[Contents] Topics:  DESCRIPTION DESCRIPTION  OPTIONS OPTIONS  Overview Overview  Mouse Support Mouse Support  Keys Keys  Miscellenous Keys Miscellenous Keys  Directory Panels Directory Panels  Shell Command Line Shell Command Line  General Movement Keys General Movement Keys  Input Line Keys Input Line Keys  Menu Bar Menu Bar  Left and Right Menus Left and Right Menus  Display Mode... Display Mode...  Sort Order... Sort Order...  Filter... Filter...  Reread Reread  File Menu File Menu  Command Menu Command Menu  Directory Tree Directory Tree  Find File Find File  Extension File Edit Extension File Edit  Menu File Edit Menu File Edit  Options Menu Options Menu  Configuration Configuration  Layout Layout  Save Setup Save Setup  Executing operating system commands Executing operating system commands  Macro Substitution Macro Substitution  Controlling Midnight Commander Controlling Midnight Commander  Chmod Chmod  Chown Chown  File Operations File Operations  Mask Rename Mask Rename  Internal File Viewer Internal File Viewer  Colors Colors  Special Settings Special Settings  FILES FILES  AVAILABILITY AVAILABILITY  SEE ALSO SEE ALSO  AUTHORS AUTHORS  BUGS BUGS  License License  QueryBox QueryBox  Help Help [DESCRIPTION] DESCRIPTION The Midnight Commander is a directory browser/file manager for Unix-like operating systems.[OPTIONS] OPTIONS "-b" Forces black and white display. "-c" Used to reverse the effect of -b. This does not actually force ncurses into color mode; it is only used to undo the effect of -b in macros. "-C arg" Use to specify a different color set in the command line. The format of arg is documented in the ColorsColors section. "-d" Disables mouse support. "-f" Displays the compiled-in search paths for Midnight Commander files. "-P" At program end, the Midnight Commander will print the last working directory; this, along with the shell function below, will allow you to browse through your directories and automatically move to the last directory you were in (thanks to Torben Fjerdingstad for contributing this function and the code which implements this option). mc () { MC=`/usr/local/bin/mc -P "$@"` [ -n "$MC" ] && cd "$MC" ; unset MC; } "-s" Turns off verbose operation. Also, verbose mode is toggled off when running on slow terminals (less than 9600 bps). "-u" Disables the use of a concurrent shell (only makes sense if the Midnight Commander has been built with concurrent shell support). "-V" Displays the version of the program. "-x" Forces xterm mode. Used when running on xterm-capable terminals (two screen modes, and able to send mouse escape sequences). If specified, the first path name is the directory to show in the selected panel; the second path name is the directory to be shown in the other panel. [Overview] Overview The screen of the Midnight Commander is divided into four parts. Almost all of the screen space is taken up by two directory panels. By default, the second bottommost line of the screen is the shell command line, and the bottom line shows the function key labels. The topmost line is the menu bar line.Menu Bar The menu bar line isn't normally visible, but appears if you click the topmost line with the mouse or press the F9 key. The Midnight Commander provides a view of two directories at the same time. One of the panels is the current panel (a selection bar is in the current panel). Almost all operations take place on the current panel. Some file operations like Rename and Copy by default use the directory of the unselected panel as a destination (don't worry, they always ask you for confirmation first). For more information, see the sections on the Directory Panels,Directory Panels the Left and Right MenusLeft and Right Menus and the File Menu.File Menu You can execute system commands from the Midnight Commander by simply typing them. Everything you type will appear on the shell command line, and when you press Enter the Midnight Commander will execute the command line you typed; read the Shell Command LineShell Command Line and Input Line KeysInput Line Keys sections to learn more about the command line. [Mouse Support] Mouse Support The Midnight Commander comes with mouse support. It is activated whenever you are running on an xterm terminal (it even works if you take a telnet or rlogin connection to another machine from the xterm) or if you are running on a Linux console and have the gpm mouse server running. When you left click on a file in the directory panels, that file is selected; if you click with the right button, the file is marked (or unmarked, depending on the previous state). Double-clicking on a file will try to execute the command if it is an executable program; and if the extension fileExtension File Edithas a program specified for the file's extension, the specified program is executed. Also, it is possible to execute the commands assigned to the function key labels by clicking on them. If a mouse button is clicked on the top frame line of the directory panel, it is scrolled one pageful backward. Correspondingly, a click on the bottom frame line will cause a scroll of one pageful forward. This frame line method works also in the Help ViewerHelp and the Directory Tree.Directory Tree The default auto repeat rate for the mouse buttons is 400 milliseconds. This may be changed to other values by editing the .mc.iniSave Setup file and changing the mouse_repeat_rate parameter. If you are running the Commander with the mouse support (on a xterm or a Linux console with the gpm mouse server), you can bypass the Commander and get the default mouse behaviour (cutting and pasting text) by holding down the Shift key.[] [Keys] Keys Some commands in the Midnight Commander involve the use of the Control (sometimes labeled CTRL or CTL) and the Meta (sometimes labeled ALT or even Compose) keys. In this manual we will use the following abbreviations: C- means hold the Control key while typing the character . Thus C-f would be: hold the Control key and type f. M- means hold the Meta or Alt key down while typing . If there is no Meta or Alt key, type ESC, release it, then type the character . All input lines in the Midnight Commander use an approximation to the GNU Emacs editor's key bindings. There are many sections which tell about the keys. The following are the most important. The File MenuFile Menu section documents the keyboard shortcuts for the commands appearing in the File menu. This section includes the function keys. Most of these commands perform some action, usually on the selected file or the tagged files. The Directory PanelsDirectory Panels section documents the keys which select a file or tag files as a target for a later action (the action is usually one from the file menu). The Shell Command LineShell Command Line section list the keys which are used for entering and editing command lines. Most of these copy file names and such from the directory panels to the command line (to avoid excessive typing) or access the command line history. Input Line KeysInput Line Keys are used for editing input lines. This means both the command line and the input lines in the query dialogs. [Miscellenous Keys] Miscellenous Keys Here are some keys which don't fall into any of the other categories: Enter. If there is some text in the command line (the one at the bottom of the panels), then that command is executed. If there is no text in the command line then if the selection bar is over a directory the Midnight Commander does a chdir(2) to the selected directory and reloads the information on the panel; if the selection is an executable file then it is executed. Finally, if the extension of the selected file name matches one of the extensions in the extensions fileExtension File Edit then the corresponding command is executed. C-l. Repaint all the information in the Midnight Commander. C-x a. Toggle the auto mount/unmount feature. C-x c. Run the ChmodChmod command on a file or on the tagged files. C-x o. Run the ChownChown command on the current file or on the tagged files. C-x l. Run the link command. C-x s. Run the symbolic link command. C-x m. On systems which allow users to mount filesystems, mount the current mount point. C-x u. On systems allowing users to unmount filesystems, unmount the current mount point. C-x i. Set the other panel display mode to information. C-x h Run the "add directory to hotlist" command.[Directory Panels] Directory Panels This section lists the keys which operate on the directory panels. If you want to know how to change the appearance of the panels take a look at the section on Left and Right Menus.Left and Right Menus Tab, C-i. Change the current panel. The old other panel becomes the new current panel and the old current panel becomes the new other panel. The selection bar moves from the old current panel to the new current panel. Insert, C-t. In order to tag files you may use the Insert key (the kich1 terminfo sequence) or the C-t (Control-t) sequence. To untag files, just retag a tagged file. M-g, M-h (or M-r), M-j. Used to select the top file in a panel, the middle file and the bottom one, respectively. C-s, M-s. Start a filename search in the directory listing. When the search is active the keypresses will be added to the search string instead of the command line. If the "Show mini-status" option is enabled the search string is shown on the mini-status line. When typing, the selection bar will move to the next file starting with the typed letters. The "backspace" or DEL keys can be used to correct typing mistakes. If C-s is pressed again, the next match is searched for. C-\\ (control-backslash). Show the directory hotlist and change to the selected directory. For more information see the Command menu.Command Menu + (plus). This is used to select (tag) a group of files. The Midnight Commander will prompt for a regular expression describing the group. When Shell Patterns are enabled, the regular expression is much like the regular expressions in the shell (* standing for zero or more characters and ? standing for one character). If Shell Patterns is off, then the tagging of files is done with normal regular expressions (see ed (1)). \\ (backslash). Use the "\" key to unselect a group of files. This is the opposite of the Plus key. up-key, C-p. Move the selection bar to the previous entry in the panel. down-key, C-n. Move the selection bar to the next entry in the panel. home, a1, M-<. Move the selection bar to the first entry in the panel. end, c1, M->. Move the selection bar to the last entry in the panel. next-page, C-v. Move the selection bar one page down. prev-page, M-v. Move the selection bar one page up. [Shell Command Line] Shell Command Line This section lists keys which are useful to avoid excessive typing when entering shell commands. M-Enter. Copy the currently selected file name to the command line. M-Tab. Copy the currently selected file name in the unselected panel to the command line. C-x t, C-x C-t. Copy the tagged files (or if there are no tagged files, the selected file) of the current panel (C-x t) or of the other panel (C-x C-t) to the command line. C-x p, C-x C-p. The first key sequence copies the current path name to the command line, and the second one copies the unselected panel's path name to the command line. C-q. The quote command can be used to insert characters that are otherwise interpreted by the Midnight Commander (like the +) M-p, M-n. Use these keys to browse through the command history. M-p takes you to the last entry, M-n takes you to the next one. [General Movement Keys] General Movement Keys The help viewer, the file viewer and the directory tree use common code to handle moving. Therefore they accept exactly the same keys. Each of them also accepts some keys of its own. Other parts of the Midnight Commander use some of the same movement keys, so this section may be of use for those parts too. Up, C-p. Moves one line backward. Down, C-n. Moves one line forward. Prev Page, Page Up, M-v. Moves one pageful backward. Next Page, Page Down, C-v. Moves one pageful forward. Home, A1. Moves to the beginning. End, C1. Move to the end. The help viewer and the file viewer accept the following keys in addition the to ones mentioned above: b, C-b, C-h, Backspace, Delete. Moves one pageful backward. Space bar. Moves one pageful forward. u, d. Moves one half of a page backward or forward. g, G. Moves to the beginning or to the end. [Input Line Keys] Input Line Keys The input lines (they are used for the command lineShell Command Line and for the query dialogs in the program) accept these keys: C-a puts the cursor at the beginning of line. C-e puts the cursor at the end of the line. C-b, move-left move the cursor one position left. C-f, move-right move the cursor one position right. M-f moves one word forward. M-b moves one word backward. C-h, backspace delete the previous character. C-d, Delete delete the character in the point (over the cursor). C-@ sets the mark for cutting. C-w copies the text between the cursor and the mark to a kill buffer and removes the text from the input line. M-w copies the text between the cursor and the mark to a kill buffer. C-y yanks back the contents of the kill buffer. C-k kills the text from the cursor to the end of the line. M-C-h, M-Backspace delete one word backward. [] [Menu Bar] Menu Bar The menu bar pops up when you press F9 or click the mouse on the top row of the screen. The menu bar has five menus: "Left", "File", "Command", "Options" and "Right". The Left and Right MenusLeft and Right Menus allow you to modify the appearance of the left and right directory panels. The File MenuFile Menu lists the actions you can perform on the currently selected file or the tagged files. The Command MenuCommand Menu lists the actions which are more general and bear no relation to the currently selected file or the tagged files. The Options MenuOptions Menu has some options which may be toggled on and off. [Left and Right Menus] Left and Right Menus The outlook of the directory panels can be changed from the "Left" and "Right" menus. There are seven different views which can be selected and six sort orders as well as two special commands. [Display Mode...] Display Mode... The seven directory views are Full, Brief, Long, Info, Tree, Quick and User. The full directory view shows the file name, the size of the file and the modification time. The brief view shows only the file name and it has two columns (therefore showing twice as many files as other views). The long view is similar to the output of "ls -l" command. The long view takes the whole screen width. The info and tree views are special in that they don't display files. (Currently the info view is yet to be documented.) The tree view is quite similar to the directory treeDirectory Tree feature. See the section about it for more information. If you choose the "User" display format, then you have to specify the display format. The user display format must start with a panel size specifier. This may be "half" or "full", and they specify a half screen panel and a full screen panel respectively. After the panel size, you may specify the two columns mode on the panel, this is done by adding the number "2" to the user format string. After this you add the name of the fields with an optional size specifier. This are the available fields you may display: name, displays the file name. size, displays the file size. type, displays a one character field type. This character is the same that is displayed by ls with the -F flag. An asterisk for executable files, a slash for directories, an at-sign for links and an equal sign for sockets. mtime, file's last modification time. atime, file's last access time. ctime, file's creation time. perm, a string representing the current permission bits of the file. mode, an octal value with the current permission bits of the file. nlink, the number of links to the file. owner, the owner of the file. group, the group of the file. inode, the inode of the file. Also you may use these field names for arranging the display: space, a space in the display format. mark, An asterisk if the file is tagged, a space if it's not. |, This character is used to add a vertical line to the display format. To force one field to a fixed size (a size specifier), you just add a ':' and then the number of characters you want the field to have. For example, the Full display corresponds to this format: half type,name,|,size,|,mtime And the Long display corresponds to this format: full perm,space,nlink,space,owner,space,group,space,size,space, mtime,space,name This is a nice user display format: half name,|,size:7,|,type,mode:3 [Sort Order...] Sort Order... The six sort orders are by name, by extension, by time, by size, by inode and unsorted. In the Sort order dialox box you can choose the sort order and you may also specify if you want to sort in reverse order by checking the reverse box. By default directories are sorted before files but this can be changed from the Options menuOptions Menu (option "miX all files" ). [Filter...] Filter... The filter command allows you to specify a shell pattern (for example "*.tar.gz" ) which the files must match to be shown. Regardless of the filter pattern, the directories and the links to directories are always shown in the directory panel. [Reread] Reread As the name implies, the reread command rereads the list of files in the directory. It is useful if other processes have created or removed files. [File Menu] File Menu The Midnight Commander uses the F1 - F10 keys as keyboard shortcuts for commands appearing in the file menu. The escape sequences for the Fkeys are ncurses' kf1 trough kf10. On terminals without function key support, you can achieve the same functionality by pressing the ESC key and then a number in the range 1 through 9 and 0 (corresponding to F1 to F9 and F10 respectively). The File menu has the following commands (keyboard shortcuts in parentheses): Help (F1) Invokes the built-in hypertext help viewer. Inside the help viewer,Help you can use the Tab key to select the next link and the Enter key to follow that link. The keys Space and Backspace are used to move forward and backward in a help page. Press F1 again to get the full list of accepted keys. Menu (F2) Invoke the user menu.Menu File Edit The user menu provides an easy way to provide users with a menu and add extra features to the Midnight Commander. View (F3) View the currently selected file. By default this invokes the Internal File ViewerInternal File Viewer but if the option "Use internal view" is off, it invokes an external file viewer specified by the PAGER environment variable. If PAGER is undefined, the "view" command is invoked. Edit (F4) Currently it invokes the "vi" editor or the editor specified in the EDITOR environment variable. Copy (F5) Pop up an input dialog that defaults to the directory in the non-selected panel and copies the currently selected file (or the tagged files, if there is at least one file tagged) to the directory specified by the user in the input dialog. During this process, you can press C-c or ESC to abort the operation. Link (C-x l) Create a hard link to the current file. SymLink (C-x s) Create a symbolic link to the current file. To those of you who don't know what links are: creating a link to a file is a bit like copying the file, but both the source filename and the destination filename represent the same file image. For example, if you edit one of these files, all changes you make will appear in both files. Some people call links aliases or shortcuts. A hard link appears as a real file. After making it, there is no way of telling which one is the original and which is the link. If you delete either one of them the other one is still intact. It is very difficult to notice that the files represent the same image. Use hard links when you don't even want to know. A symbolic link is a reference to the name of the original file. If the original file is deleted the symbolic link is useless. It is quite easy to notice that the files represent the same image. The Midnight Commander shows an "@"-sign in front of the file name if it is a symbolic link to somewhere. The original file where the link points is shown on mini-status line if the "Show mini-status" option is enabled. Use symbolic links when you want to avoid the confusion that can be caused by hard links. Rename/Move (F6) Pop up an input dialog that defaults to the directory in the non-selected panel and moves the currently selected file (or the tagged files if there is at least one tagged file) to the directory specified by the user in the input dialog. During the process, you can press C-c or ESC to abort the operation. Mask rename (C-x r) See the separate section on mask rename.Mask Rename Mkdir (F7) Pop up an input dialog and creates the directory specified. Delete (F8) Delete the currently selected file or the tagged files in the currently selected panel. During the process, you can press C-c or ESC to abort the operation. Select group (+) This is used to select (tag) a group of files. The Midnight Commander will prompt for a regular expression describing the group. When Shell Patterns are enabled, the regular expression is much like the filename globbing in the shell (* standing for zero or more characters and ? standing for one character). If Shell Patterns is off, then the tagging of files is done with normal regular expressions (see ed (1)). To mark directories instead of files, the expression must start or end with a '/'. Unselect group (\\) Used for unselecting a group of files. This is the opposite of the "Select group" command. Quit (F10) Terminate the Midnight Commander [Command Menu] Command Menu The Directory treeDirectory Tree command shows a tree figure of the directories. The Find fileFind File command allows you to search for a specific file. The "Swap panels" command swaps the contents of the two directory panels. The "Panels on/off" command shows the output of the last shell command. This works only on xterm and on Linux console. The "Compare directories" (C-x d) command compares the panels with each other. Files which don't exist in the other panel or are newer than the corresponding file in the other panel are tagged. You can then use the Copy (F5) command to make the panels identical. The Command history command shows a list of typed commands. The selected command is copied to the command line. The command history can also be accessed by typing M-p or M-n. The Add to hotlist command (C-x h) adds the current directory into the directory hotlist. The user is prompted for a label for the directory. The Directory hotlist command shows the labels of the directories in the directory hotlist. The Midnight Commander will change to the directory corresponding to the selected label. The Extension file editExtension File Edit command allows you to specify programs to executed when you try to execute files with certain extensions (filename endings). The Menu file editMenu File Editcommand may be used for editing the user menu (which appears by pressing F2). [Directory Tree] Directory Tree The Directory Tree command shows a tree figure of the directories. You can select a directory from the figure and the Midnight Commander will change to that directory. There are two ways to invoke the tree. The real directory tree command is available from Commands menu. The other way is to select tree view from the Left or Right menu. In order to get rid of long delays the Midnight Commander creates the tree figure by scanning only a small subset of all the directories. If the directory which you want to see is missing, move to its parent directory and press C-r (or F2). You can use the following keys: General movement keysGeneral Movement Keys are accepted. Enter. In the directory tree, exits the directory tree and changes to this directory in the current panel. In the tree view, changes to this directory in the other panel and stays in tree view mode in the current panel. C-r, F2 (Rescan). Rescan this directory. Use this when the tree figure is out of date: it is missing subdirectories or shows some subdirectories which don't exist any more. F3 (Forget). Delete this directory from the tree figure. Use this to remove clutter from the figure. If you want the directory back to the tree figure press F2 in its parent directory. F4 (Static/Dynamic). Toggle between the dynamic navigation mode (default) and the static navigation mode. In the static navigation mode you can use the Up and Down keys to select a directory. All known directories are shown. In the dynamic navigation mode you can use the Up and Down keys to select a sibling directory, the Left key to move to the parent directory, and the Right key to move to a child directory. Only the parent, sibling and children directories are shown, others are left out. The tree figure changes dynamically as you traverse. F5 (Copy). Copy the directory. F6 (RenMov). Move the directory. F7 (Mkdir). Make a new directory below this directory. F8 (Delete). Delete this directory from the file system. C-s, M-s. Search the next directory matching the search string. If there is no such directory these keys will move one line down. C-h, Backspace. Delete the last character of the search string. Any other character. Add the character to the search string and move to the next directory which starts with these characters. In the tree view you must first activate the search mode by pressing C-s. The search string is shown in the mini status line. The following actions are available only in the directory tree. They aren't supported in the tree view. F1 (Help). Invoke the help viewer and show this section. Esc, F10. Exit the directory tree. Do not change the directory. The mouse is supported. A double-click behaves like Enter. See also the section on mouse support.Mouse Support [Find File] Find File The Find File feature first asks for the start directory for the search and the filename to be searched for. By pressing the Tree button you can select the start directory from the directory treeDirectory Tree figure. You can start the search by pressing the Ok button. During the search you can stop from the Stop button and continue from the Start button. You can browse the filelist with the up and down arrow keys. The Chdir button will change to the directory of the currently selected file. The Again button will ask for the parameters for a new search. The Quit button quits the search operation. The Panelize button will place the found files to the current directory panel so that you can do additional operations on them (view, copy, move, delete and so on). After panelizing you can press C-r to return to the normal file listing. [Extension File Edit] Extension File Edit This will invoke your editor on the file ~/.mc.ext. The format of this file is as follows: each line specifies an extension and the command associated to that extension. The extension must start at the first column and begin with a dot. Everything after the extension is the code executed when you press Enter over a file that matches that extension. Simple macro substitutionMacro Substitution takes place before executing the command. Here is an example of an extension file: .tar.gz tar tzvf %f | more .tar.Z tar tzvf %f | more .tar tar tvf %f | more .zip unzip -v %f | more .o nm %f | more .a ar tv %f | more .tex tex %f .latex latex %f .dvi dvips %f You may also use regular expressions. If the extension doesn't start with a dot it is interpreted as a shell pattern or a regular expression instead (according to the shell patterns option). For example, if you have Amiga MOD files: MOD.* tracker %f # Shell patterns on or ^MOD\..+$ tracker %f # Shell patterns off You can override the global value of the shell patterns option by writing "shell_patterns=x" on the first line of the extension file (where "x" is either 0 or 1). [Menu File Edit] Menu File Edit The user menu is a menu of useful actions that can be customised by the user. When you access the user menu, the file ~/.mc.menu is used if it exists, and otherwise /usr/local/lib/mc.menu is used. The format of the menu file is very simple. Lines that start with anything but space or tab are considered entries for the menu (in order to be able to use it like a hot key, the first character should be a letter). All the lines that start with a space or a tab are the commands that will be executed when the entry is selected. When an option is selected all the command lines of the option are copied to a temporary file in the temporary directory (usually /usr/tmp) and then that file is executed. This allows the user to put normal shell constructs in the menus. Also simple macro substitution takes place before executing the menu code. For more information, see macro substitution.Macro Substitution Here is a sample mc.menu file: A Dump the currently selected file od -c %f B Edit a bug report and send it to root vi /tmp/mail.$$ mail -s "Midnight Commander bug" root < /tmp/mail.$$ M Read mail emacs -f rmail N Read Usenet news emacs -f gnus H Call the info hypertext browser info J Copy current directory to other panel recursively tar cf - . | (cd %D && tar xvpf -) K Make a release of the current subdirectory echo -n "Name of distribution file: " read tar ln -s %d `dirname %d`/$tar cd .. tar cvhf ${tar}.tar $tar = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n X Extract the contents of a compressed tar file tar xzvf %f Default Conditions Each menu entry may be preceded by a condition. The condition must start from the first column with a '=' character. If the condition is true, the menu entry will be the default entry. Condition syntax: = or: = | ... or: = & ... Sub-condition is one of following: f current file matching pattern? F other file matching pattern? d current directory matching pattern? D other directory matching pattern? t current file of type? T other file of type? ! negate the result of sub-condition Pattern is a normal shell pattern or a regular expression, according to the shell patterns option. You can override the global value of the shell patterns option by writing "shell_patterns=x" on the first line of the menu file (where "x" is either 0 or 1). Type is one or more of the following characters: n not directory r regular file d directory l link c char special b block special f fifo s socket x executable t tagged For example 'rlf' means either regular file, link or fifo. The 't' type is a little special because it acts on the panel instead of the file. The condition '=t t' is true if there are tagged files in the current panel and false if not. If the condition starts with '=?' instead of '=' a debug trace will be shown whenever the value of the condition is calculated. The conditions are calculated from left to right. This means = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n is calculated as ( (f *.tar.gz) | (f *.tgz) ) & (t n) Here is a sample of the use of conditions: = f *.tar.gz | f *.tgz & t n L List the contents of a compressed tar-archive gzip -cd %f | tar xvf - Addition Conditions If the condition begins with '+' (or '+?') instead of '=' (or '=?') it is an addition condition. If the condition is true the menu entry will be included in the menu. If the condition is false the menu entry will not be included in the menu. You can combine default and addition conditions by starting condition with '+=' or '=+' (or '+=?' or '=+?' if you want debug trace). If you want to use two different conditions, one for adding and another for defaulting, you can precede a menu entry with two condition lines, one starting with '+' and another starting with '='. Comments are started with '#'. The additional comment lines must start with '#', space or tab. [Options Menu] Options Menu The ConfigurationConfiguration command pops up a dialog from which you can change most of settings of the Midnight Commander. The Save setupSave Setup command saves the current settings of the Left, Right and Options menus. A small number of other settings is saved, too. [Configuration] Configuration The program has some options that may be toggled on and off from the Configuration dialog. Options are enabled if they have an asterisk or "x" in front of them. These options are divided into three groups: Screen Colors, Panel Options and Other Options. Screen Colors You can select whether your display supports color or not. Normally this information is in the terminfo database. If you want to know how to change individual colors see the section on Colors.Colors Panel Options Show Backup Files. By default the Midnight Commander doesn't show files ending in '~' (like GNU's ls option -B). Show Hidden Files. By default the Midnight Commander will show all files that start with a dot (like ls -a). Mark moves down. By default when you mark a file (with either C-t or the Insert key) the selection bar will move down. Show Mini-Status. If enabled, show one line of status information at the bottom of the panels about the currently selected item. Mix all files. When this option is enabled, all files and directories are shown mixed together. If the option is off, directories (and links to directories) are shown at the beginning of the listing, and other files afterwards. Fast directory reload. This option is off by default. If you activate the fast reload, the Midnight Commander will use a trick to determine if the directory contents have changed. The trick is to reload the directory only if the i-node of the directory has changed; this means that reloads only happen when files are created or deleted. If what changes is the i-node for a file in the directory (file size changes, mode or owner changes, etc) the display is not updated. In these cases, if you have the option on, you have to rescan the directory manually (with C-r). Other Options Verbose operation. This toggles whether the file Copy, Rename and Delete operations are verbose (i.e., display a dialog box for each operation). If you have a slow terminal, you may wish to disable the verbose operation. It is automatically turned off if the speed of your terminal is less than 9600 bps. Pause after run. After executing your commands you'll be asked to press any key to refresh the screen. This is to let you see the output of your command before continuing. On xterm or the Linux console you can use C-o to view the output of the last command instead of using this option. Shell Patterns. By default the Select, Unselect and Filter commands will use shell-like regular expressions. The following conversions are performed to achieve this: the '*' is replaced by '.*' (zero or more characters); the '?' is replaced by '.' (exactly one character) and '.' by the literal dot. If the option is disabled, then the regular expressions are the ones described in ed(1). Auto Save Setup. If this option is enabled, when you exit the Midnight Commander the configurable options of the Midnight Commander are saved in the $HOME/.mc.ini file. Auto menus. If this option is enabled, the user menu will be invoked at startup. Useful for building menus for non-unixers. Use internal viewer. If this option is enabled, the built-in file viewer is used to view files. If the option is disabled, the pager specified in the PAGER environment variable is used. If no pager is specified, the view command is used. See the section on the internal file viewer.Internal File Viewer Confirm Delete. This option is toggled on by default, and will cause the Midnight Commander to ask for confirmation when deleting a single file. Automount. See the section on Special Settings.Special Settings 8-bit clean. This option allows use of 8-bit characters. It requires that curses/ncurses be 8-bit clean. If it isn't, things might look strange. [Layout] Layout The layout dialog gives you a possibility to change the general layout of screen. You can specify whether the menubar, the command prompt and the function keybar are visible. On the Linux console you can specify how many lines are shown in the output window. The rest of the screen area is used for the two directory panels. You can specify whether the area is split to the panels in vertical or horizontal direction. The split can be equal or you can specify an unequal split. [Save Setup] Save Setup At startup the Midnight Commander will try to load initialization information from the $HOME/.mc.ini file. If this file doesn't exist, it will load the information from the system-wide configuration file, located in /usr/local/lib/mc.ini. If the system-wide configuration file doesn't exist, MC uses the default settings. The Save Setup command creates the $HOME/.mc.ini file by saving the current settings of the Left, RightLeft and Right Menus and OptionsOptions Menu menus. If you activate the auto save setup option, MC will always save the current settings when exiting. There also exist settings which can't be changed from the menus. To change these settings you have to edit the setup file with your favorite editor. See the section on Special SettingsSpecial Settings for more information. [] [Executing operating system commands] Executing operating system commands You may execute commands by typing them directly in the Midnight Commander's input line, or by selecting the program you want to execute with the selection bar in one of the panels and hitting Enter. If you press Enter over a file that is not executable, the Midnight Commander checks the extension of the selected file against the extensions in the Extensions File.Extension File Edit If a match is found then the code associated with that extension is executed. A very simple macro expansionMacro Substitution takes place before executing the command. [Macro Substitution] Macro Substitution When accessing a user menu, Menu File Edit or executing an extension dependent command,Extension File Edit or running a command from the command line input, a simple macro substitution takes place. The macros are: "%f" The current file name. "%d" The current directory name. "%F" The current file in the unselected panel. "%D" The directory name of the unselected panel. "%t" The currently tagged files. "%T" The tagged files in the unselected panel. "%u" and "%U" Similar to the %t and %T macros, but in addition the files are untagged. You can use this macro only once per menu file entry or extension file entry, because next time there will be no tagged files. "%s" and "%S" The selected files: The tagged files if there are any. Otherwise the current file. "%%" The % character "%{some text}" Prompt for the substitution. An input box is shown and the text inside the braces is used as a prompt. The macro is substituted by the text typed by the user. The user can press ESC or F10 to cancel. This macro doesn't work on the command line yet. [Controlling Midnight Commander] Controlling Midnight Commander The Midnight Commander defines an environment variable MC_CONTROL_FILE. The commands executed by MC may give instructions to MC by writing to the file specified by this variable. The following instructions are supported. clear_tags Clear all tags. tag Tag specified file. untag Untag specified file. select Move pointer to file. change_panel Switch between panels. cd Change directory. If the first letter of the instruction is in lower case it operates on the current panel. If the letter is in upper case the instruction operates on the other panel. The additional letters must be in lower case. Instructions must be separated by exactly one space, tab or newline. The instructions don't work in the Info, Tree and Quick views. The first error causes the rest to be ignored. [Chmod] Chmod The Chmod window is used to change the attribute bits in a group of files and directories. It can be invoked with the C-x c key combination. The Chmod window has two parts - Permissions and File In the File section are displayed the name of the file or directory and its permissions in octal form, as well as its owner and group. In the Permissions section there is a set of check buttons which correspond to the file attribute bits. As you change the attribute bits, you can see the octal value change in the File section. To move between the widgets (buttons and check buttons) use the arrow keys or the Tab key. To change the state of the check buttons or to select a button use Space. You can also use the hotkeys on the buttons to quickly activate that selection (they are the highlit letters on the buttons). To set the attribute bits, use the Enter key. When working with a group of files or directories, you just click on the bits you want to set or clear. Once you have selected the bits you want to change, you select one of the action buttons (Set marked or Clear marked). Finally, to set the attributes exactly to those specified, you can use the [Set all] button, which will act on all the tagged files. [Marked all] set only marked attributes to all selected files [Set marked] set marked bits in attributes of all selected files [Clean marked] clear marked bits in attributes of all selected files [Set] set the attributes of one file [Cancel] cancel the Chmod command [Chown] Chown The Chown command is used to change the owner/group of a file. The hot key for this command is C-x o. [File Operations] File Operations When you copy, move or delete files the Midnight Commander shows the file operations dialog. It shows the files currently being operated on and there are at most three progress bars. The file bar tells how big part of the current file has been copied so far. The count bar tells how many of tagged files have been handled so far. The bytes bar tells how big part of total size of the tagged files has been handled so far. If the verbose option is off the file and bytes bars are not shown. There are two buttons at the bottom of the dialog. Pressing the Skip button will skip the rest of the current file. Pressing the Abort button will abort the whole operation, the rest of the files are skipped. There are three other dialogs which you can run into during the file operations. The error dialog informs about error conditions and has three choices. Normally you select either the Skip button to skip the file or the Abort button to abort the operation altogether. You can also select the Retry button if you fixed the problem from another terminal. The replace dialog is shown when you attempt to copy or move a file on the top of an existing file. The dialog shows the dates and sizes of the both files. Press the Yes button to overwrite the file, the No button to skip the file, the alL button to overwrite all the files, the nonE button to never overwrite and the Update button to overwrite if the source file is newer than the target file. You can abort the whole operation by pressing the Abort button. The recursive delete dialog is shown when you try to delete a directory which is not empty. Press the Yes button to delete the directory recursively, the No button to skip the directory, the alL button to delete all the directories and the nonE button to skip all the non-empty directories. You can abort the whole operation by pressing the Abort button. If you selected the Yes or alL button you will be asked for a confirmation. Type "yes" only if you are really sure you want to do the recursive delete. If you have tagged files and perform an operation on them only the files on which the operation succeeded are untagged. Failed and skipped files are left tagged. [Mask Rename] Mask Rename The mask rename operation asks for a source mask and a target mask. All the files matching the source mask are renamed according to the target mask. If there are tagged files, only the tagged files matching the source mask are renamed. Before each actual rename operation you are asked for confirmation. "Shell patterns on" When the shell patterns option is on you can use the '*' and '?' wildcards in the source mask. They work like they do in the shell. In the target mask only the '*' and '\' wildcards is allowed. The first '*' wildcard in the target mask corresponds to the first wildcard group in the source mask, the second '*' corresponds to the second group and so on. The '\1' wildcard corresponds to the first wildcard group in the source mask, the '\2' wildcard corresponds to the second group and so on all the way up to '\9'. The '\0' wildcard is the whole filename of the source file. Two examples: If the source mask is "*.tar.gz", the target mask is "*.tgz" and the file to be renamed is "foo.tar.gz", the new name will be "foo.tgz". Let's suppose you want to swap basename and extension so that "file.c" will become "c.file" and so on. The source mask for this is "*.*" and the target mask is "\2.\1". "Shell patterns off" When the shell patterns option is off the MC doesn't do automatic grouping anymore. You must use '\(...\)' expressions in the source mask to specify meaning for the wildcards in the target mask. This is more flexible but also reguires more typing. Otherwise target masks are similar to the situation when the shell patterns option is on. Two examples: If the source mask is "^\(.*\)\.tar\.gz$", the target mask is "*.tgz" and the file to be renamed is "foo.tar.gz", the new name will be "foo.tgz". Let's suppose you want to swap basename and extension so that "file.c" will become "c.file" and so on. The source mask for this is "^\(.*\)\.\(.*\)$" and the target mask is "\2.\1". [Internal File Viewer] Internal File Viewer The internal file viewer provides two display modes: ASCII and hex. To toggle between modes, use the F4 key. If you have the GNU gzip program installed, it will be used to automatically decompress the files on demand. When in hex mode, the search function accepts text in quotes as well as hexadecimal constants. You can mix quoted text with constants like this: "String" 0xFE 0xBB "more text". Text between constants and quoted text is just ignored. On systems that provide the mmap(2) system call, the program maps the file instead of loading it. Here is a listing of the actions associated with each key that the Midnight Commander handles in the internal file viewer. F1 Invoke the builtin hypertext help viewer. F2 Toggle the wrap mode. F4 Toggle the hex mode. F6, /. Regular expression search. F7 Normal search / hex mode search. n, C-s. Continue search, or start normal search if there was no previous search expression. F8 Toggle automatic decompression. F10, Esc. Exit the internal file viewer. next-page, space, C-v. Scroll one page forward. prev-page, M-v, C-b, backspace. Scroll one page backward. down-key Scroll one line forward. up-key Scroll one line backward. C-l Refresh the screen. [Colors] Colors The Midnight Commander provides a way to change the default colors. Currently the colors are configured using the environment variable MC_COLOR_TABLE or the Colors section in the initialization file. In the Colors section, the default color map is loaded from the base_color variable. You can specify an alternate color map for a terminal by using the terminal name as the key in this section. Example: [Colors] base_color= xterm=menu=magenta:marked=,magenta:markselect=,red The format for the color definition is: =,:= ... The colors are optional, and the keywords are: normal, selected, marked, markselect, errors, menu, reverse and the dialog colors are: dnormal, dfocus, dhotcolor, dhotfocus. The possible colors are: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white. If you are setting the colors from your private setup, you would use this format: colors=menu=magenta:marked=,magenta:markselect=,red [Special Settings] Special Settings Most of the settings of the Midnight Commander can be changed from the menus. However, there are a small number of settings which can only be changed by editing the setup file. These variables may be set in your $HOME/.mc.ini file: max_dirt_limit. Specifies how many screen updates can be skipped at most in the internal file viewer. Normally this value is not significant, because the code automatically adjusts the number of updates to skip according to the rate of incoming keypresses. However, on very slow machines or terminals with a fast keyboard auto repeat, a big value can make screen updates too jumpy. It seems that setting max_dirt_limit to 10 causes the best behavior, and that is the default value. navigate_with_arrows. If this setting is turned on, then you may use the arrows keys to automatically chdir if the current selection is a subdirectory and the shell command line is empty. By default, this setting is off. confirm_view_dir. If you press F3 on a directory, normally MC enters that directory. If this flag is set to 1, then MC will ask for confirmation before changing the directory if you have files tagged. clear_before_exec. By default the Midnight Commander clears the screen before executing a command. If you would prefer to see the output of the command at the bottom of the screen, edit your ~/mc.ini file and change the value of the field clear_before_exec to 0. drop_menus. If this variable is set, when you press the F9 key, the pull down menus will be activated, else, you will only be presented with the menu title, and you will have to select the entry with the arrow keys or the first letter and from there select your option in the menu. auto_mount. When this option is enabled, when changing directory the Midnight Commander tries to mount the new directory and unmount the previous directory. This is useful to quickly browse through floppy disks. The mounting and unmounting of directories is controlled by the sections [auto-mount] and [auto-umount] in the initialization file. For example, to enable auto-mounting and auto-unmounting of the directory /floppy, you need to add this to your ~/.mc.ini file: [auto-mount] /floppy = /sbin/mount floppy = /sbin/mount [auto-umount] /floppy = /sbin/umount floppy = /sbin/umount In order to use this option, your mount program must allow normal users to use the mount command. Under Linux-based GNU systems, for the previous example, you need to add the keyword user to the entry for /floppy in your /etc/fstab file. For example, my fstab entry looks like this: /dev/fd0 /floppy msdos defaults,user This option should not exist, it is just a quick hack to let me browse through directories. It is preferable that you use an automounter, unless you know exactly what you're doing. [] [FILES] FILES /usr/local/lib/mc.hlp The help file for the program. /usr/local/lib/mc.ext The default system-wide extensions file. $HOME/.mc.ext User's own extension file. If this file exists, it is used instead of the system-wide extensions file. /usr/local/lib/mc.ini The default system-wide setup for the Midnight Commander. $HOME/.mc.ini User's own setup. If this file is present then the setup is loaded from here instead of the system-wide startup file. /usr/local/lib/mc.menu This file contains the default system-wide applications menu. $HOME/.mc.menu User's own application menu. If this file is present it is used instead of the system-wide applications menu. $HOME/.mc.tree The directory list for the directory tree and tree view features. Each line is one entry. The lines starting with a slash are full directory names. The lines starting with a number have that many characters equal to the previous directory. If you want you may create this file by giving the command "find / -type d -print | sort > ~/.mc.tree". Normally there is no sense in doing it because the Midnight Commander automatically updates this file for you. [AVAILABILITY] AVAILABILITY The latest version of this program can be found at ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx in the directory /linux/local.[SEE ALSO] SEE ALSO ed(1), gpm(1), terminfo(1), view(1), sh(1), bash(1), tcsh(1), zsh(1). The Midnight Commander page on the World Wide Web: http://stekt.oulu.fi/~jtklehto/mc/ [AUTHORS] AUTHORS Miguel de Icaza (miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx), Janne Kukonlehto (jtklehto@paju.oulu.fi), Radek Doulik (rodo@earn.cvut.cz), Fred Leeflang (fredl@nebula.ow.org), Dugan Porter (dugan@b011.eunet.es), and Mauricio Plaza (mok@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx) are the developers of this package; Alessandro Rubini (rubini@ipvvis.unipv.it) has been especially helpful debugging and enhancing the program's mouse support, and the following people have also contributed code and bug fixes (in alphabetical order): Jakub Jelinek , Jean-Daniel Luiset (luiset@cih.hcuge.ch), Jon Stevens (root@dolphin.csudh.edu), Massimo Fontanelli (MC8737@mclink.it), Thomas Pundt (pundtt@math.uni-muenster.de), Torben Fjerdingstad (tfj@olivia.ping.dk) and Vadim Sinolitis (vvs@nsrd.npi.msu.su). [BUGS] BUGS See the file TODO in the distribution for information on what remains to be done. [main] lqwqk k k  x x x . x . x  x x x k lqu wqk k lqw tqk n  x x x x x x x x x x x x x x  v v v mqv v v v mqu v v mj qqqqqqCommanderqj  This is the main help screen for the Midnight Commander. To learn more on how to use the interactive help facility just tap enterHelp. You may like to go directly to the help contentsContents. The Midnight Commander is written by its authorsAUTHORS. The Midnight Commander comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTYWarranty. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditionsLicense. [License] GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991 Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Preamble The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too. When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things. To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it. For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights. We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software. Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations. Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all. The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow. GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you". Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does. 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee. 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change. b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.) These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program. In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License. 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.) The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable. If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code. 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance. 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it. 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License. 7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program. If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances. It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice. This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License. 8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License. 9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation. 10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally. [Warranty] NO WARRANTY 11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. 12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms. To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found. Copyright (C) 19yy This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail. If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode: Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy name of author Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c' for details. The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program. You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names: Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker. , 1 April 1989 Ty Coon, President of Vice This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License. [QueryBox] In the query dialog box you can use the arrow keys or the first letter to select an item or click with the mouse on the button. [Help] How to use help You can use the cursor keys or mouse to navigate in the help viewer. Press down arrow to move to the next item or scroll down. Press up arrow to move to the previous item or scroll up. Press right arrow to follow the current link. Press left arrow to go back in the history of nodes that you have visited. If you terminal doesn't support the cursor keys you can use the space bar to scroll forward and the 'b' key scroll back. Use the TAB key to move to the next item and press ENTER to follow the current link. The 'l' (last) key may be used to go back in the history of nodes that you have visited. Press ESC to exit the help viewer. The left mouse button will follow the link or scroll. The right mouse button can be used to go back in the history of nodes. The full key list of the help viewer: General movement keysGeneral Movement Keys are accepted. tab Move to the next item. M-tab Move to the previous item. down Move to the next item or scroll a line down. up Move to the previous item or scroll a line up. right, enter Follow the current link. left, l Go back in the history of visited nodes. F1 Show the help for the help viewer. n Go to the next node. p Go to the previous node. c Go to the Contents node. F10, esc Exit the help viewer.  Local variables: fill-column: 58 end: