Midnight Commander

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Midnight Commander
Terminal View of MC
Latest release	4.6.1 / July 23, 2005
OS	Unix-like
Genre	File manager
License	GPL
Website	http://www.ibiblio.org/mc

GNU Midnight Commander (mc) is an orthodox file manager for Unix-like systems (also works in Windows) and a clone of Norton Commander.

Midnight Commander is a text mode application. The main interface consists of two panels which display the file system. It is used in a similar way to many other programs run in the Unix shell. Arrow keys control file selection, the insert key is used to select files and the Function Keys perform operations such as renaming, editing and copying files. Later versions of the Midnight Commander additionally have mouse support for easier operation. Such versions are aware of running inside an X terminal, which allows them to react to the graphical pointer and update the name of the window in which Midnight Commander runs.

Midnight Commander's features include the ability to view the contents of RPM package files, to work with common archive formats as if they were simply another directory, and to function as an FTP or FISH client. Midnight Commander also includes an editor called mcedit. mcedit's features include syntax highlighting for certain languages, and the ability to work in both ASCII and hex modes. Users also have the option to replace mcedit with the editor of their choice (Options Menu>Configuration>[Don't] Use Internal Edit).

Midnight Commander can also rename groups of files, unlike a number of other file managers that can only rename one file at a time. This is convenient for manipulating large collections of files, e.g. to make them conform to a new naming convention. Midnight Commander can also move files to a different directory at the same time as it renames them. It lets the user specify the original and resulting file names using wildcard characters. This makes the power of regular expressions in Unix or Linux available for renaming files, with a convenient user interface. In addition, the user can select whether or not to utilize "shell patterns" (automatic grouping of wildcards). All of these features are available by using the File > Rename/Move menu selection. (Pressing F1 would then produce a brief explanation of the options, including examples of how to use wildcards.)

Midnight Commander is now included in most Linux distributions and is licensed under GNU General Public License.

It is very popular on Linux due to being based on versatile text interfaces, such as Ncurses or S-Lang, which allow it to work on a regular console, inside an X Window terminal, over SSH connections and all kinds of remote shells.

[edit] Unicode support

Official Midnight Commander builds still do not support UTF-8 locales (Bug #7936). There are, however, unofficial patches from Red Hat and SUSE (added input, editor, viewer). [1]

These patches rely on specific details of the S-Lang interface, and (because S-Lang's interfaces differ from curses) do not provide Unicode support when built with curses.