FAQ 34 KB

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  1. GNU Midnight Commander
  2. Frequently Asked Questions
  3. The newest version of this document is available at
  4. http://www.midnight-commander.org/browser/doc/FAQ
  5. * 1 Getting started
  6. + 1.1 What is Midnight Commander?
  7. + 1.2 Does it run on my machine?
  8. + 1.3 Does it work with my terminal?
  9. + 1.4 What else do I need to run MC?
  10. + 1.5 Is GNU Midnight Commander Public Domain? Copyrighted?
  11. + 1.6 Where can I get GNU Midnight Commander?
  12. + 1.7 I cannot compile MC. What should I do?
  13. * 2 Keyboard
  14. + 2.1 What does documentation mean with the C-?, M-? and F?
  15. keys?
  16. + 2.2 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
  17. + 2.3 How do I use function keys F11 to F20?
  18. + 2.4 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
  19. + 2.5 How can I add the plus sign (+) on the command line?
  20. + 2.6 C-o doesn't work!
  21. + 2.7 What 'keys' are the "a1" and "c1" keys mentioned in the
  22. manual?
  23. + 2.8 How do I change the key bindings?
  24. * 3 Mouse
  25. + 3.1 How do I enable mouse support?
  26. + 3.2 How do I cut and paste text with mouse?
  27. + 3.3 How do I get the extension dependent pop-up menu to
  28. pop up?
  29. * 4 Display
  30. + 4.1 Why do I keep getting "Terminal not powerful enough for
  31. SLang" or "Terminal not powerful enough for SLsmg"?
  32. + 4.2 Why don't line drawing characters work?
  33. + 4.3 Can one use latin-1 characters without losing the lines?
  34. + 4.4 I have problems with entering/viewing national
  35. characters!
  36. + 4.5 How can I get colors?
  37. + 4.6 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
  38. + 4.7 Where can I get xterm or rxvt?
  39. + 4.8 I got colors working with MC but the other programs
  40. don't work at all anymore!
  41. + 4.9 Why are there both terminfo and termcap? Wouldn't one
  42. database be enough?
  43. * 5 Graphical user interface
  44. + 5.1 Xview, Tk and Gnome editions?
  45. + 5.2 Why is MC linked with X libraries?
  46. * 6 Command line problems
  47. + 6.1 How do I stay in the last directory when I exit Midnight
  48. Commander?
  49. + 6.2 How can I access command line history?
  50. + 6.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names
  51. and so on?
  52. + 6.4 I am using ksh. Can I use functions defined in the
  53. .kshrc within MC?
  54. + 6.5 Is there any way to include additional options or hot
  55. keys to MC?
  56. + 6.6 When I use Ctrl-O I don't get a subshell. How do I fix
  57. this?
  58. + 6.7 Ctrl-O doesn't work at all. What happens?
  59. * 7 Virtual file systems
  60. + 7.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
  61. + 7.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
  62. + 7.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
  63. + 7.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
  64. + 7.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
  65. + 7.6 Why aren't the contents of ftp panel updated?
  66. + 7.7 What kind of proxy server works with Midnight Commander?
  67. * 8 Internal editor
  68. + 8.1 When I try pasting to the internal editor, it indents
  69. the amount of indenting increases with each line!
  70. + 8.2 Is it possible to use Colorer for syntax highlighting?
  71. * 9 Other common problems
  72. + 9.1 Is there any way to 'bookmark' favorite ftp-fs links?
  73. + 9.2 When I start Midnight Commander, nothing happens!
  74. * 10 Development
  75. + 10.1 Who has written Midnight Commander?
  76. + 10.2 Do I dare to use a development version?
  77. + 10.3 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
  78. + 10.4 How can I join the development?
  79. * 11 More information
  80. + 11.1 This document didn't answer my question. Where else
  81. can I look for an answer?
  82. + 11.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
  83. + 11.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
  84. + 11.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
  85. * 12 Legal issues
  86. + 12.1 Authorship
  87. + 12.2 Feedback is invited
  88. + 12.3 Disclaimer and copyright
  89. 1 Getting started
  90. 1.1 What is Midnight Commander?
  91. GNU Midnight Commander is a user-friendly yet powerful file manager
  92. and visual shell, useful to novice and guru alike. It provides a
  93. clear, user-friendly, and somewhat protected interface to a Unix
  94. system while making many frequent file operations more efficient and
  95. preserving the full power of the command prompt. After some
  96. practice, you will wonder how you could ever live without it.
  97. 1.2 Does it run on my machine?
  98. GNU Midnight Commander runs on POSIX (Unix-like) operating systems,
  99. such as GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Solaris, HP-UX and others. It
  100. can also be compiled under Cygwin on Windows.
  101. GNU Midnight Commander uses GNU Autoconf which should automatically
  102. configure it for every Unix clone. Following configurations have
  103. been tested in the past (this list is very old):
  104. * i386-*-linux1.x, 2.x
  105. * alpha-linux-linux2
  106. * sparc-linux-linux2.x
  107. * sparc64-linux-linux2.1
  108. * mips-sgi-irix5.x, 6.x
  109. * sparc-sun-sunos4.1
  110. * sparc-sun-solaris2.3, 2.4, 2.5
  111. * sparc-sun-netbsd1.0
  112. * hppa-hp-hpux9
  113. * hppa-hp-hpux7
  114. * m68k-apple-aux
  115. * unixware
  116. * mc88110-aviion-dgux5.4R2.01
  117. * i386-*-sco3.2v4.2
  118. * i386-*-sco3.2v5
  119. 1.3 Does it work with my terminal?
  120. Yes, it does.
  121. Because GNU Midnight Commander is a full screen program it doesn't
  122. run on dummy terminals but anything more advanced will do (like
  123. vt100). If your terminal works with vi, emacs, elm or pine it will
  124. work with GNU Midnight Commander.
  125. 1.4 What else do I need to run MC?
  126. You need a POSIX (Unix compatible) operating system. If you are
  127. running Windows, use Cygwin.
  128. To compile any edition you need to have glib >= 2.30 installed.
  129. It's available at https://download.gnome.org/sources/glib/.
  130. If you want to use mouse on the Linux console you need the gpm daemon
  131. from https://www.nico.schottelius.org/software/gpm/. You need nothing
  132. extra to use mouse on xterm.
  133. If you do not want to use the S-Lang library you could try using
  134. ncurses version 4.1 and above.
  135. 1.5 Is GNU Midnight Commander Public Domain? Copyrighted?
  136. Midnight Commander is under GNU Public License which basically means
  137. that you may freely copy, change and distribute it, but that you may
  138. not impose any restrictions on further distribution, and that you
  139. must make the source code available. This is not the same as Public
  140. Domain. For details, the GNU license is included in GNU Midnight
  141. Commander source distribution (the COPYING file).
  142. Midnight Commander is now officially a part of the GNU project.
  143. All the authors of GNU Midnight Commander have given all their rights
  144. on the program to the Free Software Foundation.
  145. 1.6 Where can I get GNU Midnight Commander?
  146. The main site is http://www.midnight-commander.org
  147. 1.7 I cannot compile MC. What should I do?
  148. Make sure you have read the INSTALL file in the sources. Report the
  149. error messages exactly as they appear, mention the versions of your
  150. OS, your compiler and whatever else software you think is relevant.
  151. If you have compile problems in the VFS code, try disabling it by
  152. using "--disable-vfs" option.
  153. f2 Keyboard
  154. 2.1 What does documentation mean with the C-?, M-? and F? keys?
  155. GNU Midnight Commander documentation uses emacs style names for
  156. keyboard keys.
  157. C stands for the Ctrl key. For example, C-f means that you should
  158. hold down the Ctrl key and press the f key.
  159. M stands for the Meta key. Your terminal might call it Alt or
  160. Compose instead of Meta. For example, M-f means that you should hold
  161. down the Meta/Alt/Compose key and press the f key. If your terminal
  162. doesn't have Meta, Alt or Compose or they don't work you can use Esc.
  163. For M-f press the Esc key and then press the f key.
  164. Sometimes Ctrl and Alt are used instead of C and M for simplicity.
  165. Keep in mind that Alt can actually be Meta on some keyboards.
  166. F? stands for a function key. If your terminal doesn't have function
  167. keys or they don't work you can use Esc. For example, for F3 press
  168. the Esc key and then press the 3 key.
  169. 2.2 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
  170. Your terminfo or termcap database has missing or incorrect
  171. definitions for function keys. Type "mc -V" to see what terminal
  172. database is being used. If the result is "using the S-Lang library
  173. with terminfo database" and you are using a very old terminfo
  174. database, consider installing one of the enhanced terminfo files
  175. included in GNU Midnight Commander source distribution. For example,
  176. if you are using xterm type "tic xterm.ti".
  177. If the result is "using the S-Lang library with termcap database" you
  178. should fix your /etc/termcap database.
  179. Up-to-date termcap and terminfo databases are available here:
  180. http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/
  181. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses/
  182. If you don't have permissions to edit terminal databases you can use
  183. Learn keys feature of Midnight Commander instead. Press Esc 9 o k
  184. and follow instructions.
  185. If all else fails you can emulate function keys by first pressing the
  186. ESC key and then one of the number keys. For example, if you want to
  187. produce F9, press ESC, then 9. If you don't have a ESC key on your
  188. keyboard you can try alt-9 or meta-9.
  189. 2.3 How do I use function keys F11 to F20?
  190. These are normally mapped to function keys F1 to F10 with Shift held,
  191. e.g. function key F13 can be activated by pressing Shift-F3. You can
  192. define the keys this way in the Options->Learn Keys dialog. The
  193. convention for PC keyboards is that F11-20 always means Shift with
  194. F1-10.
  195. You may find that on the Linux console with some keyboard layouts
  196. Shift-Fn is interpreted as F(n+12), not as F(n+10). This is a result
  197. of non-uniformity of keyboard layouts. This is not an intended
  198. behavior and it may be fixed some day. In the meantime, use "Learn
  199. Keys" to remedy this inconvenience.
  200. 2.4 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
  201. Midnight Commander uses the ESC key as a prefix for simulating the
  202. Meta and Alt keys (for terminals which don't have Meta or Alt, see
  203. the three previous questions). For example, pressing ESC-a is the
  204. same as pressing Meta-a. In addition most terminals use ESC for
  205. internal representation of arrow keys, function keys and other
  206. enhanced keys. If you want to use ESC to cancel things you have to
  207. press it twice i.e. ESC-ESC. If you find this cumbersome you can
  208. generally use F10 to cancel. Alternatively turn on the old_esc_mode
  209. setting in the ~/.config/mc/ini file. The
  210. old_esc_mode setting makes ESC work as a prefix only if another key
  211. is pressed within 0.5 seconds. After 0.5 seconds the ESC key cancels.
  212. There is no way to make ESC cancel immediately (if we want to be able
  213. to use arrows keys and function keys).
  214. 2.5 How can I add the plus sign (+) on the command line?
  215. Press C-q first, then press the + sign.
  216. The plus key is the hotkey for the select files command. If you want
  217. to add a literal plus on to the command line you must quote it by
  218. pressing C-q first.
  219. Another common key which needs the C-q prefix is backslash "\".
  220. 2.6 C-o doesn't work!
  221. Maybe C-o is a stty control character on your terminal. See man stty
  222. for details on how to list and change stty control characters.
  223. 2.7 What 'keys' are the "a1" and "c1" keys mentioned in the manual?
  224. The "a1" key is the key which has the "a1" caption on it.
  225. The "c1" key is the key which has the "c1" caption on it.
  226. If you have to ask what these two keys are your keyboard hasn't
  227. probably got them. Actually, I have never seen a keyboard which has
  228. got them.
  229. 2.8 How do I change the key bindings?
  230. Key binding con be reconfigure via keymap files: /etc/mc/mc.keymap
  231. and ~/.config/mc/mc.keymap.
  232. You can use the "Learn Keys" dialog to assign keys to some actions
  233. listed in that dialog.
  234. 3 Mouse
  235. 3.1 How do I enable mouse support?
  236. Invoke mc like this (without quotes): "mc -x". If this doesn't work
  237. upgrade to a terminal which compatible with the Xterm mouse
  238. sequences.
  239. Alternatively, on Linux console you can use gpm.
  240. 3.2 How do I cut and paste text with mouse?
  241. Hold down shift key while using mouse to cut and paste.
  242. 4 Display
  243. 4.1 Why do I keep getting "Terminal not powerful enough for SLang" or
  244. "Terminal not powerful enough for SLsmg"?
  245. This means that your terminfo databases do not contain the correct
  246. definitions for your terminal.
  247. You could try using a different terminal setting. If you use csh or
  248. tcsh:
  249. setenv TERM vt100
  250. or if you use sh, bash, ksh or zsh:
  251. export TERM=vt100
  252. 4.2 Why don't line drawing characters work?
  253. Since version 4.0.13 there's the command line option -a to force use
  254. of charaters +, |, - for line drawing. Use the -a option if any
  255. of the suggestions below doesn't help.
  256. In general, there are three cases:
  257. * Lines are shown as ASCII characters like this
  258. +---------+
  259. | |
  260. +---------+
  261. This also happens when you use the -a option. Other than that
  262. possible reason is 1 or 2 (see below).
  263. * Lines are shown as lower case characters like this
  264. lqqqqqqqqqk
  265. x x
  266. mqqqqqqqqqj
  267. Possible reason is 1 or 2 (see below).
  268. * Lines are shown as blanks or missing characters. Possible reason
  269. is 2 or 3 (see below).
  270. The reason for the problem is one of following:
  271. 1. Your terminal might not support line drawing characters. VT100
  272. compatible terminals, rxvt and xterm and color_xterm do support
  273. them.
  274. 2. Your terminfo or termcap database might have missing or incorrect
  275. definitions for line drawing characters. Set the acsc variable
  276. in the terminfo database like this:
  277. acsc=a\376k\277l\332m\300j\331n\305w\302v\301u\264t\303q\304x
  278. \263h\2600\333
  279. Don't forget issue 'tic' command. This supposes you are using PC
  280. character set. The octal values might be different for other
  281. character sets. If you are using termcap instead of terminfo,
  282. you should modify above solution appropriately.
  283. 3. Your terminal font might not support line drawing characters.
  284. Try changing the font.
  285. Here is Miguel's answer to Torben on this subject.
  286. Torben:
  287. When I load consolefonts/iso01.f16, I get perfectly right national
  288. characters, but the line drawing characters in mc get wrong. Is it
  289. a mc problem, or is it a problem with the font? (I guess it is).
  290. Is there a trick?
  291. Miguel:
  292. First of all, we should determine whether the font has line drawing
  293. characters or not.
  294. If it has line drawing characters, then a new terminfo entry should
  295. be written for this specific case. Let's call this linux-iso01.
  296. The acsc variable should be modified to reflect which characters
  297. are used to do the line drawing.
  298. If it does not have line drawing characters, then we should get rid
  299. of the switch to acsc sequences and make the acsc sequence be just
  300. a mapping to the ugly +, -, |, - characters.
  301. You can get your terminfo definition by running the infocmp
  302. program, making the proper changes and running the tic program to
  303. compile your new terminfo database.
  304. 4.3 Can one use latin-1 characters without losing the lines?
  305. Yes, you need a correct font and a correct termcap/terminfo database.
  306. For font, if you use xterm try "xterm -fn fixed".
  307. For termcap/terminfo database, change the acsc capability in the
  308. database.
  309. 4.4 I have problems with entering/viewing national characters!
  310. From the Options - Display Bits dialog select Full 8 bits or ISO
  311. 8859-1. In addition, select 8 bit input from the same dialog.
  312. 4.5 How can I get colors?
  313. Invoke mc like this (without quotes): "mc -c".
  314. If you get colors, be happy.
  315. If your terminal stays black and white, your terminal doesn't support
  316. color. You might want to upgrade to a terminal which compatible with
  317. the ANSI color sequences.
  318. If your terminal goes completely black, see the next question.
  319. More detailed answer:
  320. Check that your terminal supports color. color_xterm, rxvt and Linux
  321. console do support, most other terminals don't. You can test color
  322. support with following simple C program:
  323. #include <stdio.h>
  324. int main (void){
  325. printf ("\033[32m Hello world! \033[m\n");
  326. return 0;
  327. }
  328. Compile and run it. If you see "Hello world!" text in green your
  329. terminal supports color, otherwise not (however, for color_xterm see
  330. also the next question).
  331. Check whether you are using Ncurses or the S-Lang library (type
  332. "mc -V" to find out).
  333. With S-Lang library you can force color support by setting the
  334. environment variable COLORTERM to any value.
  335. If you use ncurses library, check that your terminfo database
  336. supports color. If not, you should install one of the enhanced
  337. terminfo databases included in GNU Midnight Commander source
  338. distribution.
  339. You might want to set the TERM environment variable so that you are
  340. using the correct terminfo database or termcap entry.
  341. If you use color_xterm (or rxvt) the correct value might be
  342. xterm-color, xtermc or simply xterm.
  343. If you use Linux console the correct value for TERM is linux or
  344. console.
  345. 4.6 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
  346. Some color_xterm terminals define all colors as black instead of the
  347. standard ANSI colors. This makes them go completely black when you
  348. try to use Midnight Commander with colors.
  349. You will have to override the defaults. Create a file
  350. "color.defaults" which has the following contents:
  351. color_xterm*color0: Black
  352. color_xterm*color1: Red
  353. color_xterm*color2: Green
  354. color_xterm*color3: Yellow
  355. color_xterm*color4: Blue
  356. color_xterm*color5: Magenta
  357. color_xterm*color6: Cyan
  358. color_xterm*color7: White
  359. color_xterm*background: White
  360. color_xterm*foreground: Black
  361. (replace color_xterm with the name of your color_xterm, color_xterm
  362. mentions its name in its title bar)
  363. Now type:
  364. xrdb -merge color.defaults
  365. Alternatively you can add the suggested contents of the
  366. color.defaults file to your .Xdefaults or .Xresources file (or what
  367. ever the name of your X configuration file is). Or you can replace
  368. your non-ANSI color_xterm with an ANSI color_xterm.
  369. 4.7 Where can I get xterm or rxvt?
  370. xterm is included with the X Window System, so you probably already
  371. have it if you have X. This version is not actively maintained, but
  372. Thomas Dickey maintains his more advanced version of xterm at
  373. ftp://dickey.his.com/xterm/
  374. rxvt has its own site http://www.rxvt.net/ - get the latest version
  375. there.
  376. 4.8 I got colors working with MC but the other programs don't work at
  377. all anymore!
  378. Midnight Commander uses terminfo database (if available) but many
  379. other programs use termcap database. If you set the TERM environment
  380. variable to a value which has no corresponding entry in termcap
  381. database those programs stop working. You should add the new value
  382. of TERM to the termcap database.
  383. Example: If you have set TERM to xterm-color locate from /etc/termcap
  384. the line which starts:
  385. xterm|vs100|xterm terminal emulator
  386. Change it to start:
  387. xterm|xterm-color|vs100|xterm terminal emulator
  388. 5 Graphical user interface
  389. 5.1 Xview, Tk and Gnome editions?
  390. Xview and Tk and GNOME editions have been removed from the sources.
  391. 5.2 Why is MC linked with X libraries?
  392. GNU Midnight Commander is linked with X libraries to read key
  393. modifiers from the X Server. It may be helpful to distinguish
  394. between keys that the terminal emulator reports in the same way, e.g.
  395. PgUp and Ctrl-PgUp. Versions of GNU Midnight Commander after 4.6.0
  396. will load X libraries dynamically on the systems that support it.
  397. 6 Command line problems
  398. 6.1 How do I stay in the last directory when I exit Midnight Commander?
  399. See the description of the -P option in the Options section of the
  400. manual.
  401. 6.2 How can I access command line history?
  402. Meta-h shows the last commands you executed from the command line.
  403. Duplicates are suppressed from the history. Commands executed from
  404. the subshell prompt are not shown.
  405. You can put previous commands to the command line with Meta-p. Meta-n
  406. moves you forward in history.
  407. Since version 4.1.15 all the input widgets have permanent history.
  408. You can summon the history listbox by pressing M-h.
  409. 6.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names and so on?
  410. Just press M-Tab. Press M-Tab again to get a listbox if there are
  411. multiple possible completions.
  412. 6.4 I am using ksh. Can I use functions defined in the .kshrc within
  413. MC?
  414. Sorry, MC only supports bash, tcsh and zsh functions. Ksh functions
  415. are not supported because ksh lacks the necessary hooks needed for
  416. subshell integration.
  417. Switch to bash or zsh. They are both quite compatible with ksh.
  418. Your ksh functions should work as such or after minimal changes.
  419. 6.5 Is there any way to include additional options or hot keys to MC?
  420. Yes, F2 invokes an user menu, which is fully configurable. You can
  421. add any shell commands to the user menu. See the mc(1) man page for
  422. more info.
  423. Another way to add functionality is the external panelize feature.
  424. See the mc(1) man page for more info.
  425. And finally, you can code any feature you want yourself. MC source
  426. code is free which means you can change it anyway you want. There
  427. are some limitations to make sure MC stays free. See GNU General
  428. Public License for details.
  429. 6.6 When I use Ctrl-O I don't get a subshell. How do I fix this?
  430. Only bash, tcsh and zsh can be used as subshell. Use one of those
  431. shells as your default shell, and it will be used as subshell in GNU
  432. Midnight Commander.
  433. 6.7 Ctrl-O doesn't work at all. What happens?
  434. Ctrl-O works if either the subshell is used or the terminal can save
  435. the output of the commands so it can be restored. If neither is
  436. true, there is absolutely nothing interesting behind the panels!
  437. Only few terminals support screen saving. It's xterm, rxvt and other
  438. xterm-like terminals and virtual terminals on Linux and FreeBSD.
  439. 6.8 Why I see lot of strange 'cd "printf ' lines into my .history file?
  440. Add
  441. export HISTCONTROL="ignoreboth"
  442. into your ~/.profile file (.bash_profile) for avoid this.
  443. 6.9 I have a problem with Screen which makes using Midnight Commander
  444. problematic. I use Ctrl-O to disable panels. Output of previous commands,
  445. just a clear, screen is blanked.
  446. Update GNU Screen to the last version. This bug was fixed in
  447. commit ad56f746c6243d45124485d198d577bdbb78071c
  448. Author: Sadrul Habib Chowdhury <sadrul@users.sourceforge.net>
  449. Date: Sun Nov 29 23:34:25 2009 -0500
  450. Fix using alternate screen buffers in some cases.
  451. Screen would reset the 'main' screen buffer if an app tries to
  452. switch to an alternate buffer while it is already using one (in
  453. other words, sends multiple 'smcup' without an 'rmcup'). This should
  454. fix debian #558724
  455. (see http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=558724)
  456. or do not rewrite TERM (mustbe TERM=screen) andrun mc as follow:
  457. echo -e '\e[?1000h' && mc -x
  458. 7 Virtual file systems
  459. 7.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
  460. If you use keyboard just move the selection bar on the tar file and
  461. press enter. If you use mouse just double-click on the tar file.
  462. The recognized suffixes for tar archives are .tar, .tar.gz and .tgz.
  463. You can also enter a tar archive by typing "cd filename/utar://" where
  464. filename is the name of the archive. In this case, the suffix is not
  465. important.
  466. 7.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
  467. Just press enter on the toplevel ".." file or change to a non-tar
  468. directory. Just typing "cd" with no parameters is enough (it will
  469. take you to your home directory).
  470. 7.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
  471. Just type "cd ftp://hostname" where hostname is the name of the host
  472. you want to connect. Alternatively, select FTP link from the Left or
  473. Right menu and type the name of the host you want to connect.
  474. 7.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
  475. Non-anonymous ftp works just like the anonymous ftp but you give the
  476. login name with the host name. For example, type "cd
  477. ftp://username@hostname".
  478. 7.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
  479. Just change to a non-ftp directory. Simply typing "cd" with no
  480. parameters is enough (it will take you to your home directory).
  481. GNU Midnight Commander closes ftp connection automatically after a
  482. timeout or on exit. It's possible to force disconnect by selecting
  483. "Command" -> "Active VFS List" in the menu and using the "Free VFSs
  484. Now" button.
  485. 7.6 Why aren't the contents of ftp panel updated?
  486. Update is skipped because there would be a serious performance
  487. penalty. Constantly updating directory panels through a ftp
  488. connection would take too much time.
  489. You can use C-r to force an update.
  490. 7.7 What kind of proxy server works with Midnight Commander?
  491. There are two kinds of ftp proxies: proxies for ftp clients and
  492. proxies for web browsers.
  493. Midnight Commander only supports ftp proxies which are meant for ftp
  494. clients. Common WWW proxies (like Squid) are not supported. A rule
  495. of thumb is that if a ftp proxy requires a web browser, it won't work
  496. with Midnight Commander.
  497. 8 Other common problems
  498. 8.1 When I try pasting to the internal editor, it indents the amount of
  499. indenting increases with each line!
  500. Either turn off 'Return does autoindent' in the editor options or
  501. update GNU Midnight Commander to version 4.6.0 or above - it doesn't
  502. autoindent when you are holding Shift.
  503. 8.2 Is it possible to use Colorer for syntax highlighting?
  504. Yes if you submit the patch. There are no legal problems with it
  505. because it's licensed under GPL now. The homepage of Colorer is
  506. http://colorer.sourceforge.net/
  507. 9 Other common problems
  508. 9.1 Is there any way to 'bookmark' favorite ftp-fs links?
  509. Use the directory hotlist. Just press control-backslash. If your
  510. national keyboard layout doesn't have backslash key, just press the
  511. control key with the key which is the backslash key in the English
  512. keyboard layout.
  513. 9.2 When I start Midnight Commander, nothing happens!
  514. When MC is compiled with Samba support, have a look at the
  515. "interfaces = ..." line in your smb.conf file. MC uses pretty old
  516. Samba code that only expects IP addresses and host names there,
  517. but not network interface names (like eth0). MC interprets these
  518. names as host names and tries to resolve them using a DNS server.
  519. To fix this, ask your system administrator to change the interface
  520. names to their assigned IP addresses, or (untried) add the interface
  521. names and their IP addresses to the /etc/hosts file.
  522. First, invoke MC without subshell support: "mc -u". If this helps
  523. check the shell you are using. Subshell support works best with
  524. bash, although tcsh and zsh are also supported. You might want to
  525. upgrade your shell to a newer version. If you use something else
  526. than bash, tcsh or zsh, subshell support is disabled automatically.
  527. Another reason is problems with gpm. Try using "--nomouse" option to
  528. see if it makes any difference. Restarting gpm can help. Sometimes
  529. it's enough to move the mouse.
  530. Also, if you have the DISPLAY environment variable set, but the X
  531. server is unreachable (e.g. it's firewalled), this can also cause a
  532. delay at startup. Unset DISPLAY to see if that's the case.
  533. 10 Development
  534. 10.1 Who has written Midnight Commander?
  535. Midnight Commander was started by Miguel de Icaza and he is the
  536. maintainer of the package. Other authors have joined the project
  537. later:
  538. * Mauricio Plaza (early releases)
  539. * Janne Kukonlehto (joined Sep 27 1994)
  540. * Radek Doulik (joined Oct 30 1994)
  541. * Fred Leeflang (joined Nov 2 1994)
  542. * Dugan Porter (joined Dec 1 1994)
  543. * Jakub Jelinek (joined Feb 8 1995)
  544. * Ching Hui (joined Jun 27 1995)
  545. * Andrej Borsenkow (joined Jul 1996)
  546. * Paul Sheer (joined Nov 1 1996)
  547. * Norbert Warmuth
  548. * Alex I. Tkachenko
  549. Alessandro Rubini has been specially helpful with debugging and
  550. enhancing of the mouse support. John E. Davis has made his S-Lang
  551. library available to us and answered many questions about it.
  552. Many people have contributed bug reports, feature suggestions and
  553. small code bits (alphabetical order):
  554. * Thomasz Cholewo
  555. * Juan Jose Ciarlante
  556. * Alexander Dong (OS/2 port, NT port updates)
  557. * Erwin van Eijk
  558. * Torben Fjerdingstad
  559. * Massimo Fontanelli
  560. * Juan Grigera (NT port)
  561. * Gerd Knorr
  562. * Sergey Ya. Korshunoff
  563. * Jean-Daniel Luiset
  564. * Wim Osterholt
  565. * Antonio Palama (old DOS port)
  566. * Thomas Pundt
  567. * Marcelo Roccasalva
  568. * Ilya Rybkin
  569. * Vadim Sinolits
  570. * Jon Stevens
  571. * Adam Tla/lka
  572. Current list of active developers can be found here:
  573. http://www.midnight-commander.org/wiki/McDevelopers
  574. This page lists everbody who has provided a patch or
  575. has written code for the Midnight Commander in the past:
  576. http://www.midnight-commander.org/wiki/McContributors
  577. 10.2 Do I dare to use a development version?
  578. Yes, of course. Feel free to test:
  579. http://www.midnight-commander.org/wiki#Download
  580. As we do our development in git, please do a git checkout
  581. of the master branch and build it
  582. But always remember: development versions may have nasty bugs
  583. at some points of time. It's up to you to judge whether the new
  584. features and fixes for the bugs you know outweigh the risk of unknown
  585. bugs.
  586. 10.3 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
  587. You might first want to get the newest development version to see if
  588. the bug is fixed or the feature is added already.
  589. If this is not the case, feel free to add a ticket in our ticket system,
  590. which is located here: http://www.midnight-commander.org/newticket
  591. If you want to send an email instead write your report to mc-devel@gnome.org
  592. or mc@gnome.org.
  593. These mailing lists are the most certain way to contact the
  594. developers. Remember to mention if you are not on the mailing list
  595. to make sure that you will receive a copy of replies.
  596. Give as much details as possible. A too long message is a lot better
  597. than a too short message.
  598. For segmentation faults a stack backtrace is appreciated. You can
  599. produce stack backtrace as follows:
  600. * If segmentation fault produced a core file:
  601. 1. Load the core file by typing "gdb mc core" or "dbx mc core".
  602. 2. Type "where".
  603. 3. Cut and paste the results to your message.
  604. * If segmentation fault didn't produce a core file:
  605. 1. Load mc by typing "gdb mc" or "dbx mc".
  606. 2. Start mc by typing "run".
  607. 3. Try to reproduce the segmentation fault by doing whatever
  608. you did last time when the segmentation fault occurred.
  609. 4. Type "where".
  610. 5. Cut and paste the results to your message.
  611. 6. For the future you might want to check out what is the
  612. command in your shell to allow producing of the core files.
  613. Usually it is "limit coredumpsize unlimited" or "ulimit
  614. coredumpsize" or "ulimit -c unlimited".
  615. 10.4 How can I join the development?
  616. To join the development just code the feature you want to add and
  617. send your patch for inclusion. Email address is mc-devel@gnome.org.
  618. Before you start coding check the latest development version. It
  619. might be that your feature has already been implemented.
  620. Note that the authors of GNU Midnight Commander have given all their
  621. rights on the program to the Free Software Foundation. You will have
  622. to do the same if you contribute non-trivial patches. Otherwise we
  623. have to reject your patches in order to avoid copyright problems.
  624. 11 More information
  625. 11.1 This document didn't answer my question. Where else can I look for
  626. an answer?
  627. Read messages from the Discussion (mailing list archive) or read the
  628. Manual.
  629. Upgrade to a newer version of Midnight Commander. Many problems are
  630. fixed in the new versions.
  631. If you still can't find an answer, post your question to the Midnight
  632. Commander mailing list. Its address is mc@gnome.org.
  633. 11.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
  634. Following mailing lists discuss about Midnight Commander:
  635. mc@gnome.org
  636. General discussion of GNU Midnight Commander
  637. To subscribe visit
  638. http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc/
  639. mc-devel@gnome.org
  640. Technical development discussion
  641. To subscribe visit
  642. http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc-devel/
  643. mc-commits@googlegroups.com
  644. mailing list only for applyed commits into master/stable branches
  645. To subscribe visit
  646. http://groups.google.com/group/mc-commits/subscribe
  647. mc-bugs@googlegroups.com
  648. Mailing list only for tickets and comments (use it as RSS :) )
  649. To subscribe visit
  650. http://groups.google.com/group/mc-bugs/subscribe
  651. 11.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
  652. There is a WWW page for Midnight Commander. The URL is:
  653. http://www.midnight-commander.org/
  654. 11.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
  655. The mc and mc-devel lists are archived on the World Wide Web. There
  656. are links to the archives on the mailing list pages (see 10.2).
  657. 12 Legal issues
  658. 12.1 Authorship
  659. Questions and Answers was written by Janne Kukonlehto. Parts of it
  660. originate from Ian Jackson, Miguel de Icaza, Dugan Porter, Norbert
  661. Warmuth and Paul Sheer.
  662. 12.2 Feedback is invited
  663. Send your comments about this document and GNU Midnight Commander to
  664. mc@gnome.org
  665. 12.3 Disclaimer and copyright
  666. Note that this document is provided as is. The information in it is
  667. not warranted to be correct; you use it at your own risk.
  668. You can use Questions and Answers according to GNU General Public
  669. License (see the COPYING file in GNU Midnight Commander source
  670. distribution). Questions and Answers is not public domain.