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From: miguel@sphinx.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Miguel de Icaza)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.apps,comp.unix.aix,comp.unix.ultrix,comp.unix.user-friendly,comp.unix.aux,comp.unix.solaris,comp.sys.sgi.apps,comp.sys.sun.apps
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Midnight Commander 2.1 file manager
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Date: 21 Feb 1995 03:03:41 GMT
Organization: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Lines: 243
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <MIGUEL.95Feb20210341@sphinx.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Reply-To: miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx
NNTP-Posting-Host: hill.gnu.ai.mit.edu
ANNOUNCING
* The Midnight Commander v2.1 *
Briefly
~~~~~~~
The Midnight Commander is a Unix file manager and shell, text mode
based, useful to novice and guru alike. Version 2.1 has many major
enhancements. Althought it was originally a Linux application, now it
has been ported to many systems. It is available by FTP from the
following sites:
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 color terminals and looks very nice.
The Commander's current features include:
* 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
* An extensible, flexible user-defined menu system with a simple
macro substitution.
* Emacs-like command line editing
* A history of shell commands entered
* User-defined default actions on files, according to their name
(for example, you can bind xv %f to gif files).
* Mask renaming of files (as in: "rename s.*.tar.gz source.*.tgz")
* Secure recursive file deleting, copying and moving operations.
* Auto-mounting and umounting 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
* Directorie compare feature
* 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.)
* 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 ;-)
* If you use bash, tcsh or zsh, the Commander can optionally run with
a companion subshell 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* Configurable colors: you can define a default color scheme, and
alternative schemes which are selected according to the terminal
you are using.
* 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.
* 8-bit clean support, for viewing national characters and symbols.
Requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Midnight Commander currently runs (at least) on Linux 1.0,
Linux 1.1, 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 1.8.5.2 ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx in /linux/local
ftp.netcom.com in /pub/zm/zmbenhal
Notes:
Don't get ncurses 1.8.6; it's buggy.
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.
If you use a version of ncurses different than 1.8.5.2, we
include a patch for making it 8 bit clean.
* gpm-0.97 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.
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, 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 <list-name> [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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Begin3
Title: Midnight Commander
Version: 2.1
Entered-date: 20FEB95
Description: File manager and visual shell. [More!]
Keywords: file directory manager shell browser utility curses mouse menu
visual user-friendly color sex good hot cheese nice yummm
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)
mok@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx (Mauricio Plaza)
Maintained-by: miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx (Miguel de Icaza)
Primary-site: sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/utils/file/managers
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-linux1.1,
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 1.8.5.2
(available ftp.netcom.com:/pub/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
--
miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx
<a href="http://stekt.oulu.fi/~jtklehto/mc/">The Midnight Commander</a>
--
miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx
<a href="http://stekt.oulu.fi/~jtklehto/mc/">The Midnight Commander</a>