, and when you press Enter, Midnight
       Commander will execute the command line you typed; read the Shell Command Line  and  Input
       Line Keys sections to learn more about the command line.

Mouse Support

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keys

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

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

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

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

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

       You may redefine key bindings. See redefine hotkey bindings

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Redefine hotkey bindings
       Hotkey  bindings  may  be  read  from  external  file  (keymap-file).  Initially, Midnight
       Commander creates key bindings using keymap defined in the source code.  Then,  two  files
       /usr/share/mc/mc.keymap  and  /etc/mc/mc.keymap are loaded always, sequentially reassigned
       key bindings defined earlier.  User-defined  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) Parameter keymap in section [Midnight-Commander] of config file.
              4) File ~/.config/mc/mc.keymap

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

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

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

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

       C-l    repaint all the information in Midnight Commander.

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

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

       C-x l  run the hard link command.

       C-x s  run the absolute symbolic link command.

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

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

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

       C-x !  execute the External panelize command.

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

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

       Alt-?  executes the Find file command.

       Alt-c  pops up the quick cd dialog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       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 terminals.

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

       Alt-Tab
              does the filename, command, variable, username and hostname completion for you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Up, C-p
              moves one line backward.

       Down, C-n
              moves one line forward.

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

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

       Home, A1
              moves to the beginning.

       End, C1
              move to the end.

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

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

       Space bar
              moves one page down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Alt-f  moves one word forward.

       Alt-b  moves one word backward.

       C-h, Backspace
              delete the previous character.

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

       C-@    sets the mark for cutting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Alt-Tab
              does the filename, command, variable, username and hostname completion for you.

Menu Bar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       After  this  you add the name of the fields with an optional size specifier.  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 executable 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  and  directories must match to be shown.  The input line allow enter the pattern of
       file/directory names that will be shown in the panel.

       When Files only checkbox is on, only  files  will  be  matched  to  the  filter,  and  all
       directories will be shown. Otherwise, as files as directories will be filtered. When Shell
       Patterns checkbox is on, the regular expression is much like the filename globbing in  the
       shell  (*  standing  for  zero  or  more  characters  and  ?  standing for one character).
       Otherwise, the matching of files/directoris is done with normal regular  expressions  (see
       ed(1)).  When  Case  sensitive  checkbox  is  on,  the  filtering  will  be case sensitive
       characters. Otherwise, the case will be ignored.

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

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

       The File menu has the following commands (keyboard shortcuts in parentheses):

       Help (F1)

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

       Menu (F2)

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

       View (F3, F13)

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

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

       Filtered View (Alt-!)

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

       Edit (F4, F14)

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

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

       Copy (F5, F15)

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

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

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

       Link (C-x l)

       Create a hard link to the current file.

       Absolute symlink (C-x s)

       Create a absolute symbolic link to the current file.

       Relative symLink (C-x v)

       Create a relative symbolic link to the current file.

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

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

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

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

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

       Mkdir (F7)

       Pop up an input dialog and creates the directory specified.

       Delete (F8)

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

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

       Select group (+)

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

       Unselect group (\)

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

       Quit (F10, S-F10)

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

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

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

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

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

       The "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 compare  method  just  compares  the  file
       sizes and does not check the contents or the date times, it just checks the file size.

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

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

       The "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 currently running
       internal editors, viewers and other MC modules that support this mode.

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

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

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

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

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

       You can use the following keys:

       General movement keys
              are accepted.

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

       C-r, F2 (Rescan).
              Rescan  this directory. Use this when the tree figure is out of date: it is missing
              subdirectories or shows some subdirectories 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 directory, and the Right key to move to a
       child directory. Only the parent, sibling and children directories are shown,  others  are
       left out. The tree figure changes dynamically as you traverse.

       F5 (Copy).
              Copy the directory.

       F6 (RenMov).
              Move the directory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       /cdrom:/nfs/wuarchive:/afs

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

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

       You may consider using the External  panelize  command  for  some  operations.  Find  file
       command is for simple queries only, while using External 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 panelization to run the following command:

       find . -type l -print

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Edit Extension File
       This  will  invoke your editor on the file ~/.config/mc/mc.ext.ini.  If this file does not
       exist and you are not root, it will be copied from /etc/mc/mc.ext.ini.  If you  are  root,
       you   can   choose  the  file  to  edit:  user's  ~/.config/mc/mc.ext.ini  or  system-wide
       /etc/mc/mc.ext.ini.  The format of this file is described in detail in it.

    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 background).  You can stop, restart and kill
       a background job from here.

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

       The format of the menu file is very simple. Lines that start with anything  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 letter). All the lines that start with a space or  a  tab  are
       the commands that will be executed when the entry is selected.

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

       Here is a sample mc.menu file:

       A    Dump the currently selected file
            od -c %f

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

       M    Read mail
            emacs -f rmail

       N    Read Usenet news
            emacs -f gnus

       H    Call the info hypertext browser
            info

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

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

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

       Default Conditions

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

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

       Sub-condition is one of following:

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

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

       Type is one or more of the following characters:

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

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

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

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

       Here is a sample of the use of conditions:

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

       Addition Conditions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       File operation options

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

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

       Classic progressbar.  If this option  is  enabled,  the  progressbar  of  Copy/Move/Delete
       operations  is  always  grown  form  left  to right. If disabled, 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 directory in active panel.   Disabled  by
       default.

       Preallocate  space.   Preallocate  space  for  whole target file, if possible, before copy
       operation.  Disabled by default.

       Esc key mode.

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

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

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

       Pause after run

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

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

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

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

       Other options

       Use internal editor.  If this option is enabled, the built-in file editor is used to  edit
       files.  If the option is disabled, the editor specified in the EDITOR environment variable
       is used.  If no editor is specified, vi is used.  See the section  on  the  internal  file
       editor.

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

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

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

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

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

       Complete:  show  all.   By default, Midnight Commander pops up all possible 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 indicator.

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

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

       Safe overwrite.  If this option is enabled, overwriting files unintentionally becomes more
       difficult.  The default selection in the overwrite confirmation dialog changes from Yes to
       No.  This option is disabled by default.

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

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

       Panel split

       The rest of the screen area is used for the two directory panels. You can specify  whether
       the  area  is split to the panels in Vertical or 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 Commander runs on native console only.

       Other options

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

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

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

       Hintbar visible.  If enabled, the one-line hints are  visible  below  panels.  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 directory and updates it when necessary.   If
       your  terminal  emulator  is  broken  and  you  see  some  incorrect output on startup and
       directory change, turn off this option.  Enabled by default.

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

    Panel options
       Main panel options

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

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

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

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

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

       Fast directory reload.  If this option is enabled, Midnight Commander will use a trick  to
       determine  if  the  directory contents have changed.  The trick is to reload the directory
       only if the i-node of the 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.

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

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

       Navigation

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

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

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

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

       File highlight

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

       Quick search

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

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

    Appearance
       In  this  dialog you can select the skin to be used and enable shadow for dialogs and drop
       down menus.

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

       Shadows.  If this option is enabled, all dialogs and drop down menus will have a shadow.

    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 broken.

       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 movement 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 [terminal:TERM] section of  your  ~/.config/mc/ini
       file  (where TERM is the name of your current terminal).  The definitions of the keys that
       were already working properly are not saved.

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

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

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

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

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

       Now,  since  we all love to browse files and tar files all over the disk, it's common that
       you will leave a tar file and then  re-enter  it  later.   Since  decompression  is  slow,
       Midnight  Commander  will  cache  the  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  "anonymous".   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 /etc/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 passwords for ftp servers.
       See netrc (5) for the description of the .netrc format.

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

    Save Setup
       At  startup,  Midnight  Commander  tries  to  load  initialization  information  from  the
       ~/.config/mc/ini file.  If this file doesn't exist, the system-wide file /etc/mc/mc.ini is
       used.  If  this  file doesn't exist, the system-wide file /usr/share/mc/mc.ini is used. If
       this file doesn't exist, MC uses the default settings.

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

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

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

Executing operating system commands

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

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

  The cd internal command
       The cd command is interpreted by 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 directory, if you append a
       username after the tilde, then it will be substituted with  the  login  directory  of  the
       specified user.

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

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

       CDPATH  directories.   If  the directory specified to the cd command is not in the current
       directory, then 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  command,  or  running  a
       command from the command line input, a simple macro substitution takes place.

       The macros are:

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

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

       %k     The block file name.

       %e     The error file name.

       %m     The current menu name.

       %f and %p
              In file manager user menu: the current file name in selected panel.  In mcedit user
              menu: the name of opened file.

       %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 substituted.   Otherwise,  the
              value of ENV is substituted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chmod

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

       The Chmod window has two parts - Permissions and File.

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

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

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

       To set the attribute bits, use the Enter key.

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

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

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

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

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

       [Set] set the attributes of one file

       [Cancel] cancel the Chmod command

Chown

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

Advanced Chown

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

Chattr

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

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

       To move between the widgets (buttons and check buttons) use the arrow keys or the Tab key.
       To change the state of the check buttons or to select a button use Space.

       To set the attributes, use the Enter key.

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

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

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

       [Set marked] set marked flags in attributes of all selected files.

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

       [Set] set the attributes of one file.

       [Cancel] cancel the Chattr command.

File Operations

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

       There are two buttons at the bottom of the dialog. Pressing the Skip button will skip  the
       rest  of  the  current file. Pressing the Abort button 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 directory (recursively in
       subdirectories)  new links in the target directory or whether would you like to copy their
       content.

       Dive into subdirs

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

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

       Preserve attributes

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

       Use shell patterns

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

       Two examples:

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

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

       Case Conversions

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

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

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

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

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

       Stable symlinks

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

Select/Unselect Files

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

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

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 constant numbers.  Text
       in quotes is matched exactly after removing the quotes.  Each  number  matches  one  byte.
       You can mix quoted text with constants like this:

       "String" 34 0xBB 012 "more text"

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

       Here  is  a  listing  of  the actions associated with each key that the Midnight 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. You can specify a line number, offset or percentage of file size of  position
              that you want to view.

       F7, /, ?
              Start  search.  These  keys  call  the  dialog window that allows you to set up the
              search options. If key is ? the "Backwards" option is on.

       C-s    Continue forward search.

       C-r    Continue reverse search.

       F17, n Continue search in the chosen direction.

       N      Temporary change the search direction: backwards if forward search is  chosen,  and
              vice versa.

       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.ini 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.

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

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

       Down   Scroll one line forward.

       Up     Scroll one line backward.

       C-l    Refresh the screen.

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

       [n] m  Set the mark n.

       [n] r  Jump to the mark n.

       C-f    Jump to the next file.

       C-b    Jump to the previous file.

       Alt-r  Toggle the ruler.

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

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

Internal File Editor

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

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

       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.   C-Ins  copies  to  the file mcedit.clip and S-Ins pastes from mcedit.clip.
       S-Del cuts to mcedit.clip, and C-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 terminal mouse highlighting work.

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

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

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

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

Options of editor in ini-file

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

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

Screen selector

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

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

       Alt-}  switch to the next screen;

       Alt-{  switch to the previous screen;

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

Completion

       Let 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 position where you might type a command, possible completions  then  include  shell
       reserved  words  and  shell built-in commands as well) in turn.  If none of these matches,
       filename completion is attempted.

       Filename, username, variable and hostname completion works on  all  input  lines,  command
       completion  is  command  line  specific.   If  the completion is ambiguous (there are more
       different possibilities), 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  highlighted.
       As soon as there is no ambiguity, dialog disappears, but you can hide it by canceling keys
       Esc, F10 and left and right arrow keys. If Complete: show all is disabled, the dialog pops
       up only if you press Alt-Tab for the second time, for the first time MC just beeps.

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

Virtual File System

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

       Currently,  Midnight Commander is packaged with some Virtual File 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
       systems  (the  default  file system for Linux systems), shell (for manipulating files over
       shell connections such as rsh and ssh).   If  the  code  was  compiled  with  sftpfs  (for
       manipulating files over SFTP connections).

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Examples:

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

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

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

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

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

       Examples:

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

       The latter specifies the full path of the tar archive.

  FIle transfer over SHell filesystem
       The  shell  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  have
       bash-compatible shell.

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

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

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

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

       Examples:

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

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

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

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

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

       Examples:

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

       When   establishing   the  connection,  server  key  fingerprint  is  verified  using  the
       ~/.ssh/known_hosts file. If the host/key pair is not found or the host is found,  but  the
       key  doesn't  match,  an  appropriate  message  is  shown.  There are three buttons in the
       message dialog:

       [Yes] add new host/key pair to the ~/.ssh/known_hosts file and continue.

       [Ignore] do not add new  host/key  pair  to  the  ~/.ssh/known_hosts  file,  but  continue
       nevertheless (at you own risk).

       [No] abort connection.

  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.

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

       Extfs filesystems can be divided into two categories:

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

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

         cd audio://

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

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

         cd documents.zip/uzip://

       In  many  aspects,  you could treat extfs like any other directory.  For instance, you can
       add it to the hotlist or change to it from directory history.  An important limitation  is
       that you cannot invoke shell commands 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 filename/lslR://).

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

       patchfs
              extfs to handle unified and context diffs (cd filename/patchfs://).

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

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

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

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

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

Colors

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

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

       You may specify terminals that always force  color  mode  by  adding  the  color_terminals
       variable  to  the  Colors  section of the initialization file.  This will prevent 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 S-Lang, ncurses does not provide  a  way
       to force color mode: ncurses uses just the information in the terminal database.

       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 terminal by using the terminal name as the key in
       this section.  Example:

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

       The format for the color definition is:

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

       The  colors  are  optional,  and  the  keywords  are:  normal, selected, disabled, marked,
       markselect, errors, input, inputmark,  inputunchanged,  commandlinemark,  reverse,  gauge,
       header,  inputhistory,  commandhistory.  Button  bar  colors  are: bbarhotkey, bbarbutton.
       Status bar color: statusbar. Menu colors are: menunormal,  menusel,  menuhot,  menuhotsel,
       menuinactive.  Dialog  colors  are:  dnormal, dfocus, dhotnormal, dhotfocus, dtitle. Error
       dialog colors are: errdfocus, errdhotnormal, errdhotfocus, errdtitle.   Help  colors  are:
       helpnormal,  helpitalic,  helpbold,  helplink,  helpslink,  helptitle.  Viewer colors are:
       viewnormal,  viewbold,  viewunderline,  viewselected.  Editor  colors   are:   editnormal,
       editbold,  editmarked,  editwhitespace, editnonprintable, editlinestate. Popup menu colors
       are: pmenunormal, pmenusel, pmenutitle.

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

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

       gauge  determines  the color of the filled part of the progress bar (gauge), which is used
       to show the user the progress of file operations, 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 normal text, dfocus  is
       the  color  used  for  the  currently  selected component, dhotnormal is the color used to
       differentiate the hotkey color in normal components, whereas the dhotfocus color  is  used
       for the highlighted 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 manual 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, brightgreen, brown, yellow,
       blue, brightblue, magenta, brightmagenta, cyan, brightcyan, lightgray and white. And there
       is  a  special keyword for transparent background. It is 'default'. The 'default' can only
       be used for background color. Another special keyword "base" means mc's main colors.  When
       256  colors  are  available,  they  can  be specified either as color16 to color255, or as
       rgb000 to rgb555 and gray0 to gray23. Example:

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

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

       menuhotsel=yellow;black;bold+underline

Skins

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

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

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

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

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

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

       For getting extended info, refer to:

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

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

       Section  [filehighlight]  contain  descriptions of color pairs for filenames highlighting.
       Name of parameters must be equal to names of sections 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  contain color
              definitions

       selected
              cursor

       marked selected data

       markselect
              cursor on selected data

       gauge  color of the filled part of the progress bar

       input  color of input lines used in query dialogs

       inputmark
              color of input selected text

       inputunchanged
              color of input text before first modification or cursor movement

       commandlinemark
              color of selected text in command line

       reverse
              reverse color

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

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

       dfocus Color of active element (in focus)

       dhotnormal
              Color of hotkeys

       dhotfocus
              Color of hotkeys in focused element

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

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

       errdhotnormal
              Color of hotkeys

       errdhotfocus
              Color of hotkeys in focused element

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

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

       entry  Color of menu items

       menuhot
              Color of menu hotkeys

       menusel
              Color of active menu item (in focus)

       menuhotsel
              Color of menu hotkeys in focused menu item

       menuinactive
              Color of inactive menu

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

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

       helpitalic
              Color pair for element with italic attribute

       helpbold
              Color pair for element with bold attribute

       helplink
              Color of links

       helpslink
              Color of active link (on focus)

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

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

       editbold
              Color pair for element with bold attribute

       editmarked
              Color of selected text

       editwhitespace
              Color of tabs and trailing spaces highlighting

       editlinestate
              Color for line state area

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

       viewunderline
              Color pair for element with underline attribute

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

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

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

       Possible colors (names) and attributes are described in Colors.  section.

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

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

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

       WARNING!!!   When  you  build  Midnight Commander with the ncurses screen library usage of
       drawing lines is limited!  Possible only drawing a single lines.  For  all  questions  and
       comments please contact the developers 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 appointment of the colors
       described in Colors.  section.

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

Filenames Highlight

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

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

       Keys in these groups are:

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

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

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

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

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

Special Settings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       show_output_starts_shell
              This variable only works if you are not using the subshell support.  When  you  use
              the C-o keystroke to go back to the user screen, if this one is set, you will get a
              fresh shell.   Otherwise,  pressing  any  key  will  bring  you  back  to  Midnight
              Commander.

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

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

       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 selection 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 command to match the
              file types listed on the mc.ext.ini file.

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

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

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

       clipboard_store=xclip -i

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

       clipboard_paste=xclip -o

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

       For example:

       autodetect_codeset=russian

Parameters for external editor or viewer

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

       %filename
              The filename to edit/view.

       %lineno
              The start line in the opening file.

       For example:

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

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

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

Terminal databases

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

       The possible key symbols are:

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

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

       insert=\e[Op

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

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

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

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

FILES

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

       /usr/share/mc/help/mc.hlp

              The help file for the program.

       /usr/share/mc/mc.ext.ini

              The default system-wide extensions file.

       ~/.config/mc/mc.ext.ini

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

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

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

       /usr/share/mc/mc.lib

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

       ~/.config/mc/ini

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

       /usr/share/mc/hints/mc.hint

              This file contains the hints displayed by the program.

       /usr/share/mc/mc.menu

              This file contains the default system-wide applications menu.

       ~/.config/mc/menu

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

       ~/.cache/mc/Tree

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

       ~/.local/share/mc.menu

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

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

LICENSE

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

AVAILABILITY

       The latest version of this program can be found at http://ftp.midnight-commander.org/.

SEE ALSO

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

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

AUTHORS

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

BUGS

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

       If   you  want  to  report  a  problem  with  the  program,  please  create  bugreport  at
       https://www.midnight-commander.org/.

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