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.