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- GNU Midnight Commander
- Frequently Asked Questions
- The newest version of this document is available at
- http://www.midnight-commander.org/browser/doc/FAQ
- * 1 Getting started
- + 1.1 What is Midnight Commander?
- + 1.2 Does it run on my machine?
- + 1.3 Does it work with my terminal?
- + 1.4 What else do I need to run MC?
- + 1.5 Is GNU Midnight Commander Public Domain? Copyrighted?
- + 1.6 Where can I get GNU Midnight Commander?
- + 1.7 I cannot compile MC. What should I do?
- * 2 Keyboard
- + 2.1 What does documentation mean with the C-?, M-? and F?
- keys?
- + 2.2 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
- + 2.3 How do I use function keys F11 to F20?
- + 2.4 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
- + 2.5 How can I add the plus sign (+) on the command line?
- + 2.6 C-o doesn't work!
- + 2.7 What 'keys' are the "a1" and "c1" keys mentioned in the
- manual?
- + 2.8 How do I change the key bindings?
- * 3 Mouse
- + 3.1 How do I enable mouse support?
- + 3.2 How do I cut and paste text with mouse?
- + 3.3 How do I get the extension dependent pop-up menu to
- pop up?
- * 4 Display
- + 4.1 Why do I keep getting "Terminal not powerful enough for
- SLang" or "Terminal not powerful enough for SLsmg"?
- + 4.2 Why don't line drawing characters work?
- + 4.3 Can one use latin-1 characters without losing the lines?
- + 4.4 I have problems with entering/viewing national
- characters!
- + 4.5 How can I get colors?
- + 4.6 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
- + 4.7 Where can I get xterm or rxvt?
- + 4.8 I got colors working with MC but the other programs
- don't work at all anymore!
- + 4.9 Why are there both terminfo and termcap? Wouldn't one
- database be enough?
- * 5 Graphical user interface
- + 5.1 Xview, Tk and Gnome editions?
- + 5.2 Why is MC linked with X libraries?
- * 6 Command line problems
- + 6.1 How do I stay in the last directory when I exit Midnight
- Commander?
- + 6.2 How can I access command line history?
- + 6.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names
- and so on?
- + 6.4 I am using ksh. Can I use functions defined in the
- .kshrc within MC?
- + 6.5 Is there any way to include additional options or hot
- keys to MC?
- + 6.6 When I use Ctrl-O I don't get a subshell. How do I fix
- this?
- + 6.7 Ctrl-O doesn't work at all. What happens?
- * 7 Virtual file systems
- + 7.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
- + 7.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
- + 7.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
- + 7.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
- + 7.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
- + 7.6 Why aren't the contents of ftp panel updated?
- + 7.7 What kind of proxy server works with Midnight Commander?
- * 8 Internal editor
- + 8.1 When I try pasting to the internal editor, it indents
- the amount of indenting increases with each line!
- + 8.2 Is it possible to use Colorer for syntax highlighting?
- * 9 Other common problems
- + 9.1 Is there any way to 'bookmark' favorite ftp-fs links?
- + 9.2 When I start Midnight Commander, nothing happens!
- * 10 Development
- + 10.1 Who has written Midnight Commander?
- + 10.2 Do I dare to use a development version?
- + 10.3 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
- + 10.4 How can I join the development?
- * 11 More information
- + 11.1 This document didn't answer my question. Where else
- can I look for an answer?
- + 11.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
- + 11.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
- + 11.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
- * 12 Legal issues
- + 12.1 Authorship
- + 12.2 Feedback is invited
- + 12.3 Disclaimer and copyright
- 1 Getting started
- 1.1 What is Midnight Commander?
- GNU Midnight Commander is a user-friendly yet powerful file manager
- and visual shell, useful to novice and guru alike. It provides a
- clear, user-friendly, and somewhat protected interface to a Unix
- system while making many frequent file operations more efficient and
- preserving the full power of the command prompt. After some
- practice, you will wonder how you could ever live without it.
- 1.2 Does it run on my machine?
- GNU Midnight Commander runs on POSIX (Unix-like) operating systems,
- such as GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Solaris, HP-UX and others. It
- can also be compiled under Cygwin on Windows.
- GNU Midnight Commander uses GNU Autoconf which should automatically
- configure it for every Unix clone. Following configurations have
- been tested in the past (this list is very old):
- * i386-*-linux1.x, 2.x
- * alpha-linux-linux2
- * sparc-linux-linux2.x
- * sparc64-linux-linux2.1
- * mips-sgi-irix5.x, 6.x
- * mips-dec-ultrix4.3
- * rs6000-ibm-aix3.2.5
- * sparc-sun-sunos4.1
- * sparc-sun-solaris2.3, 2.4, 2.5
- * sparc-sun-netbsd1.0
- * hppa-hp-hpux9
- * hppa-hp-hpux7
- * m68k-apple-aux
- * unixware
- * mc88110-aviion-dgux5.4R2.01
- * i386-*-sco3.2v4.2
- * i386-*-sco3.2v5
- 1.3 Does it work with my terminal?
- Yes, it does.
- Because GNU Midnight Commander is a full screen program it doesn't
- run on dummy terminals but anything more advanced will do (like
- vt100). If your terminal works with vi, emacs, elm or pine it will
- work with GNU Midnight Commander.
- 1.4 What else do I need to run MC?
- You need a POSIX (Unix compatible) operating system. If you are
- running Windows, use Cygwin.
- To compile any edition you need to have glib 2.x installed.
- It's available at ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/.
- If you want to use mouse on the Linux console you need the gpm daemon
- from ftp://ftp.systemy.it/pub/develop/. You need nothing extra to
- use mouse on xterm.
- If you do not want to use the S-Lang library you could try using
- ncurses version 4.1 and above.
- 1.5 Is GNU Midnight Commander Public Domain? Copyrighted?
- Midnight Commander is under GNU Public License which basically means
- that you may freely copy, change and distribute it, but that you may
- not impose any restrictions on further distribution, and that you
- must make the source code available. This is not the same as Public
- Domain. For details, the GNU license is included in GNU Midnight
- Commander source distribution (the COPYING file).
- Midnight Commander is now officially a part of the GNU project.
- All the authors of GNU Midnight Commander have given all their rights
- on the program to the Free Software Foundation.
- 1.6 Where can I get GNU Midnight Commander?
- The main site is http://www.midnight-commander.org
- 1.7 I cannot compile MC. What should I do?
- Make sure you have read the INSTALL file in the sources. Report the
- error messages exactly as they appear, mention the versions of your
- OS, your compiler and whatever else software you think is relevant.
- If you have compile problems in the VFS code, try disabling it by
- using "--disable-vfs" option.
- f2 Keyboard
- 2.1 What does documentation mean with the C-?, M-? and F? keys?
- GNU Midnight Commander documentation uses emacs style names for
- keyboard keys.
- C stands for the Ctrl key. For example, C-f means that you should
- hold down the Ctrl key and press the f key.
- M stands for the Meta key. Your terminal might call it Alt or
- Compose instead of Meta. For example, M-f means that you should hold
- down the Meta/Alt/Compose key and press the f key. If your terminal
- doesn't have Meta, Alt or Compose or they don't work you can use Esc.
- For M-f press the Esc key and then press the f key.
- Sometimes Ctrl and Alt are used instead of C and M for simplicity.
- Keep in mind that Alt can actually be Meta on some keyboards.
- F? stands for a function key. If your terminal doesn't have function
- keys or they don't work you can use Esc. For example, for F3 press
- the Esc key and then press the 3 key.
- 2.2 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
- Your terminfo or termcap database has missing or incorrect
- definitions for function keys. Type "mc -V" to see what terminal
- database is being used. If the result is "using the S-Lang library
- with terminfo database" and you are using a very old terminfo
- database, consider installing one of the enhanced terminfo files
- included in GNU Midnight Commander source distribution. For example,
- if you are using xterm type "tic xterm.ti".
- If the result is "using the S-Lang library with termcap database" you
- should fix your /etc/termcap database.
- Up-to-date termcap and terminfo databases are available here:
- http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/
- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses/
- If you don't have permissions to edit terminal databases you can use
- Learn keys feature of Midnight Commander instead. Press Esc 9 o k
- and follow instructions.
- If all else fails you can emulate function keys by first pressing the
- ESC key and then one of the number keys. For example, if you want to
- produce F9, press ESC, then 9. If you don't have a ESC key on your
- keyboard you can try alt-9 or meta-9.
- 2.3 How do I use function keys F11 to F20?
- These are normally mapped to function keys F1 to F10 with Shift held,
- e.g. function key F13 can be activated by pressing Shift-F3. You can
- define the keys this way in the Options->Learn Keys dialog. The
- convention for PC keyboards is that F11-20 always means Shift with
- F1-10.
- You may find that on the Linux console with some keyboard layouts
- Shift-Fn is interpreted as F(n+12), not as F(n+10). This is a result
- of non-uniformity of keyboard layouts. This is not an intended
- behavior and it may be fixed some day. In the meantime, use "Learn
- Keys" to remedy this inconvenience.
- 2.4 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
- Midnight Commander uses the ESC key as a prefix for simulating the
- Meta and Alt keys (for terminals which don't have Meta or Alt, see
- the three previous questions). For example, pressing ESC-a is the
- same as pressing Meta-a. In addition most terminals use ESC for
- internal representation of arrow keys, function keys and other
- enhanced keys. If you want to use ESC to cancel things you have to
- press it twice i.e. ESC-ESC. If you find this cumbersome you can
- generally use F10 to cancel. Alternatively turn on the old_esc_mode
- setting in the ~/.config/mc/ini file. The
- old_esc_mode setting makes ESC work as a prefix only if another key
- is pressed within 0.5 seconds. After 0.5 seconds the ESC key cancels.
- There is no way to make ESC cancel immediately (if we want to be able
- to use arrows keys and function keys).
- 2.5 How can I add the plus sign (+) on the command line?
- Press C-q first, then press the + sign.
- The plus key is the hotkey for the select files command. If you want
- to add a literal plus on to the command line you must quote it by
- pressing C-q first.
- Another common key which needs the C-q prefix is backslash "\".
- 2.6 C-o doesn't work!
- Maybe C-o is a stty control character on your terminal. See man stty
- for details on how to list and change stty control characters.
- 2.7 What 'keys' are the "a1" and "c1" keys mentioned in the manual?
- The "a1" key is the key which has the "a1" caption on it.
- The "c1" key is the key which has the "c1" caption on it.
- If you have to ask what these two keys are your keyboard hasn't
- probably got them. Actually, I have never seen a keyboard which has
- got them.
- 2.8 How do I change the key bindings?
- There is no generic way to reconfigure the key bindings. You can use
- the "Learn Keys" dialog to assign keys to some actions listed in that
- dialog. However, most actions cannot be redefined to use different
- keys.
- 3 Mouse
- 3.1 How do I enable mouse support?
- Invoke mc like this (without quotes): "mc -x". If this doesn't work
- upgrade to a terminal which compatible with the Xterm mouse
- sequences.
- Alternatively, on Linux console you can use gpm.
- 3.2 How do I cut and paste text with mouse?
- Hold down shift key while using mouse to cut and paste.
- 3.3 How do I get the extension dependent pop-up menu to pop up?
- It was developed for the GNOME edition. The text-mode edition
- doesn't support this feature yet.
- 4 Display
- 4.1 Why do I keep getting "Terminal not powerful enough for SLang" or
- "Terminal not powerful enough for SLsmg"?
- This means that your terminfo databases do not contain the correct
- definitions for your terminal.
- You could try using a different terminal setting. If you use csh or
- tcsh:
- setenv TERM vt100
- or if you use sh, bash, ksh or zsh:
- export TERM=vt100
- 4.2 Why don't line drawing characters work?
- Since version 4.0.13 there's the command line option -a to force use
- of charaters +, |, - for line drawing (only available when compiled
- with S-Lang). Use the -a option if any of the suggestions below
- doesn't help.
- In general, there are three cases:
- * Lines are shown as ASCII characters like this
- +---------+
- | |
- +---------+
- This also happens when you use the -a option. Other than that
- possible reason is 1 or 2 (see below).
- * Lines are shown as lower case characters like this
- lqqqqqqqqqk
- x x
- mqqqqqqqqqj
- Possible reason is 1 or 2 (see below).
- * Lines are shown as blanks or missing characters. Possible reason
- is 2 or 3 (see below).
- The reason for the problem is one of following:
- 1. Your terminal might not support line drawing characters. VT100
- compatible terminals, rxvt and xterm and color_xterm do support
- them.
- 2. Your terminfo or termcap database might have missing or incorrect
- definitions for line drawing characters. Set the acsc variable
- in the terminfo database like this:
- acsc=a\376k\277l\332m\300j\331n\305w\302v\301u\264t\303q\304x
- \263h\2600\333
- Don't forget issue 'tic' command. This supposes you are using PC
- character set. The octal values might be different for other
- character sets. If you are using termcap instead of terminfo,
- you should modify above solution appropriately.
- 3. Your terminal font might not support line drawing characters.
- Try changing the font.
- Here is Miguel's answer to Torben on this subject.
- Torben:
- When I load consolefonts/iso01.f16, I get perfectly right national
- characters, but the line drawing characters in mc get wrong. Is it
- a mc problem, or is it a problem with the font? (I guess it is).
- Is there a trick?
- Miguel:
- First of all, we should determine whether the font has line drawing
- characters or not.
- If it has line drawing characters, then a new terminfo entry should
- be written for this specific case. Let's call this linux-iso01.
- The acsc variable should be modified to reflect which characters
- are used to do the line drawing.
- If it does not have line drawing characters, then we should get rid
- of the switch to acsc sequences and make the acsc sequence be just
- a mapping to the ugly +, -, |, - characters.
- You can get your terminfo definition by running the infocmp
- program, making the proper changes and running the tic program to
- compile your new terminfo database.
- 4.3 Can one use latin-1 characters without losing the lines?
- Yes, you need a correct font and a correct termcap/terminfo database.
- For font, if you use xterm try "xterm -fn fixed".
- For termcap/terminfo database, change the acsc capability in the
- database.
- 4.4 I have problems with entering/viewing national characters!
- Upgrade to version 4.0.12 or newer.
- From the Options - Display Bits dialog select Full 8 bits or ISO
- 8859-1. In addition, select 8 bit input from the same dialog.
- 4.5 How can I get colors?
- Invoke mc like this (without quotes): "mc -c".
- If you get colors, be happy.
- If your terminal stays black and white, your terminal doesn't support
- color. You might want to upgrade to a terminal which compatible with
- the ANSI color sequences.
- If your terminal goes completely black, see the next question.
- More detailed answer:
- Check that your terminal supports color. color_xterm, rxvt and Linux
- console do support, most other terminals don't. You can test color
- support with following simple C program:
- #include <stdio.h>
- int main (void){
- printf ("\033[32m Hello world! \033[m\n");
- return 0;
- }
- Compile and run it. If you see "Hello world!" text in green your
- terminal supports color, otherwise not (however, for color_xterm see
- also the next question).
- Check whether you are using Ncurses or the S-Lang library (type
- "mc -V" to find out).
- With S-Lang library you can force color support by setting the
- environment variable COLORTERM to any value.
- If you use ncurses library, check that your terminfo database
- supports color. If not, you should install one of the enhanced
- terminfo databases included in GNU Midnight Commander source
- distribution.
- You might want to set the TERM environment variable so that you are
- using the correct terminfo database or termcap entry.
- If you use color_xterm (or rxvt) the correct value might be
- xterm-color, xtermc or simply xterm.
- If you use Linux console the correct value for TERM is linux or
- console.
- 4.6 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
- Some color_xterm terminals define all colors as black instead of the
- standard ANSI colors. This makes them go completely black when you
- try to use Midnight Commander with colors.
- You will have to override the defaults. Create a file
- "color.defaults" which has the following contents:
- color_xterm*color0: Black
- color_xterm*color1: Red
- color_xterm*color2: Green
- color_xterm*color3: Yellow
- color_xterm*color4: Blue
- color_xterm*color5: Magenta
- color_xterm*color6: Cyan
- color_xterm*color7: White
- color_xterm*background: White
- color_xterm*foreground: Black
- (replace color_xterm with the name of your color_xterm, color_xterm
- mentions its name in its title bar)
- Now type:
- xrdb -merge color.defaults
- Alternatively you can add the suggested contents of the
- color.defaults file to your .Xdefaults or .Xresources file (or what
- ever the name of your X configuration file is). Or you can replace
- your non-ANSI color_xterm with an ANSI color_xterm.
- 4.7 Where can I get xterm or rxvt?
- xterm is included with the X Window System, so you probably already
- have it if you have X. This version is not actively maintained, but
- Thomas Dickey maintains his more advanced version of xterm at
- ftp://dickey.his.com/xterm/
- rxvt has its own site http://www.rxvt.org/ - get the latest version
- there.
- 4.8 I got colors working with MC but the other programs don't work at
- all anymore!
- Midnight Commander uses terminfo database (if available) but many
- other programs use termcap database. If you set the TERM environment
- variable to a value which has no corresponding entry in termcap
- database those programs stop working. You should add the new value
- of TERM to the termcap database.
- Example: If you have set TERM to xterm-color locate from /etc/termcap
- the line which starts:
- xterm|vs100|xterm terminal emulator
- Change it to start:
- xterm|xterm-color|vs100|xterm terminal emulator
- 5 Graphical user interface
- 5.1 Xview, Tk and Gnome editions?
- Xview and Tk and GNOME editions have been removed from the sources.
- 5.2 Why is MC linked with X libraries?
- GNU Midnight Commander is linked with X libraries to read key
- modifiers from the X Server. It may be helpful to distinguish
- between keys that the terminal emulator reports in the same way, e.g.
- PgUp and Ctrl-PgUp. Versions of GNU Midnight Commander after 4.6.0
- will load X libraries dynamically on the systems that support it.
- 6 Command line problems
- 6.1 How do I stay in the last directory when I exit Midnight Commander?
- See the description of the -P option in the Options section of the
- manual.
- 6.2 How can I access command line history?
- Meta-h shows the last commands you executed from the command line.
- Duplicates are suppressed from the history. Commands executed from
- the subshell prompt are not shown.
- You can put previous commands to the command line with Meta-p. Meta-n
- moves you forward in history.
- Since version 4.1.15 all the input widgets have permanent history.
- You can summon the history listbox by pressing M-h.
- 6.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names and so on?
- Just press M-Tab. Press M-Tab again to get a listbox if there are
- multiple possible completions.
- 6.4 I am using ksh. Can I use functions defined in the .kshrc within
- MC?
- Sorry, MC only supports bash, tcsh and zsh functions. Ksh functions
- are not supported because ksh lacks the necessary hooks needed for
- subshell integration.
- Switch to bash or zsh. They are both quite compatible with ksh.
- Your ksh functions should work as such or after minimal changes.
- 6.5 Is there any way to include additional options or hot keys to MC?
- Yes, F2 invokes an user menu, which is fully configurable. You can
- add any shell commands to the user menu. See the mc(1) man page for
- more info.
- Another way to add functionality is the external panelize feature.
- See the mc(1) man page for more info.
- And finally, you can code any feature you want yourself. MC source
- code is free which means you can change it anyway you want. There
- are some limitations to make sure MC stays free. See GNU General
- Public License for details.
- 6.6 When I use Ctrl-O I don't get a subshell. How do I fix this?
- Only bash, tcsh and zsh can be used as subshell. Use one of those
- shells as your default shell, and it will be used as subshell in GNU
- Midnight Commander.
- 6.7 Ctrl-O doesn't work at all. What happens?
- Ctrl-O works if either the subshell is used or the terminal can save
- the output of the commands so it can be restored. If neither is
- true, there is absolutely nothing interesting behind the panels!
- Only few terminals support screen saving. It's xterm, rxvt and other
- xterm-like terminals and virtual terminals on Linux and FreeBSD.
- 7 Virtual file systems
- 7.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
- If you use keyboard just move the selection bar on the tar file and
- press enter. If you use mouse just double-click on the tar file.
- The recognized suffixes for tar archives are .tar, .tar.gz and .tgz.
- You can also enter a tar archive by typing "cd filename#utar" where
- filename is the name of the archive. In this case, the suffix is not
- important.
- 7.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
- Just press enter on the toplevel ".." file or change to a non-tar
- directory. Just typing "cd" with no parameters is enough (it will
- take you to your home directory).
- 7.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
- Just type "cd ftp://hostname" where hostname is the name of the host
- you want to connect. Alternatively, select FTP link from the Left or
- Right menu and type the name of the host you want to connect.
- 7.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
- Non-anonymous ftp works just like the anonymous ftp but you give the
- login name with the host name. For example, type "cd
- ftp://username@hostname".
- 7.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
- Just change to a non-ftp directory. Simply typing "cd" with no
- parameters is enough (it will take you to your home directory).
- GNU Midnight Commander closes ftp connection automatically after a
- timeout or on exit. It's possible to force disconnect by selecting
- "Command" -> "Active VFS List" in the menu and using the "Free VFSs
- Now" button.
- 7.6 Why aren't the contents of ftp panel updated?
- Update is skipped because there would be a serious performance
- penalty. Constantly updating directory panels through a ftp
- connection would take too much time.
- You can use C-r to force an update.
- 7.7 What kind of proxy server works with Midnight Commander?
- There are two kinds of ftp proxies: proxies for ftp clients and
- proxies for web browsers.
- Midnight Commander only supports ftp proxies which are meant for ftp
- clients. Common WWW proxies (like Squid) are not supported. A rule
- of thumb is that if a ftp proxy requires a web browser, it won't work
- with Midnight Commander.
- 8 Other common problems
- 8.1 When I try pasting to the internal editor, it indents the amount of
- indenting increases with each line!
- Either turn off 'Return does autoindent' in the editor options or
- update GNU Midnight Commander to version 4.6.0 or above - it doesn't
- autoindent when you are holding Shift.
- 8.2 Is it possible to use Colorer for syntax highlighting?
- Yes if you submit the patch. There are no legal problems with it
- because it's licensed under GPL now. The homepage of Colorer is
- http://colorer.sourceforge.net/
- 9 Other common problems
- 9.1 Is there any way to 'bookmark' favorite ftp-fs links?
- Use the directory hotlist. Just press control-backslash. If your
- national keyboard layout doesn't have backslash key, just press the
- control key with the key which is the backslash key in the English
- keyboard layout.
- 9.2 When I start Midnight Commander, nothing happens!
- When MC is compiled with Samba support, have a look at the
- "interfaces = ..." line in your smb.conf file. MC uses pretty old
- Samba code that only expects IP addresses and host names there,
- but not network interface names (like eth0). MC interprets these
- names as host names and tries to resolve them using a DNS server.
- To fix this, ask your system administrator to change the interface
- names to their assigned IP addresses, or (untried) add the interface
- names and their IP addresses to the /etc/hosts file.
- First, invoke MC without subshell support: "mc -u". If this helps
- check the shell you are using. Subshell support works best with
- bash, although tcsh and zsh are also supported. You might want to
- upgrade your shell to a newer version. If you use something else
- than bash, tcsh or zsh, subshell support is disabled automatically.
- Another reason is problems with gpm. Try using "--nomouse" option to
- see if it makes any difference. Restarting gpm can help. Sometimes
- it's enough to move the mouse.
- Also, if you have the DISPLAY environment variable set, but the X
- server is unreachable (e.g. it's firewalled), this can also cause a
- delay at startup. Unset DISPLAY to see if that's the case.
- 10 Development
- 10.1 Who has written Midnight Commander?
- Midnight Commander was started by Miguel de Icaza and he is the
- maintainer of the package. Other authors have joined the project
- later:
- * Mauricio Plaza (early releases)
- * Janne Kukonlehto (joined Sep 27 1994)
- * Radek Doulik (joined Oct 30 1994)
- * Fred Leeflang (joined Nov 2 1994)
- * Dugan Porter (joined Dec 1 1994)
- * Jakub Jelinek (joined Feb 8 1995)
- * Ching Hui (joined Jun 27 1995)
- * Andrej Borsenkow (joined Jul 1996)
- * Paul Sheer (joined Nov 1 1996)
- * Norbert Warmuth
- * Alex I. Tkachenko
- Alessandro Rubini has been specially helpful with debugging and
- enhancing of the mouse support. John E. Davis has made his S-Lang
- library available to us and answered many questions about it.
- Many people have contributed bug reports, feature suggestions and
- small code bits (alphabetical order):
- * Thomasz Cholewo
- * Juan Jose Ciarlante
- * Alexander Dong (OS/2 port, NT port updates)
- * Erwin van Eijk
- * Torben Fjerdingstad
- * Massimo Fontanelli
- * Juan Grigera (NT port)
- * Gerd Knorr
- * Sergey Ya. Korshunoff
- * Jean-Daniel Luiset
- * Wim Osterholt
- * Antonio Palama (old DOS port)
- * Thomas Pundt
- * Marcelo Roccasalva
- * Ilya Rybkin
- * Vadim Sinolits
- * Jon Stevens
- * Adam Tla/lka
- Current list of active developers can be found here:
- http://www.midnight-commander.org/wiki/McDevelopers
- This page lists everbody who has provided a patch or
- has written code for the midnight-commander in the past:
- http://www.midnight-commander.org/wiki/McContributors
- 10.2 Do I dare to use a development version?
- Yes, of course. Feel free to test:
- http://www.midnight-commander.org/wiki#Download
- As we do our development in git, please do a git checkout
- of the master branch and build it
- But always remember: development versions may have nasty bugs
- at some points of time. It's up to you to judge whether the new
- features and fixes for the bugs you know outweigh the risk of unknown
- bugs.
- 10.3 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
- You might first want to get the newest development version to see if
- the bug is fixed or the feature is added already.
- If this is not the case, feel free to add a ticket in our ticket-system,
- which is located here: http://www.midnight-commander.org/newticket
- If you want to send an email instead write your report to mc-devel@gnome.org
- or mc@gnome.org.
- These mailing lists are the most certain way to contact the
- developers. Remember to mention if you are not on the mailing list
- to make sure that you will receive a copy of replies.
- Give as much details as possible. A too long message is a lot better
- than a too short message.
- For segmentation faults a stack backtrace is appreciated. You can
- produce stack backtrace as follows:
- * If segmentation fault produced a core file:
- 1. Load the core file by typing "gdb mc core" or "dbx mc core".
- 2. Type "where".
- 3. Cut and paste the results to your message.
- * If segmentation fault didn't produce a core file:
- 1. Load mc by typing "gdb mc" or "dbx mc".
- 2. Start mc by typing "run".
- 3. Try to reproduce the segmentation fault by doing whatever
- you did last time when the segmentation fault occurred.
- 4. Type "where".
- 5. Cut and paste the results to your message.
- 6. For the future you might want to check out what is the
- command in your shell to allow producing of the core files.
- Usually it is "limit coredumpsize unlimited" or "ulimit
- coredumpsize" or "ulimit -c unlimited".
- 10.4 How can I join the development?
- To join the development just code the feature you want to add and
- send your patch for inclusion. Email address is mc-devel@gnome.org.
- Before you start coding check the latest development version. It
- might be that your feature has already been implemented.
- Note that the authors of GNU Midnight Commander have given all their
- rights on the program to the Free Software Foundation. You will have
- to do the same if you contribute non-trivial patches. Otherwise we
- have to reject your patches in order to avoid copyright problems.
- 11 More information
- 11.1 This document didn't answer my question. Where else can I look for
- an answer?
- Read messages from the Discussion (mailing list archive) or read the
- Manual.
- Upgrade to a newer version of Midnight Commander. Many problems are
- fixed in the new versions.
- If you still can't find an answer, post your question to the Midnight
- Commander mailing list. Its address is mc@gnome.org.
- 11.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
- Following mailing lists discuss about Midnight Commander:
- mc@gnome.org
- General discussion of GNU Midnight Commander
- To subscribe visit
- http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc/
- mc-devel@gnome.org
- Technical development discussion
- To subscribe visit
- http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc-devel/
- mc-commits@googlegroups.com
- mailing list only for applyed commits into master/stable branches
- To subscribe visit
- http://groups.google.com/group/mc-commits/subscribe
- mc-bugs@googlegroups.com
- Mailing list only for tickets and comments (use it as RSS :) )
- To subscribe visit
- http://groups.google.com/group/mc-bugs/subscribe
- 11.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
- There is a WWW page for Midnight Commander. The URL is:
- http://www.midnight-commander.org/
- 11.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
- The mc and mc-devel lists are archived on the World Wide Web. There
- are links to the archives on the mailing list pages (see 10.2).
- 12 Legal issues
- 12.1 Authorship
- Questions and Answers was written by Janne Kukonlehto. Parts of it
- originate from Ian Jackson, Miguel de Icaza, Dugan Porter, Norbert
- Warmuth and Paul Sheer.
- 12.2 Feedback is invited
- Send your comments about this document and GNU Midnight Commander to
- mc@gnome.org
- 12.3 Disclaimer and copyright
- Note that this document is provided as is. The information in it is
- not warranted to be correct; you use it at your own risk.
- You can use Questions and Answers according to GNU General Public
- License (see the COPYING file in GNU Midnight Commander source
- distribution). Questions and Answers is not public domain.
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