Article 746 of gnu.announce: Date: Mon, 10 Jul 1995 20:42:30 -0600 From: miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx (Miguel de Icaza) Message-ID: <9507110242.AA09780@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx> To: info-gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu Subject: Midnight Commander 2.1 Reply-To: miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx Distribution: world Approved: info-gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu Path: nntpd.lkg.dec.com!depot.mro.dec.com!pa.dec.com!news1.digital.com!nntp-hub2.barrnet.net!hookup!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!ai-lab!prep.ai.mit.edu!gnu Newsgroups: gnu.announce,gnu.utils.bug,comp.os.linux.misc Followup-To: gnu.utils.bug Lines: 283 Xref: nntpd.lkg.dec.com gnu.announce:746 gnu.utils.bug:12326 comp.os.linux.misc:62516 [ Though this program is not currently part of GNU, the FSF is publishing an announcement of it, as it is useful free software. ] Announcing... THE MIDNIGHT COMMANDER V2.1 Briefly The Midnight Commander is a Unix file manager and shell, useful to novice and guru alike. Version 2.1 has many major enhancements. It is available by FTP from: * prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/mc-2.1.tar.gz (and mirrors) * sunsite.unc.edu and mirrors: Linux/utils/file/managers/mc-2.1.tar.gz * ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx: /linux/local/mc-2.1.tar.gz (the official site) Longly The Midnight Commander (previous name: Mouseless Commander) is a user-friendly yet powerful file manager and visual shell for Unix systems. For the Unix neophyte it provides a clear, user-friendly, and somewhat protected interface to the complexities of a Unix system. For the expert user, it can make many frequent operations more efficient: shifting large groups of files around and many other common file managing tasks. It works with any text terminal, supports also color terminals and looks very nice (see sample screen shots). The Commander's current features include: * General features + Full mouse support on xterm and the Linux console. + A built-in file viewer with ASCII and hex modes, regexp string searching, optional automatic file decompression, horizontal scrolling, goto-line, etc. + Hypertext online context-sensitive help. + General user interface improvements: more keys do what you might expect them to do (C-c to cancel things, C-g for emacs users, etc.) * Command execution features + Emacs-like command line editing. + A history of entered shell commands. + An extensible, flexible user-defined menu system. + User-defined default actions on files, according to their name (for example, you can bind xv %f to gif files). + If you use bash, tcsh or zsh, the Commander can optionally run with a concurrent shell process and feed all your shell commands to it, instead of spawning a new shell to run every command you type. Apart from the gain in speed, this means that you can use all your usual aliases and shell functions, as well as job control, command history, variable substitution, background processes and so on. You can switch the Commander's display on and off at any time with a single keystroke, and when it is off you appear to be in your usual login shell. * File management features + Mask renaming of files (as in: "rename s.*.tar.gz source.*.tgz"). + Secure recursive file deleting, copying and moving operations. + Auto-mounting and unmounting of temporary filesystems (floppies, etc.) + A "directory hotlist" to let you move to directories you frequently use with very few keystrokes. + Incremental and wrap-around searching for file and directory names. + Directory compare feature. + Quick-view mode: automatically display the currently selected file in the other panel. Uncompression is performed automatically, and only as needed, so you never have to wait. + A visual "tree" display of directory structures, which allows you to navigate rapidly through your file system (you can copy, remove, and move directories within this mode). The tree is built as you use it, so, again, you needn't sit there twiddling your thumbs while you wait for the tree to be built (but you can if you want to ;-) + Re-written, vastly improved find-file feature. File searches can be interrupted and resumed, and the resulting list of files can be manipulated usefully within the Commander. + Info view mode: detailed information in the other panel about the currently selected file and current file system. + File and directory management operations: tag, delete, copy, rename, move, create links (hard and symbolic), chmod, chown, etc. Detailed information and control is available during these operations: percentage-done figures are displayed (only in verbose mode), and you can stop the operation at any time, skip files, decide what to do about files which are about to be overwritten, etc. * And it's configurable, too + User-definable file listing formats: you can specify which data fields are to be displayed, their size and alignment, etc. + Screen layout control: the file panels are resizable, and can appear side by side or one above the other. The keybar at the bottom of the screen can be removed to save screen space. + On GNU/Linux, you can specify a certain number of lines at the bottom of the screen to be used as a command output area; the Commander will leave output from your shell commands undisturbed in this area, so you don't have to use C-o to see it. + Configurable colors: you can define a default color scheme, and alternative schemes which are selected according to the terminal you are using. + 8-bit clean support, for viewing national characters and symbols. * And there's a lot more. Requirements The Midnight Commander currently runs (at least) on GNU/Linux 1.0, GNU/Linux 1.2, NetBSD 1.0, SunOS 4.1, Solaris 2.3, Irix 5.2, Ultrix 4.3, Aix 3.2.5, A/UX, HP-UX 7, HP-UX 9. And since it is configured with GNU autoconf, it should be straightforward to port it to other systems. You may need to have certain auxiliary packages installed on your machine to be able to build the Midnight Commander. They are all available at ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx so that you can download them at the same time as the Commander if you wish. They are: * ncurses 1.9 + prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/ncurses-1.9xx.tar.gz + ftp.netcom.com in /pub/zm/zmbenhal + Notes: If ncurses hasn't been ported to your system you can try to build the Commander with the native curses library on your system. This works well on System V flavoured systems, but it may not be very pretty or even usable on BSD systems. * gpm-0.98 + ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx in /linux/local + iride.unipv.it in /pub/gpm + Notes: This is the excellent Linux "General Purpose Mouse" server; needed if you want mouse support in Linux virtual consoles. It is included with some GNU/Linux distributions. Bug reports Bug reports should be sent to mc-bugs@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx. More Information WWW page: there is a Midnight Commander page on the World Wide Web containing screen snapshots of the program, links to some relevant FTP sites, the FAQ, archives of the mailing lists, etc. The URL is: * http://stekt.oulu.fi/~jtklehto/mc/ Mailing lists: the following Commander-related lists are available: mc General discussion of the Midnight Commander mc-digest The mc list, in digest format mc-announce Major announcements about the Commander mc-patch The latest Commander patches (4-8 per week) mc-devel Technical development discussion (open to all comers) To subscribe, send e-mail to majordomo@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx with the following line in the body of the message: * subscribe [optional-address] The MC Development Team * Miguel de Icaza (miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx) * Radek Doulik (rodo@earn.cvut.cz) * Janne Kukonlehto (jtklehto@paju.oulu.fi) * Fred Leeflang (fredl@nebula.ow.nl) * Mauricio Plaza (mok@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx) * Dugan O. Porter (dugan@b011.eunet.es) Other Contributors * Torben Fjerdingstad (tfj@olivia.ping.dk) * Massimo Fontanelli (mc8737@mclink.it) * Jakub Jelinek (jelinek1@jfch.vc.cvut.cz) * Jean-Daniel Luiset (luiset@cih.hcuge.ch) * Thomas Pundt (pundtt@math.uni-muenster.de) * Alessandro Rubini (rubini@iride.unipv.it) * Vadim Sinolitis (vvs@nsrd.npi.msu.su) * Jon Stevens (root@dolphin.csudh.edu) Linux Software Map Entry This is a standard Linux Software Map entry. Begin3 Title: Midnight Commander Version: 2.1 Entered-date: 4JUL95 Description: File manager and visual shell. [More!] Keywords: file directory manager shell browser utility curses mouse menu visual user-friendly color Author: miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx (Miguel de Icaza) jtklehto@paju.oulu.fi (Janne Kukonlehto) dugan@b011.eunet.es (Dugan Orlando Porter) rodo@earn.cvut.cz (Radek Doulik) fredl@nebula.ow.nl (Fred Leeflang) jelinek1@jfch.vc.cvut.cz (Jakub Jelinek) mok@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx (Mauricio Plaza) Maintained-by: miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx (Miguel de Icaza) Primary-site: prep.ai.mit.edu /pub/gnu 356k mc-2.1.tar.gz Alternate-site: ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx /linux/local 356k mc-2.1.tar.gz Platforms: i386-linux-linux1.0, i386-linux-linux1.2, mips-dec-ultrix4.3, mips-sgi-irix5.2, rs6000-ibm-aix3.2.5, sparc-sun-sunos4.1, sparc-sun-netbsd1.0, sparc-sun-solaris2.3, hppa-hp-hpux9, hppa-hp-hpux7, m68k-apple-aux Any BSD unix with ncurses 1.9 (available ftp.netcom.com:/pub/zm/zmbenhal) (ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx:/linux/local) If mouse support is required on the Linux console, then the GPM mouse server (available at iride.unipv.it:/pub/gpm) (ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx:/linux/local) Copying-policy: GPL End [ Most GNU software is packed using the GNU `gzip' compression program. 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