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2024-09-03

Far Manager vs Midnight Commander: Keyboard shortcuts

For many years I used file managers with two-panel (usually text-based) user interfaces. Starting with the classic Norton Commander,  then Volkov Commander, File Commander/2 (for OS/2), and even muCommander (for macOS).

And today I still use Far Manager (for Windows) and Midnight Commander (for Linux).

I have prepared a keyboard shortcut memo for frequently used actions.

Far Manager vs Midnight Commander

Find file (in tree):  Alt-F7 vs Meta-?
Find file (in panel): Alt+... vs Meta-s (or Ctrl-s)
Paste panel path: Ctrl+[ (left) Ctrl+] (right) vs Meta-a (active) Meta+A (inactive)
Paste file name: Ctrl+Enter vs Meta+Enter
Paste file path+name: Ctrl+F vs Ctrl+Shift+Enter
Previous command: Ctrl+E vs Meta-p
Next command: Ctrl+X vs vs Meta-n
Command history: Alt+F8 vs Meta-h
Directory history: Alt+F12 vs Meta+H
File attributes (chmod): Ctrl+A vs Ctrl-x c
Change another panel to the same directory: Alt-F1/F2 and select disk vs Meta-i
Reread/refresh panel: Ctrl+R vs Ctrl+r
Show directory size (short): F3 vs Ctrl+Space
Show directory size (detail): Ctrl-Q vs Ctrl+x i
Hide panels: Ctrl+O vs Ctrl+o


To enter Meta combinations, I prefer to use the Esc key instead of the Alt modifier key. 

Also, Esc followed by a number key ("1", "2"..."9", "0") works as F1-F10 in Linux. This is very useful for those awful modern notebook keyboards.

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