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Midnight Commander (MC) is a clone of a DOS utility called Norton Commander and belongs to a large family of console based file managers known simply as Commanders, or Orthodox File Managers.

Midnight Commander offers an intuitive interface, the ability to view/edit files, mouse support, and built-in support for many Virtual File Systems (VFS). The VFS supported by Midnight Commander include: FTP, for browsing remote FTP repositories; FISH, for manipulating files over shell connections such as rsh and ssh; and SMB, for accessing remote Windows shares. It also includes the ability to browse many GNU/Linux archives such as tar, tgz, bz2, rpm, deb, zip, cpio, lha, rar, and zoo files.

Getting Started.

As of this writing, the current version of Midnight Commander is 4.6.0.

After obtaining the source code for Midnight Commander, decompress the tarball and issue the following commands from the CLI:

cd mc-4.6.0
./configure
make
su
<root password>
make install

To start using Midnight Commander type mc on the command line. At first glance you will notice that the interface consists of four distinct sections.

• The topmost line is the menu bar. This behaves much like the menu bar of GUI applications.The menu bar line may not be visible, but appears if you click the topmost line with the mouse or press the F9 key.
• Two directory panels which take up most of the screen space. One of the panels is the active panel and is indicated by a horizontal selection bar. Almost all operations take place on the active panel. Some file operations like rename and copy use the directory of the inactive panel as the default destination. Switching from one panel to another can be done via the Tab key.
• The second line from the bottom of the screen is a shell command line. You can execute system commands from the Midnight Commander by simply typing them. Everything you type will appear on the shell command line, and the typed command will be executed when you press the Enter key. If no command is typed then the Enter key will be applied to the active panel.
• The bottom line shows the function key labels (F1 - F10). The functions keys map to commonly used commands in the browse, view, and edit modes.

Using the CLI is now as easy as typing on your keyboard. Move the selection bar by using the up/down arrow keys. To enter a directory simply move the selection bar on the directory name and press the Enter key. Likewise, to move up one directory move the selection bar to the "/.." line and press Enter. Browsing the contents of an archive file can be performed by moving the selection bar to highlight the archive and pressing Enter. Do you notice a pattern here?

Manipulating Files.

Click to enlarge

Since most configuration files on a GNU/Linux system are plain text files, Midnight Commander's most useful feature is it's built-in file viewer and editor.

Editing or viewing a file can be done by highlighting the file with the selection bar and pressing either the F3 (view) or F4 (edit) key. Once in view mode you can navigate the file with the up/down arrow keys and the Page Up/Page Down keys.

In edit mode, you can use the same keys as view mode along with the left/right arrow keys to move the cursor through the file. Type as you normally would in any GUI based text editor to make changes to the file. To save the file after editing, press the F2 key.

While in view or edit modes, the Home key moves to the beginning of the file and the End key moves to the end of the file. Press the F10 key to exit either mode.

Menu and Shortcuts.

Both browse and edit modes contain a top menu area. The top menu may be activated by the F9 key. Once activated, you can traverse the menu area using the arrow keys. The Enter key will execute the current menu selection. The Esc key (twice) will deactivate the top menu.

While within the top menu structure you may have noticed keyboard shortcuts for most of the menu items. While using Midnight Commander, you will find these shortcuts extremely useful. Some of the shortcuts may appear unconventional, such as "C-x". Here's an explanation of these shortcuts:

• C-<chr> - Means to hold the Control (Ctrl) key while typing the character <chr>. Example: C-x
• M-<chr> - Means to hold the Meta, or Alt, key while typing the character <chr>. Example: M-x
• S-<chr> - Means to hold the Shift key while typing the character <chr>. Example: S-x
• C-<chr> <chr2> - Means to hold the Control (Ctrl) key while typing the character <chr>, release the Ctrl and <chr> keys, and then press the last character <chr2>. Example: C-x d

The most common commands used in MC are assigned to the Function keys (F1 - F10). The value of each key is different depending on which mode that you are in. Here is a table of the commands assigned to each of the Function keys in the various modes.

	Browse mode	View mode	Edit mode
F1	Displays the main Help screen	Displays the viewer Help screen	Displays the editor Help screen
F2	Activates the User Menu	Wrap/unwraps the text	Saves the file
F3	View the selected file	Exits View mode	Selects text
F4	Edit the selected file	Toggles ascii/hex view mode	Find and Replace
F5	Copy the selected file	Opens the Goto Line dialog	Copy selected text to cursor position
F6	Rename/Move the selected file	Regexp Search	Move selected text to cursor position
F7	Creates a new directory in the active panel	Search	Search
F8	Deletes the selected file	Toggle Raw/parsed mode	Delete the current line or selection
F9	Displays the top menu	Toggles Format/unformat view	Displays editor's top menu
F10	Exits MC	Exits View mode	Exits Edit Mode

Mouse Support.

Mouse support is available by default when using a terminal emulator, such as rxvt, under X. In order to enable mouse support on the console, you will need to install and run gpm. The mouse cursor will appear as a small, highlighted rectangular area when using MC from the console.

The top menu, function labels, and cursor position can be manipulated by single-clicking with the left mouse button. Entering a directory may be performed by double-clicking. Selecting multiple files (for Copy/Move/Delete) can be done in X by right clicking each file, however, multiple selections from the console must be done using the "C-t" keyboard shortcut.

Whether you are a noobie or a seasoned veteran, Midnight Commander is probably on of the most useful tools for working with the CLI. MC's ease of use is equally matched by it's vast functionality. To learn more about using Midnight Commander, consult the man pages (man mc) and it's built-in Help system.

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