-*-Text-*-

Contents:
---------
  Intro text
  Midnight Commander editions
  Where to get more information
  The Midnight Commander
  Mini-docs
  Obtaining the Midnight Commander


This is version 3.1 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.
The Midnight Commander doesn't have all the bells and whistles of its
DOS counterpart, but was written in much less time, mainly because
Emacs, Linux and the GNU project provide much better programming tools
than any environment under DOS. On the other side, we are proud to offer
you a lot of bells and whistles Norton Commander for DOS just couldn't ever
dream of, mainly because Unix gives us much more facilities to do it quickly
and simply...

Midnight Commander editions:
----------------------------

The Midnight Commander may be compiled into three different editions:
the text mode edition, the Tk edition and the XView edition.  Please
note that currently the only supported edition is the text mode
edition.  The Tk and XView editions are included with the tar file but
are not finished and thus not supported.


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@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx

There is a WWW page for the Midnight Commander with the URL:
<http://stekt.oulu.fi/~jtklehto/mc/>.


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

The Midnight Commander allows you to browse directories and perform
common file management tasks in two different subdirectories. To switch
directories, you press the Tab key.

Common operations are done by selecting a file or a group of files by
tagging them (using the Ins key or C-t) and then applying an operation
to them (copy, rename, delete, etc).

Pressing Enter will change a directory if you are pointing at a
directory; execute a program if you are pointing an executable program;
and, if you are pointing at a file that has an extension associated to
a program, run the associated program.

Also, if you have the gpm Linux Mouse Server, the Midnight Commander
will have mouse support on Linux console in addition to xterm mouse
support. Check the man page for more information on how this works.

The Midnight Commander comes with a simple menuing facility that allows
you to provide your users with a simple menu for the most common tasks;
check the manual page or take a look at the sample mc.menu file in the
distribution directory.

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 me:

miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx

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

midnight@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx

If you find this software useful, drop us a note and consider making a
donation to the Free Software Foundation (the address of the FSF is in
the COPYING file included in this distribution).


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

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 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
-------------------------------------------

The software should be available by anonymous ftp at sunsite.unc.edu
in the directory /pub/Linux/utils/file and at ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx
in the directory /linux/local.

The last alpha versions are available at ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx in the
directory /linux/local/devel.

European mirror of both version 3.1 and alpha versions is available
at ftp.cvut.cz in the directory /pub/mc





