   
                              Midnight Commander
                             Questions and Answers
                                       
   The newest version of this document is available at
   http://mc.blackdown.org/mc/answers.html
   
     * 1 Quick Answers
     * 2 Introduction and general information
          + 2.1 What is Midnight Commander?
          + 2.2 Who has written it?
          + 2.3 Does it run on my machine?
          + 2.4 Does it work with my terminal?
          + 2.5 What else do I need to run MC?
          + 2.6 Is Midnight Commander PD? Copyrighted?
     * 3 Network sources and resources
          + 3.1 Where can I get Midnight Commander?
          + 3.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
          + 3.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
          + 3.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
          + 3.5 I don't have FTP access. Where can I get MC?
     * 4 Terminfo and termcap problems
          + 4.1 Why do I keep getting "Terminal not powerful enough for
            SLang"?
          + 4.2 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
          + 4.3 Why don't line drawing characters work?
          + 4.4 Can one use latin-1 characters without losing the lines?
          + 4.5 I have problems with national characters!
          + 4.6 How can I get colors?
          + 4.7 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
          + 4.8 Where can I get color_xterm?
          + 4.9 I got colors working with MC but the other programs don't
            work at all anymore!
          + 4.10 Why are there both terminfo and termcap? Wouldn't one
            database be enough?
     * 5 Command line problems
          + 5.1 How can I access command line history?
          + 5.2 How can I add the plus character (+) on the command line?
          + 5.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names
            and so on?
     * 6 Virtual file systems
          + 6.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
          + 6.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
          + 6.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
          + 6.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
          + 6.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
          + 6.6 Why aren't the contents of ftp panel updated?
     * 7 Other common problems
          + 7.1 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
          + 7.2 How do I get the internal editor to work?
          + 7.3 Why doesn't "mcedit newfile" work?
          + 7.4 How do I use function keys F11 to F20?
          + 7.5 Is there any way to 'bookmark' favourite ftp-fs links?
          + 7.6 When copying the directories lose their original date,
            uid and gid!
          + 7.7 Why I keep getting: "There is no disk in the drive.
            Please insert a disk into drive D:"?
     * 8 Development
          + 8.1 Do I dare to use a development version?
          + 8.2 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
          + 8.3 How can I join the development?
     * 9 Administrative information
          + 9.1 Authorship
          + 9.2 File formats
          + 9.3 Feedback is invited
          + 9.4 Disclaimer and copyright
       
1 Quick Answers

   Staying in the last directory on exit?
   
   See the description of the -P option in the Options section of the
   manual.
   
   Colors?
   
   Invoke mc like this (without quotes): "mc -c". If this doesn't work
   upgrade to a terminal which compatible with the ANSI color sequences.
   
   Mouse?
   
   Invoke mc like this (without quotes): "mc -x". If this doesn't work
   upgrade to a terminal which compatible with the Xterm mouse sequences.
   Alternatively, on Linux console you can use GPM.
   
   Cut'n'paste?
   
   Hold down shift key while using mouse to cut'n'paste.
   
   C-?, M-? and F? keys?
   
   C stands for the Ctrl key. For example, C-f means that you should hold
   down the Ctrl key and press the f key.
   
   M stands for the Meta key. Your terminal might call it Alt or Compose
   instead of Meta. For example, M-f means that you should hold down the
   Meta/Alt/Compose key and press the f key. If your terminal doesn't
   have Meta, Alt or Compose or they don't work you can use Esc. For M-f
   press the Esc key and then press the f key.
   
   F? stands for a function key. If your terminal doesn't have function
   keys or they don't work you can use Esc. For example, for F3 press the
   Esc key and then press the 3 key.
   
   Adding the + (plus) sign to the command line?
   
   Press C-q first, then press the + sign.
   
   Command line history?
   
   Type M-p or M-n or F9 c h.
   
   Xview and Tk editions?
   
   Get the newest development version, give the "--with-xview" or
   "--with-tk" option to the configure and otherwise compile as usual.
   See Download.
   
   Xview and Tk editions are work in progress, they are not as robust as
   the text mode edition.
   
   More information?
   
   Read the rest of the Answers, search the Discussion (mailing list
   archive), read the Manual.
   
   Feedback?
   
   Send your comments to janne@mc.blackdown.org.
   
2 Introduction and general information

  2.1 What is Midnight Commander?
  
   The Midnight Commander is a user-friendly yet powerful file manager
   and visual shell, useful to novice and guru alike. It provides a
   clear, user-friendly, and somewhat protected interface to a Unix
   system while making many frequent file operations more efficient and
   preserving the full power of the command prompt. You will wonder how
   you could ever live without it.
   
   For more thorough description take a look at the announcement of
   Midnight Commander 4.0.
   
  2.2 Who has written it?
  
   Midnight Commander was started by Miguel de Icaza and he is the
   maintainer of the package. Other authors have joined the project
   later:
     * Mauricio Plaza (early releases, retired)
     * Janne Kukonlehto (joined Sep 27 1994, retired Mar 8 1995, nowadays
       Janne is the webmaster of the Midnight Commander web site)
     * Radek Doulik (joined Oct 30 1994)
     * Fred Leeflang (joined Nov 2 1994)
     * Dugan Porter (joined Dec 1 1994)
     * Jakub Jelinek (joined Feb 8 1995)
     * Ching Hui (joined Jun 27 1995)
     * Andrej Borsenkow (joined Jul 1996)
     * Paul Sheer (joined Nov 1 1996)
     * Norbert Warmuth
     * Alex I. Tkachenko
       
   Alessandro Rubini has been specially helpful with debugging and
   enhancing of the mouse support. John Davis has made his S-Lang library
   available to us and answered many questions about it.
   
   The photographs of the authors are available as:
   
     http://mc.blackdown.org/mc/about.html
     
   Many people have contributed bug reports, feature suggestions and
   small code bits (alphabetical order):
     * Thomasz Cholewo
     * Juan Jose Ciarlante
     * Alexander Dong (OS/2 port, NT port updates)
     * Erwin van Eijk
     * Torben Fjerdingstad
     * Massimo Fontanelli
     * Juan Grigera (NT port)
     * Gerd Knorr
     * Sergey Ya. Korshunoff
     * Jean-Daniel Luiset
     * Wim Osterholt
     * Antonio Palama (old DOS port)
     * Thomas Pundt
     * Marcelo Roccasalva
     * Ilya Rybkin
     * Vadim Sinolits
     * Jon Stevens
     * Adam Tla/lka
       
  2.3 Does it run on my machine?
  
   Midnight Commander uses GNU autoconfigure, so you should be able to
   run it on most (if not all) Unix clones. Following configurations have
   been tested:
     * i386-*-linux1.x, 2.x
     * alpha-linux-linux2
     * sparc-linux-linux2.x
     * sparc65-linux-linux2.1
     * mips-sgi-irix5.x, 6.x
     * mips-dec-ultrix4.3
     * rs6000-ibm-aix3.2.5
     * sparc-sun-sunos4.1
     * sparc-sun-solaris2.3, 2.4, 2.5
     * sparc-sun-netbsd1.0
     * hppa-hp-hpux9
     * hppa-hp-hpux7
     * m68k-apple-aux
     * unixware
     * mc88110-aviion-dgux5.4R2.01
     * i386-*-sco3.2v4.2
     * i386-*-sco3.2v5
     * i386-*-windows-nt-3.51, 4.0
     * i386-*-windows95
     * i386-*-os2
       
   See http://mc.blackdown.org/mc/download.html..
   
   There is also a preliminary Ms-Dos port at
   http://mc.blackdown.org/cgi-mc/download/DOS/.html (but no Ms-Dos
   binary).
   
  2.4 Does it work with my terminal?
  
   Because Midnight Commander is a full screen program it doesn't run on
   dummy terminals but anything more advanced will do (like vt100). If
   your terminal works with vi, emacs, elm or pine it will work with
   Midnight Commander.
   
   The XView and Tk editions currently under development will require an
   X terminal.
   
  2.5 What else do I need to run MC?
  
   You need an Unix compatible operating system or Windows 95/NT or OS/2.
   
   If you want to use mouse on the Linux console you need General Purpose
   Mouse server from iride.unipv.it: /pub/gpm/. You need nothing extra to
   use mouse on xterm.
   
   To compile the XView edition (currently under development) you need
   XView library. Xpm library and X11 non-rectangular shape extensions
   are recommended.
   
   To compile the Tk edition (currently under development) you need
   Tk-4.0 libraries. Compilation of the Tk version won't be easy. Contact
   Miguel for details.
   
   If you do not want to use the slang library you could try using
   ncurses (but it is not recommended).
   
   You can get it along with other curses libraries, too, but results may
   not be pretty or even usable.
   
  2.6 Is Midnight Commander PD? Copyrighted?
  
   Midnight Commander is under GNU Public License which basically means
   that you may freely copy, change and distribute it, but that you may
   not impose any restrictions on further distribution, and that you must
   make the source code available. This is not the same as Public Domain.
   For details, the GNU license is included in the Midnight Commander
   source distribution (the COPYING file).
   
   Midnight Commander is nowadays officially a part of GNU project. All
   the authors of the Midnight Commander have given all their rights on
   the program to the Free Software Foundation.
   
3 Network sources and resources

  3.1 Where can I get Midnight Commander?
  
   See http://mc.blackdown.org/mc/download.html. There are about seventy
   download sites.
   
   In short: the main site is ftp://ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx/linux/local/ and
   the sunsite.unc.edu mirrors have MC in the
   /pub/Linux/utils/file/managers/mc directory.
   
  3.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
  
   Following mailing lists discuss about Midnight Commander:
   
   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
          
   mc-devel
          Technical development discussion
          
   mc-chat
          Non-MC related chatting by the developers (contact Miguel to
          subscribe)
          
   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]

   Replace <list-name> with the name of the list you want to subscribe
   and [optional-address] with your email address.
   
  3.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
  
   There is a WWW page for Midnight Commander. The URL is:
   
     http://mc.blackdown.org/mc/
     
   The WWW page features MC screen shots, photographs of the authors,
   mailing list archive and a few other things.
   
  3.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
  
   The mc and mc-devel lists are archived on the World Wide Web page (see
   the previous question). Other lists are not currently archived though
   Miguel keeps a private archive. Contact him if you want copies of past
   messages.
   
  3.5 I don't have FTP access. Where can I get MC?
  
   Most Linux CD-ROMs include Midnight Commander. For example, Slackware,
   Yggdrasil, S.U.S.E., Jurix, RedHat, Caldera and Debian.
   
4 Terminfo and termcap problems

  4.1 Why do I keep getting "Terminal not powerful enough for SLang"?
  
   This means that your terminfo databases do not contain the correct
   definitions for your terminal.
   
   You could try using a different terminal setting. If you use csh or
   tcsh:
   
     setenv TERM vt100
     
   or if you use sh, bash, ksh or zsh:
   
     export TERM=vt100
     
   If this doesn't help you can recompile MC to use termcap instead of
   terminfo:
   
     ./configure --with-termcap
     make
     
  4.2 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
  
   Your terminfo or termcap database has missing or incorrect definations
   for function keys. Type "mc -V" to see what terminal database is being
   used. If the result is "using the S-Lang library with terminfo
   database" you should install one of the enhanced terminfo databases
   included in the Midnight Commander source distribution. For example,
   if you are using xterm type "tic xterm.ti".
   
   If the result is "using the S-Lang library with termcap database" you
   should fix your /etc/termcap database.
   
   Better termcap and terminfo databases are available here:
   
     http://www.ccil.org/~esr/ncurses.html
     
   You can select whether Midnight Commander will use terminfo or termcap
   database by giving --with-terminfo or --with-termcap option to the
   configure. Default is terminfo if found, otherwise termcap. If you
   don't have permissions to edit terminal databases you can use Learn
   keys feature of Midnight Commander instead. Press M-9 c l and follow
   instructions.
   
  4.3 Why don't line drawing characters work?
  
   Since version 4.0.13 there's the commandline option -a to force use of
   +, |, - for line drawing (only available when compiled with SLang).
   Use this -a option if any of the suggestions below doesn't help.
   
   In general, there are three subcases:
     * Lines are shown as ASCII characters like this

      +---------+
      |         |
      +---------+
   Possible reason is 1, 2 or 3.
     * Lines are shown as lower case characters like this

      lqqqqqqqqqk
      x         x
      mqqqqqqqqqj
   Possible reason is 2 or 3.
     * Lines are shown as blanks or missing characters. Possible reason
       is 3 or 4.
       
   The reason for the problem is one of following:
    1. Your curses library might not support line drawing characters.
       Slang, Ncurses and System V curses do support them, BSD curses
       doesn't.
    2. Your terminal might not support line drawing characters. Vt100
       compatible terminals, rxvt, xterm and color_xterm do support them.
    3. Your terminfo or termcap database might have missing or incorrect
       definations for line drawing characters. See the previous question
       (the one about function keys).
    4. Your terminal font might not support line drawing characters. Try
       changing the font.
       
   Here is Miguel's answer to Torben on this subject.
   
     When I load consolefonts/iso01.f16, I get perfectly right national
     characters, but the line drawing characters in mc get wrong. Is it
     a mc problem, or is it a problem with the font? (I guess it is). Is
     there a trick?
     
   First of all, we should determine whether the font has line drawing
   characters or not.
   
   If it has line drawing characters, then a new terminfo entry should be
   written for this specific case. Let's call this linux-iso01. The acsc
   variable should be modified to reflect which characters are used to do
   the line drawing.
   
   If it does not have line drawing characters, then we should get rid of
   the switch to acsc sequences and make the acsc sequence be just a
   mapping to the ugly +, -, |, - characters.
   
   You can get your terminfo definition by running the infocmp program,
   making the proper changes and running the tic program to compile your
   new terminfo database.
   
  4.4 Can one use latin-1 characters without losing the lines?
  
   Yes, you need a correct font and a correct termcap/terminfo database.
   
   For font, if you use xterm try "xterm -fn fixed".
   
   For termcap/terminfo database, change the acsc capability in the
   database.
   
  4.5 I have problems with national characters!
  
   Upgrade to version 4.0.12 or newer.
   
   From the Options - Display Bits dialog select Full 8 bits or ISO
   8859-1. In addition, select 8 bit input from the same dialog.
   
  4.6 How can I get colors?
  
   Type "mc -c".
   
   If you get colors, be happy.
   
   If your terminal stays black and white, your terminal doesn't support
   color.
   
   If your terminal goes compelety black, see the next question.
   
   More detailed answer:
   
   First, check that your terminal supports color. Color_xterm, rxvt and
   Linux console do support, most other terminals don't. You can test
   color support with following simple C program:

    #include <stdio.h>

    int main (void){
        printf ("\033[32m Hello world! \033[m\n");
        return 0;
    }

   Compile and run it. If you see "Hello world!" text in green your
   terminal supports color, otherwise not (however, for color_xterm see
   also the next question).
   
   Second, check that you are using Ncurses or the Slang library (type
   "mc -V" to find out), in addition some System V curses implementations
   do support color, most don't.
   
   With Slang library you can force color support by setting the
   environment variable COLORTERM to any value.
   
   Third, if you use ncurses library, check that your terminfo database
   supports color. If not you should install one of the enhanced terminfo
   databases included in the Midnight Commander source distribution. See
   the question before the previous question (the one about function
   keys).
   
   Fourth, you might want to set the TERM environment variable so that
   you use the correct terminfo database or termcap entry.
   
   If you use color_xterm (or rxvt) the correct value might be
   xterm-color, xtermc or simply xterm.
   
   If you use Linux console the correct value for TERM is linux or
   console.
   
  4.7 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
  
   Some color_xterm terminals define all colors as black instead of the
   standard ANSI colors. This makes them go completely black when you try
   to use Midnight Commander with colors.
   
   You will have to override the defaults. Create a file "color.defaults"
   which has the following contents:

    color_xterm*color0:           Black
    color_xterm*color1:           Red
    color_xterm*color2:           Green
    color_xterm*color3:           Yellow
    color_xterm*color4:           Blue
    color_xterm*color5:           Magenta
    color_xterm*color6:           Cyan
    color_xterm*color7:           White
    color_xterm*background:       White
    color_xterm*foreground:       Black

   (replace color_xterm with the name of your color_xterm, color_xterm
   mentions its name in its title bar)
   
   Now type:

    xrdb -merge color.defaults

   Alternatively you can add the suggested contents of the color.defaults
   file to your .Xdefaults or .Xresources file (or what ever the name of
   your X configuration file is). Or you can replace your non-ANSI
   color_xterm with an ANSI color_xterm.
   
  4.8 Where can I get color_xterm?
  
   Try ftp.x.org: /contrib/utilities/colour_xterm.tar.gz.
   
   Alternatively, rxvt is a better choice, see
   http://mc.blackdown.org/cgi-mc/download/rxvt/.html
   
  4.9 I got colors working with MC but the other programs don't work at all
  anymore!
  
   Midnight Commander uses terminfo database (if available) but many
   other programs use termcap database. If you set the TERM environment
   variable to a value which has no corresponding entry in termcap
   database those programs stop working. You should add the new value of
   TERM to the termcap database.
   
   Example: If you have set TERM to xterm-color locate from /etc/termcap
   the line which starts:

    xterm|vs100|xterm terminal emulator

   Change it to start:

    xterm|xterm-color|vs100|xterm terminal emulator

  4.10 Why are there both terminfo and termcap? Wouldn't one database be
  enough?
  
   You might want to read the Unix-haters handbook at
   http://www.digital.de/people/jmh/Unix_Haters/unix-haters.html. It
   lists many more reasons why Unix sucks.
   
   You can configure which terminal database you want to use with the
   "--with-termcap" and "--with-terminfo" flags of configure. If you
   don't specify them, the configure script will try to use terminfo if
   available otherwise it will use termcap.
   
5 Command line problems

  5.1 How can I access command line history?
  
   You can browse previous commands with M-p and M-n. Alternatively, you
   can summon the command history listbox by pressing F9 c h.
   
  5.2 How can I add the plus character (+) on the command line?
  
   The plus key is the hotkey for the select files command. If you want
   to add a literal plus on to the command line you must quote it. Press
   C-q before pressing +.
   
  5.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names and so on?
  
   Just press M-Tab. Press M-Tab again to get a listbox if there are
   multiple possible completions.
   
6 Virtual file systems

   Note! Virtual file systems are supported by Unix ports only. The
   Windows 95/NT and OS/2 ports do NOT support virtual file systems. This
   means you don't have ftp, zip or tar support on Windows 95/NT and
   OS/2.
   
  6.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
  
   If you use keyboard just move the selection bar on the tar file and
   press enter.
   
   If you use mouse just doubleclick on the tar file.
   
   If these procedures don't work, your .mc.ext file is faulty. Replace
   it with one from the MC source distribution.
   
   You can also enter a tar archive by typing "cd tar:filename.tar.gz"
   where filename.tar.gz is the name of the archive.
   
   The recognized suffixes for tar archives are .tar, .tar.gz and .tgz.
   If your tar archive uses different suffix you have to rename it.
   
  6.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
  
   Just press enter on the toplevel ".." file or chdir to a non-tar
   directory. Just typing "cd" with no parameters is enough (it will take
   you to your home directory).
   
  6.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
  
   Just type "cd ftp://hostname" where hostname is the name of the host
   you want to connect. Alternatively, select FTP link from the Left or
   Right menu and type the name of the host you want to connect.
   
  6.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
  
   Non-anonymous ftp works just like the anonymous ftp but you give the
   login name with the host name. For example, type "cd
   ftp://username@hostname".
   
  6.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
  
   Just chdir to a non-ftp directory. Just typing "cd" with no parameters
   is enough (it will take you to your home directory).
   
   Internally Midnight Commander closes ftp connection only after a
   timeout. This isn't visible to the end user.
   
  6.6 Why aren't the contents of ftp panel updated?
  
   This is a performance issue. Constantly updating directory panels
   through a ftp connection would take too much time.
   
   You can use C-r to force an update.
   
7 Other common problems

  7.1 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
  
   Midnight Commander uses the ESC key as a prefix for simulating the
   Meta and Alt keys (for terminals which don't have Meta or Alt). For
   example, pressing ESC-a is the same as pressing Meta-a. In addition
   most terminals use ESC for internal representation of arrow keys,
   function keys and other enhanced keys. If you want to use ESC to
   cancel things you have to press it twice i. e. ESC-ESC. If you find
   this cumbersome you can generally use F10 to cancel. Alternatively
   turn on the old_esc_mode setting in the ~/.mc.ini file. The
   old_esc_mode setting makes ESC work as a prefix only if another key is
   pressed within 0.5 seconds. After 0.5 seconds the ESC key cancels.
   There is no way to make ESC cancel immediately (if we want to be able
   to use arrows keys and function keys).
   
   X terminals allow more control over keyboard, so these ESC limitations
   might not concern the forthcoming XView and Tk editions of the
   Midnight Commander.
   
  7.2 How do I get the internal editor to work?
  
   The F4 key defaults to an external editor because thats what most
   people are used to. To use the internal editor, select Configuration
   from the Options menu and check the 'use internal edit' option.
   Otherwise add the line

     use_internal_edit=1

   under the [Midnight-Commander] section in your .mc.ini file (which is
   in your home directory). To make the editor work all the time, go to
   the default/* section in the file lib/mc/mc.ext file and remove the
   line

       Edit=%var{EDITOR:vi} %f

   The internal editor will now be invoked for anything not specified
   elsewhere in the mc.ext file.
   
  7.3 Why doesn't "mcedit newfile" work?
  
   If the newfile doesn't exist, mcedit fails.
   
   Start mcedit on its own, this will create a blank file. Then save the
   file with whatever name you like.
   
  7.4 How do I use function keys F11 to F20?
  
   These can mapped to function keys F1 to F10 with Shift held. eg.
   function key F13 can be activated by pressing Shift-F3. You can define
   the keys this way in the Options menu. The convention for PC keyboards
   is that F11-20 always means Shift with F1-10
   
   Note! Windows 95/NT and OS/2 ports use F11 and F12 keys to change the
   current disk drive. In this case F11 and F12 mean the real F11 and F12
   keys, not shift-F1 and shift-F2.
   
  7.5 Is there any way to 'bookmark' favourite ftp-fs links?
  
   Use the directory hotlist. Just press control-backslash.
   
  7.6 When copying the directories lose their original date, uid and gid!
  
   This is a known bug. At moment only files preserve their original
   settings when copying, not directories.
   
   Uid and gid is fixed since 4.0.1. "Preserve UIDs/GIDs" in the copy
   dialog needs to be checked and you must be root.
   
   Date problem is supposed to be fixed with 4.0.13.
   
  7.7 Why I keep getting: "There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk
  into drive D:"?
  
   This is a known bug of the Windows 95/NT and OS/2 ports. MC looks its
   configuration files from the D:\MC directory and if the D: drive is a
   removable drive (like a CD ROM drive) and there is no disk in drive
   you get this message everytime you try to do anything.
   
   This bug is fixed since version 4.0.6.
   
8 Development

  8.1 Do I dare to use a development version?
  
   I am afraid you have to answer to this question yourself. Development
   versions seldom cause data loss but they have usually got many bugs.
   It's up to you to judge whether new features outweight the bugs.
   
  8.2 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
  
   You might first want to get the newest development version to see if
   the bug is fixed or the feature is added already.
   
   Send your report/request to mc-devel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx or
   mc@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx. These mailing lists are the most certain
   way to contact the developers. Remember to mention if you are not on
   the mailing list to make sure that you will receive a copy of replies.
   
   Give as much details as possible. A too long message is a lot better
   than a too short message.
   
   For segmentation faults a stack backtrace is appreciated. You can
   produce stack backtrace as follows:
     * If segmentation fault produced a core file:
         1. Load the core file by typing "gdb mc core" or "dbx mc core".
         2. Type "where".
         3. Cut and paste the results to your message.
     * If segmentation fault didn't produce a core file:
         1. Load mc by typing "gdb mc" or "dbx mc".
         2. Start mc by typing "run".
         3. Try to reproduce the segmentation fault by doing whatever you
            did last time when the segmentation fault occurred.
         4. Type "where".
         5. Cut and paste the results to your message.
         6. For the future you might want to check out what is the
            command in your shell to allow producing of the core files.
            Usually it is "limit coredumpsize unlimited" or "ulimit
            coredumpsize" or "ulimit -c unlimited".
       
  8.3 How can I join the development?
  
   To join the development just code the feature you want to add and send
   your patch for inclusion. Email address is mc-devel@nuclecu.unam.mx.
   Before you start coding check the latest development version. It might
   be that your feature has already been implemented.
   
   Note that because the authors of the Midnight Commander have given all
   their rights on the program to the Free Software Foundation you will
   have to do the same if you contribute non-trivial patches. Otherwise
   we have to reject your patches in order to avoid copyright problems.
   
9 Administrative information

  9.1 Authorship
  
   Questions and Answers is written by Janne Kukonlehto. Parts of it
   originate from Ian Jackson, Miguel de Icaza, Dugan Porter, Norbert
   Warmuth and Paul Sheer.
   
  9.2 File formats
  
   Question and Answers is written in a HTML-like format. It is converted
   to a real HTML by a perl script. The HTML version is rendered to plain
   text (ASCII) by Lynx.
   
   The HTML file is available at http://mc.blackdown.org/mc/answers.html.
   The ASCII file is included in the Midnight Commander source package.
   Alternatively, you can produce a ASCII version with Lynx from the HTML
   file yourself (Press p (print) and choose the (usually) topmost
   option: "Save to a local file").
   
  9.3 Feedback is invited
  
   Please send any comments to janne@mc.blackdown.org.
   
  9.4 Disclaimer and copyright
  
   Note that this document is provided as is. The information in it is
   not warranted to be correct; you use it at your own risk.
   
   You can use Questions and Answers according to GNU Public License (see
   the COPYING file in the Midnight Commander source distribution).
   Questions and Answers is not public domain.
     __________________________________________________________________
                                      
   This document is maintained by Janne Kukonlehto <janne@mc.blackdown.org>


