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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. * mips-dec-ultrix4.3
  110. * rs6000-ibm-aix3.2.5
  111. * sparc-sun-sunos4.1
  112. * sparc-sun-solaris2.3, 2.4, 2.5
  113. * sparc-sun-netbsd1.0
  114. * hppa-hp-hpux9
  115. * hppa-hp-hpux7
  116. * m68k-apple-aux
  117. * unixware
  118. * mc88110-aviion-dgux5.4R2.01
  119. * i386-*-sco3.2v4.2
  120. * i386-*-sco3.2v5
  121. 1.3 Does it work with my terminal?
  122. Yes, it does.
  123. Because GNU Midnight Commander is a full screen program it doesn't
  124. run on dummy terminals but anything more advanced will do (like
  125. vt100). If your terminal works with vi, emacs, elm or pine it will
  126. work with GNU Midnight Commander.
  127. 1.4 What else do I need to run MC?
  128. You need a POSIX (Unix compatible) operating system. If you are
  129. running Windows, use Cygwin.
  130. To compile any edition you need to have glib 2.x installed.
  131. It's available at ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/.
  132. If you want to use mouse on the Linux console you need the gpm daemon
  133. from ftp://ftp.systemy.it/pub/develop/. You need nothing extra to
  134. use mouse on xterm.
  135. If you do not want to use the S-Lang library you could try using
  136. ncurses version 4.1 and above.
  137. 1.5 Is GNU Midnight Commander Public Domain? Copyrighted?
  138. Midnight Commander is under GNU Public License which basically means
  139. that you may freely copy, change and distribute it, but that you may
  140. not impose any restrictions on further distribution, and that you
  141. must make the source code available. This is not the same as Public
  142. Domain. For details, the GNU license is included in GNU Midnight
  143. Commander source distribution (the COPYING file).
  144. Midnight Commander is now officially a part of the GNU project.
  145. All the authors of GNU Midnight Commander have given all their rights
  146. on the program to the Free Software Foundation.
  147. 1.6 Where can I get GNU Midnight Commander?
  148. The main site is http://www.midnight-commander.org
  149. 1.7 I cannot compile MC. What should I do?
  150. Make sure you have read the INSTALL file in the sources. Report the
  151. error messages exactly as they appear, mention the versions of your
  152. OS, your compiler and whatever else software you think is relevant.
  153. If you have compile problems in the VFS code, try disabling it by
  154. using "--disable-vfs" option.
  155. f2 Keyboard
  156. 2.1 What does documentation mean with the C-?, M-? and F? keys?
  157. GNU Midnight Commander documentation uses emacs style names for
  158. keyboard keys.
  159. C stands for the Ctrl key. For example, C-f means that you should
  160. hold down the Ctrl key and press the f key.
  161. M stands for the Meta key. Your terminal might call it Alt or
  162. Compose instead of Meta. For example, M-f means that you should hold
  163. down the Meta/Alt/Compose key and press the f key. If your terminal
  164. doesn't have Meta, Alt or Compose or they don't work you can use Esc.
  165. For M-f press the Esc key and then press the f key.
  166. Sometimes Ctrl and Alt are used instead of C and M for simplicity.
  167. Keep in mind that Alt can actually be Meta on some keyboards.
  168. F? stands for a function key. If your terminal doesn't have function
  169. keys or they don't work you can use Esc. For example, for F3 press
  170. the Esc key and then press the 3 key.
  171. 2.2 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
  172. Your terminfo or termcap database has missing or incorrect
  173. definitions for function keys. Type "mc -V" to see what terminal
  174. database is being used. If the result is "using the S-Lang library
  175. with terminfo database" and you are using a very old terminfo
  176. database, consider installing one of the enhanced terminfo files
  177. included in GNU Midnight Commander source distribution. For example,
  178. if you are using xterm type "tic xterm.ti".
  179. If the result is "using the S-Lang library with termcap database" you
  180. should fix your /etc/termcap database.
  181. Up-to-date termcap and terminfo databases are available here:
  182. http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/
  183. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses/
  184. If you don't have permissions to edit terminal databases you can use
  185. Learn keys feature of Midnight Commander instead. Press Esc 9 o k
  186. and follow instructions.
  187. If all else fails you can emulate function keys by first pressing the
  188. ESC key and then one of the number keys. For example, if you want to
  189. produce F9, press ESC, then 9. If you don't have a ESC key on your
  190. keyboard you can try alt-9 or meta-9.
  191. 2.3 How do I use function keys F11 to F20?
  192. These are normally mapped to function keys F1 to F10 with Shift held,
  193. e.g. function key F13 can be activated by pressing Shift-F3. You can
  194. define the keys this way in the Options->Learn Keys dialog. The
  195. convention for PC keyboards is that F11-20 always means Shift with
  196. F1-10.
  197. You may find that on the Linux console with some keyboard layouts
  198. Shift-Fn is interpreted as F(n+12), not as F(n+10). This is a result
  199. of non-uniformity of keyboard layouts. This is not an intended
  200. behavior and it may be fixed some day. In the meantime, use "Learn
  201. Keys" to remedy this inconvenience.
  202. 2.4 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
  203. Midnight Commander uses the ESC key as a prefix for simulating the
  204. Meta and Alt keys (for terminals which don't have Meta or Alt, see
  205. the three previous questions). For example, pressing ESC-a is the
  206. same as pressing Meta-a. In addition most terminals use ESC for
  207. internal representation of arrow keys, function keys and other
  208. enhanced keys. If you want to use ESC to cancel things you have to
  209. press it twice i.e. ESC-ESC. If you find this cumbersome you can
  210. generally use F10 to cancel. Alternatively turn on the old_esc_mode
  211. setting in the ~/.config/mc/ini file. The
  212. old_esc_mode setting makes ESC work as a prefix only if another key
  213. is pressed within 0.5 seconds. After 0.5 seconds the ESC key cancels.
  214. There is no way to make ESC cancel immediately (if we want to be able
  215. to use arrows keys and function keys).
  216. 2.5 How can I add the plus sign (+) on the command line?
  217. Press C-q first, then press the + sign.
  218. The plus key is the hotkey for the select files command. If you want
  219. to add a literal plus on to the command line you must quote it by
  220. pressing C-q first.
  221. Another common key which needs the C-q prefix is backslash "\".
  222. 2.6 C-o doesn't work!
  223. Maybe C-o is a stty control character on your terminal. See man stty
  224. for details on how to list and change stty control characters.
  225. 2.7 What 'keys' are the "a1" and "c1" keys mentioned in the manual?
  226. The "a1" key is the key which has the "a1" caption on it.
  227. The "c1" key is the key which has the "c1" caption on it.
  228. If you have to ask what these two keys are your keyboard hasn't
  229. probably got them. Actually, I have never seen a keyboard which has
  230. got them.
  231. 2.8 How do I change the key bindings?
  232. There is no generic way to reconfigure the key bindings. You can use
  233. the "Learn Keys" dialog to assign keys to some actions listed in that
  234. dialog. However, most actions cannot be redefined to use different
  235. keys.
  236. 3 Mouse
  237. 3.1 How do I enable mouse support?
  238. Invoke mc like this (without quotes): "mc -x". If this doesn't work
  239. upgrade to a terminal which compatible with the Xterm mouse
  240. sequences.
  241. Alternatively, on Linux console you can use gpm.
  242. 3.2 How do I cut and paste text with mouse?
  243. Hold down shift key while using mouse to cut and paste.
  244. 3.3 How do I get the extension dependent pop-up menu to pop up?
  245. It was developed for the GNOME edition. The text-mode edition
  246. doesn't support this feature yet.
  247. 4 Display
  248. 4.1 Why do I keep getting "Terminal not powerful enough for SLang" or
  249. "Terminal not powerful enough for SLsmg"?
  250. This means that your terminfo databases do not contain the correct
  251. definitions for your terminal.
  252. You could try using a different terminal setting. If you use csh or
  253. tcsh:
  254. setenv TERM vt100
  255. or if you use sh, bash, ksh or zsh:
  256. export TERM=vt100
  257. 4.2 Why don't line drawing characters work?
  258. Since version 4.0.13 there's the command line option -a to force use
  259. of charaters +, |, - for line drawing (only available when compiled
  260. with S-Lang). Use the -a option if any of the suggestions below
  261. doesn't help.
  262. In general, there are three cases:
  263. * Lines are shown as ASCII characters like this
  264. +---------+
  265. | |
  266. +---------+
  267. This also happens when you use the -a option. Other than that
  268. possible reason is 1 or 2 (see below).
  269. * Lines are shown as lower case characters like this
  270. lqqqqqqqqqk
  271. x x
  272. mqqqqqqqqqj
  273. Possible reason is 1 or 2 (see below).
  274. * Lines are shown as blanks or missing characters. Possible reason
  275. is 2 or 3 (see below).
  276. The reason for the problem is one of following:
  277. 1. Your terminal might not support line drawing characters. VT100
  278. compatible terminals, rxvt and xterm and color_xterm do support
  279. them.
  280. 2. Your terminfo or termcap database might have missing or incorrect
  281. definitions for line drawing characters. Set the acsc variable
  282. in the terminfo database like this:
  283. acsc=a\376k\277l\332m\300j\331n\305w\302v\301u\264t\303q\304x
  284. \263h\2600\333
  285. Don't forget issue 'tic' command. This supposes you are using PC
  286. character set. The octal values might be different for other
  287. character sets. If you are using termcap instead of terminfo,
  288. you should modify above solution appropriately.
  289. 3. Your terminal font might not support line drawing characters.
  290. Try changing the font.
  291. Here is Miguel's answer to Torben on this subject.
  292. Torben:
  293. When I load consolefonts/iso01.f16, I get perfectly right national
  294. characters, but the line drawing characters in mc get wrong. Is it
  295. a mc problem, or is it a problem with the font? (I guess it is).
  296. Is there a trick?
  297. Miguel:
  298. First of all, we should determine whether the font has line drawing
  299. characters or not.
  300. If it has line drawing characters, then a new terminfo entry should
  301. be written for this specific case. Let's call this linux-iso01.
  302. The acsc variable should be modified to reflect which characters
  303. are used to do the line drawing.
  304. If it does not have line drawing characters, then we should get rid
  305. of the switch to acsc sequences and make the acsc sequence be just
  306. a mapping to the ugly +, -, |, - characters.
  307. You can get your terminfo definition by running the infocmp
  308. program, making the proper changes and running the tic program to
  309. compile your new terminfo database.
  310. 4.3 Can one use latin-1 characters without losing the lines?
  311. Yes, you need a correct font and a correct termcap/terminfo database.
  312. For font, if you use xterm try "xterm -fn fixed".
  313. For termcap/terminfo database, change the acsc capability in the
  314. database.
  315. 4.4 I have problems with entering/viewing national characters!
  316. Upgrade to version 4.0.12 or newer.
  317. From the Options - Display Bits dialog select Full 8 bits or ISO
  318. 8859-1. In addition, select 8 bit input from the same dialog.
  319. 4.5 How can I get colors?
  320. Invoke mc like this (without quotes): "mc -c".
  321. If you get colors, be happy.
  322. If your terminal stays black and white, your terminal doesn't support
  323. color. You might want to upgrade to a terminal which compatible with
  324. the ANSI color sequences.
  325. If your terminal goes completely black, see the next question.
  326. More detailed answer:
  327. Check that your terminal supports color. color_xterm, rxvt and Linux
  328. console do support, most other terminals don't. You can test color
  329. support with following simple C program:
  330. #include <stdio.h>
  331. int main (void){
  332. printf ("\033[32m Hello world! \033[m\n");
  333. return 0;
  334. }
  335. Compile and run it. If you see "Hello world!" text in green your
  336. terminal supports color, otherwise not (however, for color_xterm see
  337. also the next question).
  338. Check whether you are using Ncurses or the S-Lang library (type
  339. "mc -V" to find out).
  340. With S-Lang library you can force color support by setting the
  341. environment variable COLORTERM to any value.
  342. If you use ncurses library, check that your terminfo database
  343. supports color. If not, you should install one of the enhanced
  344. terminfo databases included in GNU Midnight Commander source
  345. distribution.
  346. You might want to set the TERM environment variable so that you are
  347. using the correct terminfo database or termcap entry.
  348. If you use color_xterm (or rxvt) the correct value might be
  349. xterm-color, xtermc or simply xterm.
  350. If you use Linux console the correct value for TERM is linux or
  351. console.
  352. 4.6 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
  353. Some color_xterm terminals define all colors as black instead of the
  354. standard ANSI colors. This makes them go completely black when you
  355. try to use Midnight Commander with colors.
  356. You will have to override the defaults. Create a file
  357. "color.defaults" which has the following contents:
  358. color_xterm*color0: Black
  359. color_xterm*color1: Red
  360. color_xterm*color2: Green
  361. color_xterm*color3: Yellow
  362. color_xterm*color4: Blue
  363. color_xterm*color5: Magenta
  364. color_xterm*color6: Cyan
  365. color_xterm*color7: White
  366. color_xterm*background: White
  367. color_xterm*foreground: Black
  368. (replace color_xterm with the name of your color_xterm, color_xterm
  369. mentions its name in its title bar)
  370. Now type:
  371. xrdb -merge color.defaults
  372. Alternatively you can add the suggested contents of the
  373. color.defaults file to your .Xdefaults or .Xresources file (or what
  374. ever the name of your X configuration file is). Or you can replace
  375. your non-ANSI color_xterm with an ANSI color_xterm.
  376. 4.7 Where can I get xterm or rxvt?
  377. xterm is included with the X Window System, so you probably already
  378. have it if you have X. This version is not actively maintained, but
  379. Thomas Dickey maintains his more advanced version of xterm at
  380. ftp://dickey.his.com/xterm/
  381. rxvt has its own site http://www.rxvt.org/ - get the latest version
  382. there.
  383. 4.8 I got colors working with MC but the other programs don't work at
  384. all anymore!
  385. Midnight Commander uses terminfo database (if available) but many
  386. other programs use termcap database. If you set the TERM environment
  387. variable to a value which has no corresponding entry in termcap
  388. database those programs stop working. You should add the new value
  389. of TERM to the termcap database.
  390. Example: If you have set TERM to xterm-color locate from /etc/termcap
  391. the line which starts:
  392. xterm|vs100|xterm terminal emulator
  393. Change it to start:
  394. xterm|xterm-color|vs100|xterm terminal emulator
  395. 5 Graphical user interface
  396. 5.1 Xview, Tk and Gnome editions?
  397. Xview and Tk and GNOME editions have been removed from the sources.
  398. 5.2 Why is MC linked with X libraries?
  399. GNU Midnight Commander is linked with X libraries to read key
  400. modifiers from the X Server. It may be helpful to distinguish
  401. between keys that the terminal emulator reports in the same way, e.g.
  402. PgUp and Ctrl-PgUp. Versions of GNU Midnight Commander after 4.6.0
  403. will load X libraries dynamically on the systems that support it.
  404. 6 Command line problems
  405. 6.1 How do I stay in the last directory when I exit Midnight Commander?
  406. See the description of the -P option in the Options section of the
  407. manual.
  408. 6.2 How can I access command line history?
  409. Meta-h shows the last commands you executed from the command line.
  410. Duplicates are suppressed from the history. Commands executed from
  411. the subshell prompt are not shown.
  412. You can put previous commands to the command line with Meta-p. Meta-n
  413. moves you forward in history.
  414. Since version 4.1.15 all the input widgets have permanent history.
  415. You can summon the history listbox by pressing M-h.
  416. 6.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names and so on?
  417. Just press M-Tab. Press M-Tab again to get a listbox if there are
  418. multiple possible completions.
  419. 6.4 I am using ksh. Can I use functions defined in the .kshrc within
  420. MC?
  421. Sorry, MC only supports bash, tcsh and zsh functions. Ksh functions
  422. are not supported because ksh lacks the necessary hooks needed for
  423. subshell integration.
  424. Switch to bash or zsh. They are both quite compatible with ksh.
  425. Your ksh functions should work as such or after minimal changes.
  426. 6.5 Is there any way to include additional options or hot keys to MC?
  427. Yes, F2 invokes an user menu, which is fully configurable. You can
  428. add any shell commands to the user menu. See the mc(1) man page for
  429. more info.
  430. Another way to add functionality is the external panelize feature.
  431. See the mc(1) man page for more info.
  432. And finally, you can code any feature you want yourself. MC source
  433. code is free which means you can change it anyway you want. There
  434. are some limitations to make sure MC stays free. See GNU General
  435. Public License for details.
  436. 6.6 When I use Ctrl-O I don't get a subshell. How do I fix this?
  437. Only bash, tcsh and zsh can be used as subshell. Use one of those
  438. shells as your default shell, and it will be used as subshell in GNU
  439. Midnight Commander.
  440. 6.7 Ctrl-O doesn't work at all. What happens?
  441. Ctrl-O works if either the subshell is used or the terminal can save
  442. the output of the commands so it can be restored. If neither is
  443. true, there is absolutely nothing interesting behind the panels!
  444. Only few terminals support screen saving. It's xterm, rxvt and other
  445. xterm-like terminals and virtual terminals on Linux and FreeBSD.
  446. 7 Virtual file systems
  447. 7.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
  448. If you use keyboard just move the selection bar on the tar file and
  449. press enter. If you use mouse just double-click on the tar file.
  450. The recognized suffixes for tar archives are .tar, .tar.gz and .tgz.
  451. You can also enter a tar archive by typing "cd filename#utar" where
  452. filename is the name of the archive. In this case, the suffix is not
  453. important.
  454. 7.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
  455. Just press enter on the toplevel ".." file or change to a non-tar
  456. directory. Just typing "cd" with no parameters is enough (it will
  457. take you to your home directory).
  458. 7.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
  459. Just type "cd ftp://hostname" where hostname is the name of the host
  460. you want to connect. Alternatively, select FTP link from the Left or
  461. Right menu and type the name of the host you want to connect.
  462. 7.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
  463. Non-anonymous ftp works just like the anonymous ftp but you give the
  464. login name with the host name. For example, type "cd
  465. ftp://username@hostname".
  466. 7.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
  467. Just change to a non-ftp directory. Simply typing "cd" with no
  468. parameters is enough (it will take you to your home directory).
  469. GNU Midnight Commander closes ftp connection automatically after a
  470. timeout or on exit. It's possible to force disconnect by selecting
  471. "Command" -> "Active VFS List" in the menu and using the "Free VFSs
  472. Now" button.
  473. 7.6 Why aren't the contents of ftp panel updated?
  474. Update is skipped because there would be a serious performance
  475. penalty. Constantly updating directory panels through a ftp
  476. connection would take too much time.
  477. You can use C-r to force an update.
  478. 7.7 What kind of proxy server works with Midnight Commander?
  479. There are two kinds of ftp proxies: proxies for ftp clients and
  480. proxies for web browsers.
  481. Midnight Commander only supports ftp proxies which are meant for ftp
  482. clients. Common WWW proxies (like Squid) are not supported. A rule
  483. of thumb is that if a ftp proxy requires a web browser, it won't work
  484. with Midnight Commander.
  485. 8 Other common problems
  486. 8.1 When I try pasting to the internal editor, it indents the amount of
  487. indenting increases with each line!
  488. Either turn off 'Return does autoindent' in the editor options or
  489. update GNU Midnight Commander to version 4.6.0 or above - it doesn't
  490. autoindent when you are holding Shift.
  491. 8.2 Is it possible to use Colorer for syntax highlighting?
  492. Yes if you submit the patch. There are no legal problems with it
  493. because it's licensed under GPL now. The homepage of Colorer is
  494. http://colorer.sourceforge.net/
  495. 9 Other common problems
  496. 9.1 Is there any way to 'bookmark' favorite ftp-fs links?
  497. Use the directory hotlist. Just press control-backslash. If your
  498. national keyboard layout doesn't have backslash key, just press the
  499. control key with the key which is the backslash key in the English
  500. keyboard layout.
  501. 9.2 When I start Midnight Commander, nothing happens!
  502. When MC is compiled with Samba support, have a look at the
  503. "interfaces = ..." line in your smb.conf file. MC uses pretty old
  504. Samba code that only expects IP addresses and host names there,
  505. but not network interface names (like eth0). MC interprets these
  506. names as host names and tries to resolve them using a DNS server.
  507. To fix this, ask your system administrator to change the interface
  508. names to their assigned IP addresses, or (untried) add the interface
  509. names and their IP addresses to the /etc/hosts file.
  510. First, invoke MC without subshell support: "mc -u". If this helps
  511. check the shell you are using. Subshell support works best with
  512. bash, although tcsh and zsh are also supported. You might want to
  513. upgrade your shell to a newer version. If you use something else
  514. than bash, tcsh or zsh, subshell support is disabled automatically.
  515. Another reason is problems with gpm. Try using "--nomouse" option to
  516. see if it makes any difference. Restarting gpm can help. Sometimes
  517. it's enough to move the mouse.
  518. Also, if you have the DISPLAY environment variable set, but the X
  519. server is unreachable (e.g. it's firewalled), this can also cause a
  520. delay at startup. Unset DISPLAY to see if that's the case.
  521. 10 Development
  522. 10.1 Who has written Midnight Commander?
  523. Midnight Commander was started by Miguel de Icaza and he is the
  524. maintainer of the package. Other authors have joined the project
  525. later:
  526. * Mauricio Plaza (early releases)
  527. * Janne Kukonlehto (joined Sep 27 1994)
  528. * Radek Doulik (joined Oct 30 1994)
  529. * Fred Leeflang (joined Nov 2 1994)
  530. * Dugan Porter (joined Dec 1 1994)
  531. * Jakub Jelinek (joined Feb 8 1995)
  532. * Ching Hui (joined Jun 27 1995)
  533. * Andrej Borsenkow (joined Jul 1996)
  534. * Paul Sheer (joined Nov 1 1996)
  535. * Norbert Warmuth
  536. * Alex I. Tkachenko
  537. Alessandro Rubini has been specially helpful with debugging and
  538. enhancing of the mouse support. John E. Davis has made his S-Lang
  539. library available to us and answered many questions about it.
  540. Many people have contributed bug reports, feature suggestions and
  541. small code bits (alphabetical order):
  542. * Thomasz Cholewo
  543. * Juan Jose Ciarlante
  544. * Alexander Dong (OS/2 port, NT port updates)
  545. * Erwin van Eijk
  546. * Torben Fjerdingstad
  547. * Massimo Fontanelli
  548. * Juan Grigera (NT port)
  549. * Gerd Knorr
  550. * Sergey Ya. Korshunoff
  551. * Jean-Daniel Luiset
  552. * Wim Osterholt
  553. * Antonio Palama (old DOS port)
  554. * Thomas Pundt
  555. * Marcelo Roccasalva
  556. * Ilya Rybkin
  557. * Vadim Sinolits
  558. * Jon Stevens
  559. * Adam Tla/lka
  560. Current list of active developers can be found here:
  561. http://www.midnight-commander.org/wiki/McDevelopers
  562. This page lists everbody who has provided a patch or
  563. has written code for the midnight-commander in the past:
  564. http://www.midnight-commander.org/wiki/McContributors
  565. 10.2 Do I dare to use a development version?
  566. Yes, of course. Feel free to test:
  567. http://www.midnight-commander.org/wiki#Download
  568. As we do our development in git, please do a git checkout
  569. of the master branch and build it
  570. But always remember: development versions may have nasty bugs
  571. at some points of time. It's up to you to judge whether the new
  572. features and fixes for the bugs you know outweigh the risk of unknown
  573. bugs.
  574. 10.3 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
  575. You might first want to get the newest development version to see if
  576. the bug is fixed or the feature is added already.
  577. If this is not the case, feel free to add a ticket in our ticket-system,
  578. which is located here: http://www.midnight-commander.org/newticket
  579. If you want to send an email instead write your report to mc-devel@gnome.org
  580. or mc@gnome.org.
  581. These mailing lists are the most certain way to contact the
  582. developers. Remember to mention if you are not on the mailing list
  583. to make sure that you will receive a copy of replies.
  584. Give as much details as possible. A too long message is a lot better
  585. than a too short message.
  586. For segmentation faults a stack backtrace is appreciated. You can
  587. produce stack backtrace as follows:
  588. * If segmentation fault produced a core file:
  589. 1. Load the core file by typing "gdb mc core" or "dbx mc core".
  590. 2. Type "where".
  591. 3. Cut and paste the results to your message.
  592. * If segmentation fault didn't produce a core file:
  593. 1. Load mc by typing "gdb mc" or "dbx mc".
  594. 2. Start mc by typing "run".
  595. 3. Try to reproduce the segmentation fault by doing whatever
  596. you did last time when the segmentation fault occurred.
  597. 4. Type "where".
  598. 5. Cut and paste the results to your message.
  599. 6. For the future you might want to check out what is the
  600. command in your shell to allow producing of the core files.
  601. Usually it is "limit coredumpsize unlimited" or "ulimit
  602. coredumpsize" or "ulimit -c unlimited".
  603. 10.4 How can I join the development?
  604. To join the development just code the feature you want to add and
  605. send your patch for inclusion. Email address is mc-devel@gnome.org.
  606. Before you start coding check the latest development version. It
  607. might be that your feature has already been implemented.
  608. Note that the authors of GNU Midnight Commander have given all their
  609. rights on the program to the Free Software Foundation. You will have
  610. to do the same if you contribute non-trivial patches. Otherwise we
  611. have to reject your patches in order to avoid copyright problems.
  612. 11 More information
  613. 11.1 This document didn't answer my question. Where else can I look for
  614. an answer?
  615. Read messages from the Discussion (mailing list archive) or read the
  616. Manual.
  617. Upgrade to a newer version of Midnight Commander. Many problems are
  618. fixed in the new versions.
  619. If you still can't find an answer, post your question to the Midnight
  620. Commander mailing list. Its address is mc@gnome.org.
  621. 11.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
  622. Following mailing lists discuss about Midnight Commander:
  623. mc@gnome.org
  624. General discussion of GNU Midnight Commander
  625. To subscribe visit
  626. http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc/
  627. mc-devel@gnome.org
  628. Technical development discussion
  629. To subscribe visit
  630. http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc-devel/
  631. mc-commits@googlegroups.com
  632. mailing list only for applyed commits into master/stable branches
  633. To subscribe visit
  634. http://groups.google.com/group/mc-commits/subscribe
  635. mc-bugs@googlegroups.com
  636. Mailing list only for tickets and comments (use it as RSS :) )
  637. To subscribe visit
  638. http://groups.google.com/group/mc-bugs/subscribe
  639. 11.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
  640. There is a WWW page for Midnight Commander. The URL is:
  641. http://www.midnight-commander.org/
  642. 11.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
  643. The mc and mc-devel lists are archived on the World Wide Web. There
  644. are links to the archives on the mailing list pages (see 10.2).
  645. 12 Legal issues
  646. 12.1 Authorship
  647. Questions and Answers was written by Janne Kukonlehto. Parts of it
  648. originate from Ian Jackson, Miguel de Icaza, Dugan Porter, Norbert
  649. Warmuth and Paul Sheer.
  650. 12.2 Feedback is invited
  651. Send your comments about this document and GNU Midnight Commander to
  652. mc@gnome.org
  653. 12.3 Disclaimer and copyright
  654. Note that this document is provided as is. The information in it is
  655. not warranted to be correct; you use it at your own risk.
  656. You can use Questions and Answers according to GNU General Public
  657. License (see the COPYING file in GNU Midnight Commander source
  658. distribution). Questions and Answers is not public domain.