[lug] Midnight Commander (mc) & GNOME

[Bob Collins]

After the meeting last night, one of the members ask me about GNOME and
the connection to mc.  I have attached a file that explains the
connection.  This will be interesting to everyone and I should have
brought up the subject.

I did forget to mention one topic, shortcut keys.  The information can
be found by pressing F1 while in mc, tab to contents and check out the
topics listed under Keys.  

You will find this makes mc even more useful.  It can be found by
looking at the mc man page also. 

-- 
   Regards, Bob Collins
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked
at in the right way, did not become still more complicated. - Poul
Anderson
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Contents:
---------
  Requirements
  GNOME edition requirements
  Features
  Midnight Commander editions
  Where to get more information
  The Midnight Commander
  Mini-docs
  Obtaining the Midnight Commander
  Reporting problems.

This version of the Midnight Commander comes with two interfaces: a
graphical one for the GNOME desktop (http://www.gnome.org) and a text
mode interface (the same old user interface we have had for a long
time). 

Most of the engine is shared between both versions, but they come with
radically different interfaces:  the GNOME version is aimed to be a
simple to use tool for novice users.

Requirements
------------

To compile the GNU Midnight Commander you need at least to have a copy
of the glib library, this library is available in ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk.

GNOME edition requirements
--------------------------

Optionally, if you want to compile the GNOME edition, you need to
install the GNOME libraries and its dependencies.

The GNOME libraries are available in:

    ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gnome-libs


Features
--------

This is version 4 of the Midnight Commander, a free Norton Commander
Clone with many useful features. The Midnight Commander comes with
mouse support on xterms and optionally on the Linux console.

The Midnight Commander is a directory browsing tool which bears a
certain remote resemblance to John Socha's Norton Commander for DOS.
It is feature packed:

	o Built in Virtual File System: manipulate remote files
	  systems through the FTP protocol or Midnight Commander's own
	  mcfs protocol.  Browse tar, compressed tar files, RPM, zip,
	  cpio, lha and rar files with a single click.

	o All of the Midnight Commander operations work with the
	  virtual file system, enabling you to do complex tasks.

	o Mouse support on the Linux console and under X11's xterms. 

	o Learn Keys: The Midnight Commander may be configured at run
	  time to support any kind of input keys for a given terminal,
	  making its operation even on the most weird terminals a
	  breeze.

	o Text and hex editors are available for you to use.

	o Hotlist allows you to keep a list of common visited
	  locations (including FTP sites).

	o Command completion: By pressing Alt-Tab in any place where a
	  filename or an executable are expected, the Midnight
	  Commander will complete for you the name.  If you quickly
	  press Alt-Tab twice you can get a list box with the possible
	  completions available.

	o Subshell support: Run your commands by a real shell
	  interpreter.  The Midnight Commander interacts with bash,
	  tcsh and zsh to provide you with all of the facilities
	  available in your shell.

	o Find file command can now search inside the contents of
	  files.

	o Background operations allows you to copy or move files from
	  any virtual file system while you do other tasks (i.e., you
	  can do background FTP copies).

	o Proxy support with our ftpfs.

	o Linux file recovery: If you are using Linux system, you can
	  recover deleted files from an ext2fs partition with the
	  undelete file system.  This is a low level file recovery
	  function that will recover files deleted by any program in
	  Linux.

	  Please note that the undelete file system can only recover
	  12 file system blocks if the file was deleted with a kernel
	  in the 2.0.x series.  The 2.1.x series have fixed this and
	  you can recover all of the file contents there.

	o External panelization: You can run any arbitrary external
	  command and the Midnight Commander will display the output
	  generated as a file listing that can be manipulated as a
	  regular directory.

	o Emacs like key bindings in all of our widgets.

	o Powerful context dependent actions are available. 

	o Powerful built-in file viewer:  The file viewer, together
	  with the context dependent actions is used to format man
	  pages on the fly, coloring mail messages and more.

This list of features pertains to the terminal edition of the Midnight
Commander.  The GNOME edition's feature set is slightly different, for
example, it does not include subshell support.


Where to get more information:
------------------------------

There is a mailing list for discussion on enhancing the program, future
directions and announcements; if you want to subscribe, send mail to:

majordomo at roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx

There is a WWW page for the Midnight Commander at http://www.gnome.org/mc.


The Midnight Commander:
-----------------------

The Midnight Commander is released under the GNU General Public
License version 2.0 or any later version.  A copy of the file is
included with this distribution package.

If you have comments, you can send them to us:

miguel at nuclecu.unam.mx
federico at nuclecu.unam.mx

or if it would benefit more people, to the mailing list:

mc at roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx

Help develop and enhance free software.


Mini-documentation:
-------------------

These are hints for the text mode edition:

o Use the F-Keys for invoking the commands in the function key bar.
  If your terminal doesn't support F-keys, you can use the <ESC digit>
  sequence to invoke the corresponding F-digit key.

o Tab changes the current panel.

o All input lines have emacs-like key-bindings (command history is
  accessed through the M-p and M-n keys).

o The panels accept C-n, C-p for browsing the panel (like in emacs).

o M-Enter copies the currently selected file name to the input line.

o M-Tab completes the current word (or tries to).

o The Virtual File System is a cute addition to the project, you may
  browse in tar and compressed tar files as well as browsing remote
  machines with the mcfs file system.

o Please read the manual page.

o Read the file src/TODO for the current projects.

You can access the whole documentation online with the F1 key,
although it's not as nice as the groff printed manual page :-)


Where you may obtain the Midnight Commander
-------------------------------------------

You can download the latest version of the Midnight Commander by
anonymous fTP at ftp.gnome.org in the directory /pub/GNOME/sources/mc.  
Please note that this is a very busy site; use a mirror if possible.

European mirrors of both version 3.1 and alpha versions are available
at sunsite.mff.cuni.cz in the directory /GNU/mc and at ftp.teuto.de in
the directory /lmb/mc.


Reporting problems
------------------

Please, send a detailed description of your problem to the
mc-bugs at roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx address.

Include the version of the program, the operating system that you are
using, the compiler and compiler flags used to compile the program (if
you know them), what kind of distribution you are using (if a
GNU/Linux system).

If the program crashed and produces a core dump, please provide a
stack trace of the program.

You can do this by running dbx or gdb like this:

gdb mc core
(gdb) where


Addendum
--------

No new features are being added to the GNOME edition of the Midnight
Commander anymore.  It is just in maintenance and bug fixing stage.
The reason for this is that the current design of the Midnight
Commander is not suited well at all for a graphical version with
multiple windows and asynchronous file operations.  A new file manager
is being written for the GNOME project.