Computation Wesley R. Elsberry on 07 Jun 2008 12:06 pm
Mac OS X and Midnight Commander: The Missing “Insert” Key
I do a lot of work at a Unix command line interface on the MacBook Pro. One of the very handy things I use pretty much all the time is the GNU Midnight Commander (mc) application. This is a text-mode file manager interface that sets up two panels that can show two different directories, and provides most of the file operations one needs to get things done.
One thing that I’ve missed for some time is an “Insert” key, which I have under Windows, FreeBSD, or Linux, but the MacBook keyboard doesn’t have one. In mc, “Insert” tags individual entries for group operations. I had done some Googling before without success, but this morning hit paydirt: <ctrl>-T will tag an individual entry in mc. That made cleaning up after some of the automated processes I’ve been running much more pleasant.
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on 08 Aug 2008 at 8:50 am 1.Miro said …
Thanks, MUCH appreciated ;-)
on 11 Aug 2008 at 6:21 pm 2.Gregory said …
Wow, today is my day – I was googling for Insert key last 2 years since I moved to Mac everywhere on my work and home…. Thank you very much!
on 02 Sep 2008 at 10:48 am 3.Johnsmarco said …
Man, I have been looking sooo much for this thing!
This is one of the missing pieces to make OS X and Macbook Pro perfect. ;-)
Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, Thanks! ;-)
on 17 Sep 2008 at 12:48 pm 4.MrZammler said …
Many thanks man!!
on 17 Sep 2008 at 5:12 pm 5.asv2001 said …
Thanks a lot!
on 06 Nov 2008 at 5:20 am 6.smokey said …
Many thanks man. This missing key was nagging at me quite a while…..;-)
on 12 Dec 2008 at 3:31 am 7.tg said …
Wow! Thanks a million! I was searching for this for long time. :-)
on 20 Dec 2008 at 2:40 pm 8.Moszi said …
Thanks :) . That helped a lot :)
i’ve just moved to a mac a couple of months ago, and that was really a missing key :) …
on 02 Jan 2009 at 3:02 pm 9.petr0vich said …
thanks alot dude
on 29 Jan 2009 at 4:08 pm 10.kamagurka said …
Thanks!
For some reason finding out specific things about mc is almost as hard as finding things about screen (which may be because both programs are almost ungoogleable).
on 30 Jan 2009 at 3:50 am 11.Alexandre Silva said …
Thank you very much, i have been searching for insert key for a long time. It helps alot on MC under linux, its a life saver and a timer saver.
You just made my day.
on 04 Mar 2009 at 12:04 pm 12.KW said …
Thanks!
on 21 Apr 2009 at 6:55 am 13.demon said …
WOW! LOT OF THANKS!!!!
on 31 Jul 2009 at 10:58 am 14.m.koo said …
man, you’re my hero!!!!
i converted to apple in 2004 and also use mc a lot. the missing insert key was the most annoying thing ever.
about every 2 months i googled again and again. found nothing. since today ;)
you REALLY made my day. thank you very very much!
best regards
mike
on 02 Aug 2009 at 12:19 pm 15.John Van Gorp said …
Exactly what I was looking for – thanks for posting this tip!
on 11 Aug 2009 at 12:37 pm 16.Juan Yuz said …
thanks heaps!!!
on 18 Nov 2009 at 5:04 am 17.paulian said …
Many thanks !! I was looking for this.
Paulian
on 26 Nov 2009 at 9:43 am 18.rstets said …
thanks a lot!
on 18 Jan 2010 at 3:48 pm 19.Lez said …
Thanks a lot!
Ironically I’ll use it in my last days of owning a mac, to save my data.
on 07 Feb 2010 at 1:24 pm 20.Void said …
Man, you have saved my day! I was tearing my hair out…
on 07 Feb 2010 at 9:25 pm 21.Austringer said …
It had me tearing my hair out, which is why I tracked it down. I’m glad that others have been able to benefit.
on 11 Feb 2010 at 2:22 am 22.MikeH said …
Thanks much for this info! I went as far as trying to make mc “learn” the weird “enter” key (between the arrow keys and the right-cmd) as insert, but it keeps pressing enter…..
Oh well, ctrl-t is an easy price to pay vs well, anything else!
on 17 Feb 2010 at 1:50 am 23.KermiDT said …
Thank you!!!
on 16 Apr 2010 at 8:42 am 24.Ceber said …
Thank you so much! :)
on 05 May 2010 at 2:34 pm 25.rolandx said …
many thanks, i was looking at my keyboard.. thinking-. and now where is the Ins key ? lol
on 21 May 2010 at 3:38 am 26.marko said …
Thanks man !
I am googling for it like 30 min and started to get desperate…
Thanks again !
on 14 Jul 2010 at 10:56 pm 27.Nacho said …
Sos muy groso pibe, sabelo!
Gracias
Buenos Aires, Argentina
on 24 Aug 2010 at 3:52 am 28.Alex @ Bluetooth Mobile Marketing said …
hey there,
thanks for that hint. i have been looking for the insert key several times. as i worked with mc today on a macbook again, i eventually found your page.
on 11 Nov 2010 at 1:41 pm 29.Wojciech said …
du-uh
I too looked for a way to simulate / remap insert key on mac just to select files in MC, and it haven’t crossed my mind to look for alternative keys in MC.
Thanks!
on 28 Nov 2010 at 1:14 pm 30.Maxim said …
after this article macbook be perfect!
A lot of thanks!!!!
on 08 Jan 2011 at 4:22 am 31.LouiSe said …
Let see MC OSX universal binary installer here: http://louise.hu/poet/?tag=mc :)
on 20 Jan 2011 at 6:06 pm 32.dmc said …
10x, been looking for this for a few days now :)
on 15 Feb 2011 at 9:22 pm 33.Vlad said …
The “insert” key is NOT Ctrl-t on a Mac!
The reason Ctrl-t works for tagging files, is because it is another command for this action according to the manual:
http://www.chm.tu-dresden.de/edv/mc/mc4.5/manual1.html#7
Right mouse click also tags/untags individual files.
The mouse, of course, is not supported in the regular Terminal.app, but it is fully supported in xterm or uxterm that come with X11. I prefer using uxterm simply because it has Unicode UTF-8 support.
X11 comes on the install DVD as an additional/optional install.
Midnight Commander looks a lot better in X11′s xterm/uxterm.
There is a newer version of MC, as a Rudix package for Mac:
http://code.google.com/p/rudix/downloads/detail?name=mc-4.7.5.1-0.dmg
Going back to the “insert” key, in MC editor (mcedit) “Copy to clipfile” is C-Ins, and “Paste from clipfile” is S-Ins. Unfortunately, CTRL-t does not function as the “insert” key for these two commands.
on 15 Feb 2011 at 9:26 pm 34.Vlad said …
I want to add that iTerm (http://iterm.sourceforge.net/) also has full mouse support. However, mc in iTerm looks just as ugly as in the Terminal.app. That’s why I use X11/uxterm.
on 16 Feb 2011 at 7:40 am 35.Wesley R. Elsberry said …
Vlad, thanks for the additional information. I did not intend to imply that “ctrl-t” operated outside of mc for any “insert”-like functionality.
on 16 Feb 2011 at 9:35 am 36.Vlad said …
Wesley,
Yes, I know you did not mean that. It is a substitute key for this particular command.
Unfortunately, as I said, in mcedit, there is no way of using shortcuts for Copy/Cut to/Paste from clipfile, because of the missing true “Insert” key.
on 05 Mar 2011 at 4:45 am 37.Bogi said …
Thank you :)
Very helpful. (i’m back to using mc normal)
on 10 Mar 2011 at 2:18 am 38.Ali said …
5 Stars, Was looking for it for a while …
on 09 May 2011 at 9:17 am 39.zogo said …
Finallly, man u saved my live
on 17 Jun 2011 at 9:27 pm 40.Designamus LLC said …
Thanks for a great tip!
on 14 Jul 2011 at 6:21 am 41.Josse said …
Ok, that hint just saved me 20 hours of work. Thanks a bunch!
on 09 Aug 2011 at 8:55 am 42.John said …
Finally, Its mad how hard to find such an important key for Midnight Commander. I use it to select some files. Finally!
on 19 Sep 2011 at 8:42 am 43.qwe said …
Thanks a lot!
on 16 Nov 2011 at 12:07 pm 44.Gabriel R. said …
Thanks!
Much Google love to you.
on 16 Nov 2011 at 12:09 pm 45.Gabriel R. said …
BTW, did anyone find the Pattern selection shortcut?
on 16 Nov 2011 at 12:11 pm 46.Gabriel R. said …
It’s Shift+Plus. That simple. Seen here http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/seminar/OLD/Papers95/fileman/mc1.html
on 26 Nov 2011 at 9:04 pm 47.Manuel said …
Super great tip!!!!
on 12 Feb 2012 at 7:37 am 48.mluboroscev said …
Thank you very much )
on 14 Mar 2012 at 12:11 pm 49.Marcin said …
I risked my email address and event entered a captcha just to say – thank you :-)
on 23 Mar 2012 at 1:24 am 50.Dmitri said …
Many many thanks!!!!
on 14 Jun 2012 at 8:04 am 51.Andre said …
Thanks dude, very much appreciated, Midnight Commander still is great, dont want to live without it, also moved everything to MAC now .. YEah !!! Take care folks… Cheers
on 26 Jul 2012 at 8:01 am 52.Pv said …
Thanks! 4 years later, you made my day!
on 31 Jul 2012 at 9:31 pm 53.JSeven said …
For some, who wants to emulate insert key – you can assign “send text” “\e[2~” to any key you want:
On my USB-keyboard insert key is recognized in Mac as “help” key, so i assigned in iTerm2 a shortcut on insert, and it works.
on 05 Sep 2012 at 8:26 pm 54.Elijah Beale said …
Thank you :)
on 30 Sep 2012 at 4:55 am 55.Yoni said …
Damn! thanks!
on 09 Oct 2012 at 10:51 am 56.Artsiom said …
Cool. Thanks a lot.
on 09 Nov 2012 at 4:21 am 57.Arpadffy said …
Thank you very much… I have been close to cry every time when I need to press the INS button on Mac – until now.
You are my hero.
Regards,
Z
on 01 Dec 2012 at 7:09 am 58.Thijs said …
thank you
on 25 Dec 2012 at 9:18 am 59.dzikuseq said …
Thank you very much!!
on 06 Jan 2013 at 4:11 pm 60.aborine said …
Thanks!!!
on 08 Jan 2013 at 3:05 am 61.mustafa kutsaal said …
thank you bro
on 06 Feb 2013 at 3:11 am 62.Anton said …
Thanks a lot, you made me the day!!
on 16 Feb 2013 at 3:46 pm 63.Matt said …
Thanks for this, I’ve been trying to set it up with some other key for Insert for ages. Pity this excellent tool seems to have ceased development. The “better finders” out there just don’t work as well as good old MC. Cheers! M
on 04 Mar 2013 at 11:40 pm 64.Geri said …
Thanks for the tip!
Although Vlad says right click select, that doesn’t work for me, but works ok in iTerm/mc. Even mouse gestures are working, that is pretty cool.
on 18 Mar 2013 at 11:56 am 65.renner said …
Végre egy megoldás a terminálos INSERT problémára MAC környezetben :)
Thank You!!!
on 27 Mar 2013 at 5:00 am 66.Manuel said …
aaaaand thank you. Recently switched to mac os from linux and got sooo lost… you solved one of my issues!
on 03 Apr 2013 at 1:36 am 67.Mircea said …
Thank you for this.
on 15 May 2013 at 9:36 am 68.Macoy said …
wow, was looking forever for this… this makes my life a wee bit easier. :) thanks a lot man.