Midnight Commander's color scheme

Reprinted from Plug-and-Pray IT blog on  Oct 30, 2012

September 6, 2009 | Plug-and-Pray IT blog

Editing Midnight Commander's color scheme In a previous post I was sort of laying out a "formula" on how to transform your Midnight Commander default color scheme into a transparent skin, without talking too much about how you can change the other colors.

To my great shame, I didn't pay too much attention to this blog or to the comments asking for further advice. I found Mateus' comment rather late (just now!) and decided to dig further, in order to find out how exactly to deal with more refined color changes, while still keeping the transparent background (in both in Midnight Commander and its editor).

So the first thing to know is which are the colors that Midnight Commander supports; the available colors are:

black gray lightgray white red brightred green brightgreen blue brightblue magenta brightmagenta cyan brightcyan brown yellow default

The "default" color is the one giving out the nice transparency.

Now, there are certain "components" in Midnight Commander's display that can have their colors altered. Here they are:

base_color, normal, selected, marked, markselect, errors, menu, reverse, dnormal, dfocus, dhotnormal, dhotfocus, viewunderline, menuhot, menusel, menuhotsel, helpnormal, helpitalic, helpbold, helplink, helpslink, gauge, input, directory, executable, link, stalelink, device, core, special, editnormal, editbold, editmarked, errdhotnormal, errdhotfocus

Each and every one of these "components" can have its own colors set accordingly to the user's wish. Each component is assigned a color pair and must be followed by a colon (':') in order to separate it from the color pair of the next component. Here's how this basic syntax must look like:

component=foreground_color,background_color:

When you start modifying the color scheme in your Midnight Commander configuration file (located at ~/.mc/ini), you just have to add a section called "[Colors]" and proceed with enumerating the color pairs. So you'd have something like this:

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors] component1=foreground_color1,background_color1:...:componentN= foreground_colorN,background_colorN 

For increased readability, I will "truncate" that long line, adding a backslash ('\') to indicate that in fact what follows on the next line should be adjacent to the text on the previous line. This being said, the [Colors] section could look like this:

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors] component1=foreground_color1,background_color1:\ 
         component2=foreground_color2,background_color2:\
         ... componentN=foreground_colorN,background_colorN

Now that you've gotten the hang of this, let's see how the [Colors] section looks like in the default Midnight Commander color scheme (you know, the "ugly" one, with blue and dull cyan):

IMPORTANT NOTE: For visual impact's sake and due to Blogspot breaking long lines, I wrote each color pair on a single row, followed by a backslash ('\'). Please note that this does NOT work in the ~/.mc/ini file, so the final [Colors] section in your Midnight Commander configuration file MUST be a SINGLE line with no spaces and with each color pair separated from the next one by a colon (':').

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors] base_color=lightgray,blue:\ normal=lightgray,blue:\ selected=black,cyan:\ marked=yellow,blue:\ markselect=yellow,cyan:\ 
	errors=white,red:\ menu=white,cyan:\ reverse=black,lightgray:\ dnormal=black,lightgray:\ dfocus=black,cyan:\ dhotnormal=blue,lightgray:\ dhotfocus=blue,cyan:\ viewunderline=brightred,blue:\ menuhot=yellow,cyan:\ menusel=white,black:\ menuhotsel=yellow,black:\ helpnormal=black,lightgray:\ helpitalic=red,lightgray:\ helpbold=blue,lightgray:\ helplink=black,cyan:\ helpslink=yellow,blue:\ 
	gauge=white,black:\ input=black,cyan:\ directory=white,blue:\ executable=brightgreen,blue:\ link=lightgray,blue:\ stalelink=brightred,blue:\ 
	device=brightmagenta,blue:\ core=red,blue:\ special=black,blue:\ editnormal=lightgray,blue:\ editbold=yellow,blue:\ editmarked=black,cyan:\ errdhotnormal=yellow,red:\ errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

Now let's see. What you want to change first of all is most of the background of these "components", such that the display will be one with a neat looking transparent background. So first of all you might want to make a few changes to these color pairs by replacing the background color "blue" with "default". After doing these changes, your [Colors] section will look a bit like this:

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors] base_color=lightgray,default:\ normal=lightgray,default:\ selected=black,cyan:\ marked=yellow,default:\ markselect=yellow,cyan:\ errors=white,red:\ menu=white,cyan:\ reverse=black,lightgray:\ dnormal=black,lightgray:\ dfocus=black,cyan:\ dhotnormal=blue,lightgray:\ dhotfocus=blue,cyan:\ viewunderline=brightred,default:\ menuhot=yellow,cyan:\ menusel=white,black:\ menuhotsel=yellow,black:\ helpnormal=black,lightgray:\ helpitalic=red,lightgray:\ helpbold=blue,lightgray:\ helplink=black,cyan:\ helpslink=yellow,default:\ gauge=white,black:\ input=black,cyan:\ directory=white,default:\ executable=brightgreen,default:\ link=lightgray,default:\ stalelink=brightred,default:\ device=brightmagenta,default:\ core=red,default:\ special=black,default:\ editnormal=lightgray,default:\ editbold=yellow,default:\ editmarked=black,cyan:\ errdhotnormal=yellow,red:\ errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

Now you've got the basic "Midnight Commander transparent scheme" that was the result of this post.

Proceeding to Mateus' question, regarding how to change the rest of the colors now, it's about the same as before. What he didn't like there (and as a matter of fact I don't quite like it, either) is the dull cyan that's still seen in the following places:

the bottom line (the one displaying the F1...F10 function keys); the line that signifies the current selection, the "prompt" which shows you on which file/directory you're "on" at a given moment; the uppermost line (the "menu" line); the menus themselves, once you open them. To "fix" issues 1, 2, and 3 it is sufficient to alter the value of the "selected" parameter. Notice how it is initially

selected=black,cyan:\

My personal choice is to replace the background cyan, which I don't really like, with green. To do this, I'll change this color pair to

selected=black,green:\

You can, of course, change the foreground color as well. For me, it's alright to keep the foreground (the text) "black". You can change it to whatever suits your taste.

To "fix" issue number 4 in the list above, you need to change the "menu" parameter. To get it transparent, just change the "cyan" background to "default". Make other adjustments as you see fit. In other words, change

menu=white,cyan:\

into, for instance,

menu=ligthgray,default:\

However, there are a few "leftovers" from the default color scheme.

One of them is the parameter regarding the hotkeys in the menus (the "underlined" character on most of the menu options, showing you what key you can press in order to access that option faster than by moving to it with the arrow keys). This color pair is called "menuhot". I changed it from

menuhot=yellow,cyan:\

into

menuhot=yellow,default:\

Another thing which might bother you is the color of the line in the panel you're in when you've "selected all" files (when you've pressed the "*" key). This parameter is called "markselect". I changed it from

markselect=yellow,cyan:\

into

markselect=white,green:\

The color pair of the selected buttons in dialogs is called "dfocus". I changed mine from

dfocus=black,cyan:\

into

dfocus=black,green:\

In the "focused" buttons or options, the underlined character is called "dhotfocus". I changed mine from

dhotfocus=blue,cyan:\

into

dhotfocus=brightgreen,green:\

since the background color was already green, after I modified the "dfocus" color pair.

The other buttons or options in the dialogs which have hotkeys assigned to them, but which are not "focused" (the buttons/options that you're not located on at a given moment) are still displayed in blue on a light gray background. This color pair is referred to as "dhotnormal". Since the blue looks a bit odd there, I changed

dhotnormal=blue,lightgray:\ 

into

dhotnormal=brightgreen,default:\ 

Well, this is nice, in window titles and on normal (unfocused) hotkeys I get the transparent background. The problem now is that the rest of the dialog window is still light gray. To change this (to make the window transparent as well), you only need to alter the "dnormal" color pair, such as changing it from

dnormal=black,lightgray:\ 

into

dnormal=white,default:\ 

You may notice that the input fields stay cyan, as well; you find these fields in quite a lot of dialog boxes. To alter this, I changed

input=black,cyan:\

into

input=black,green:\

One thing which I consider useful is to have symbolic links displayed in bright cyan (as in the colored listings in the terminal). So I just changed

link=lightgray,default:\

into

link=brightcyan,default:\

Now, regarding the rest of the color pairs, I don't really know what they do. However, if at some point after using Midnight Commander more with this new, neat, transparent/green color scheme you'll notice unwanted leftovers, you can try out other changes in the color pairs values, one at a time, until you determine the troublesome one.

After operating the changes above, my [Colors] section in ~/.mc/ini now looks like this:

[Colors] base_color=lightgray,default:\ normal=lightgray,default:\ selected=black,green:\ marked=yellow,default:\ markselect=white,green:\ errors=white,red:\ menu=lightgray,default:\ reverse=black,lightgray:\ dnormal=white,default:\ dfocus=black,green:\ dhotnormal=brightgreen,default:\ dhotfocus=brightgreen,green:\ viewunderline=brightred,default:\ menuhot=yellow,default:\ menusel=white,black:\ menuhotsel=yellow,black:\ helpnormal=black,lightgray:\ helpitalic=red,lightgray:\ helpbold=blue,lightgray:\ helplink=black,cyan:\ helpslink=yellow,default:\ gauge=white,black:\ input=black,green:\ directory=white,default:\ executable=brightgreen,default:\ link=brightcyan,default:\ stalelink=brightred,default:\ device=brightmagenta,default:\ core=red,default:\ special=black,default:\ editnormal=lightgray,default:\ editbold=yellow,default:\ editmarked=black,cyan:\ errdhotnormal=yellow,red:\ errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

I need to direct you to the "IMPORTANT NOTE" above. The final [Colors] section above is written like this - one pair on each row, followed by a backslash - for clarity's sake. The actual final [Colors] section in your ~/.mc/ini file will have to be a one-liner, with no blanks and no backslashes. So it will probably look similar to this:

base_color=lightgray,default:normal=lightgray,default:selected=black,green:marked=yellow,default:markselect=white,green:errors=white,red:menu=lightgray,default:reverse=black,lightgray:dnormal=white,default:dfocus=black,green:dhotnormal=brightgreen,default:dhotfocus=brightgreen,green:viewunderline=brightred,default:menuhot=yellow,default:menusel=white,black:menuhotsel=yellow,black:helpnormal=black,lightgray:helpitalic=red,lightgray:helpbold=blue,lightgray:helplink=black,cyan:helpslink=yellow,default:gauge=white,black:input=black,green:directory=white,default:executable=brightgreen,default:link=brightcyan,default:stalelink=brightred,default:device=brightmagenta,default:core=red,default:special=black,default:editnormal=lightgray,default:editbold=yellow,default:editmarked=black,cyan:errdhotnormal=yellow,red:errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

Now, the next time you start mc, the new color scheme will take effect.

As a bonus, here's a picture of how my Midnight Commander looks like, with this new "skin" on:

Posted by Alexandra at 1:54 PM Labels: color scheme, mc, transparency 21 comments: Jared (Dogmeat)September 11, 2009 2:27 AM just saying hello ;)

ReplyDelete Alex.September 11, 2009 6:49 AM Hello Jared! Nice to see you around. As for social networking sites, I'm not into them at all.

ReplyDelete AnonymousSeptember 12, 2009 2:56 AM neither am I- I use it to keep track of bands, but I couldn't put my name without a website... you'll see that I have no "human" friends :P

ReplyDelete AnonymousSeptember 17, 2009 3:01 AM So, why'd you quit? I'm not asking you to come back or anything, but it IS a lot loess lively now. ;)

ReplyDelete AnonymousSeptember 17, 2009 3:02 AM Damn, sorry to spam, but I have to. less*

ReplyDelete Alex.September 17, 2009 6:47 AM Nice pic ;)

Jared, you can e-mail/IM me. I'm sure I left some contact details when I left.

Well, I left because I realized that my other interests were taking too much of my time and would not allow me to play FRP anymore, taking care of the administrating/social issues as well.

Now I'm just working, learning and reading mainly.

ReplyDelete AnonymousSeptember 19, 2009 7:00 PM I was going to email you originally, but I noticed the email address was @futurerp.

The few times I've been on IM, you haven't. :P

ReplyDelete AnonymousSeptember 21, 2009 6:03 AM Excellent post!

ReplyDelete AnonymousMay 19, 2010 3:16 AM still can't get the bar at the bottom to change... no matter what options i change, the numbers are still white/black and the text is always black/cyan :(

ReplyDelete AlexandraMay 19, 2010 3:56 AM Damn. You're right. Something changed in the meantime. I'm sure it did, otherwise the above screenshot would make no sense. Up until this something-got-broken-in-mc unfortunate event, the "status bar" (the menu with the F1...F10 options) was afected by the "selected=foreground/background" keyword.

ReplyDelete AnonymousAugust 6, 2010 11:00 PM How to fix the problem decribed above?

ReplyDelete AnonymousAugust 21, 2010 11:59 AM i have the same problem with F's menu color =(

ReplyDelete kamisoriJanuary 27, 2011 6:49 PM this fixes some colors back to transparent for mc 4.7.5

statusbar=light,default menunormal=lightgreen,default

ReplyDelete AnonymousFebruary 5, 2011 7:31 PM do you have a fix for this? id like to have the same colors as the screen shot but so far its not working

ReplyDelete AnonymousFebruary 5, 2011 7:36 PM this is a Response to the last post as it was me and I found the answer

If you go into your terminal profile and change the cyan color in the colors section to green or whatever you want it will change on Midnight Commander.

hope this was helpful!

ReplyDelete AnonymousAugust 14, 2011 3:55 AM Hello this work for me, but when I "sudo mc" nothing change the default color BLUE background is appeared back. Is this a bug that MC having. I can't seem to get transparency while I'm in sudo. Is it something thing do with the owner ship. I would say it's only work for user not globally. Any suggestion is greatly appreiciated.

thanks

ReplyDelete binarymeOctober 5, 2011 3:39 PM Love this! thanks.

ReplyDelete JugheadMarch 5, 2012 10:32 AM This, and all others have one issue: if you write some code and place some tab characters then you will be disturbed by cyan background of this characters

ReplyDelete Nerd ProgreApril 11, 2012 6:44 PM For the life of me I can't seem to find where the Midnight Commander config files are stored, because ".mc" is not under /home/username anymore!!

DAMN I wish Linux devs would stop shuffling things around....

FC

ReplyDelete Nerd ProgreApril 11, 2012 6:53 PM Damn. I will answer myself. With the help from the Fedora mailing list... the config files are now in

~/.config/mc/ plus ~/.local/share/mc/ for other files.

FC

ReplyDelete Alekseiy SerdyukSeptember 10, 2012 1:18 PM Thanks, just what I need!

ReplyDelete Add comment Load more...

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About Plug-and-Pray Hello! I hope you can find something of interest on this blog.

Please don't hesitate to comment and ask questions. If I'm able to assist, I'll reply as soon as possible or even write a "follow-up" post after investigating the problem further.

NEWS CONTENTS

• 20190820 : Midnight Commander, using date in User menu ( Dec 31, 2013 , unix.stackexchange.com )
• 20190820 : Fixing Midnight Commander's unreadable dropdown menus ( Apr 24, 2011 , tech.iprock.com )
• 20190810 : LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] Midnight Commander Help ( Aug 10, 2019 , www.linuxquestions.org )
• 20190810 : Plug-and-Pray Editing Midnight Commander's color scheme ( Aug 10, 2019 , plug-and-pray.blogspot.com )
• 20190810 : Midnight Commander color scheme ~ centosvn ( Aug 10, 2019 , centos-vn.blogspot.com )
• 20190810 : Midnight Commander colors and themes ( Aug 10, 2019 , ajnasz.hu )
• 20121116 : " Midnight Commander in Action ( " Midnight Commander in Action, Nov 16, 2012 )

Old News ;-)

[Aug 20, 2019] Midnight Commander, using date in User menu

Dec 31, 2013 | unix.stackexchange.com

user2013619 ,Dec 31, 2013 at 0:43

I would like to use MC (midnight commander) to compress the selected dir with date in its name, e.g: dirname_20131231.tar.gz

The command in the User menu is :

tar -czf dirname_`date '+%Y%m%d'`.tar.gz %d

The archive is missing because %m , and %d has another meaning in MC. I made an alias for the date, but it also doesn't work.

Does anybody solved this problem ever?

John1024 ,Dec 31, 2013 at 1:06

To escape the percent signs, double them:

tar -czf dirname_$(date '+%%Y%%m%%d').tar.gz %d

The above would compress the current directory (%d) to a file also in the current directory. If you want to compress the directory pointed to by the cursor rather than the current directory, use %f instead:

tar -czf %f_$(date '+%%Y%%m%%d').tar.gz %f

mc handles escaping of special characters so there is no need to put %f in quotes.

By the way, midnight commander's special treatment of percent signs occurs not just in the user menu file but also at the command line. This is an issue when using shell commands with constructs like ${var%.c} . At the command line, the same as in the user menu file, percent signs can be escaped by doubling them.

[Aug 20, 2019] Fixing Midnight Commander's unreadable dropdown menus

Apr 24, 2011 | tech.iprock.com

Skip to content April 24, 2011 by Admin
Important This is an edited version of a post that originally appeared on a blog called The Michigan Telephone Blog, which was written by a friend before he decided to stop blogging. It is reposted with his permission. Comments dated before the year 2013 were originally posted to his blog.

If you've installed Midnight Commander and haven't changed the default colors, when you try to access a dropdown menu you may see this:

REALLY hard to read that menu, isn't it? Wouldn't you rather see this?

To fix the unreadable menus, just make sure Midnight Commander is not open, then use any text editor (such as nano) to open ~/.mc/ini:

nano ~/.mc/ini

Assuming that there is no existing [Colors] section in the file, just add this at the bottom of the file (if the second line exceeds the blog column width, just use copy and paste to get it all):

[Colors] base_color=default,default:menu=black,cyan:menuhot=brightmagenta,cyan:menusel=white,blue:menuhotsel=brightmagenta,blue

If there is an existing [Colors] section, you can try tweaking it using the parameters shown above. If you have a very recent version of Midnight Commander (which you probably will have if you are running Ubuntu), then instead of menu= you'll need to use menunormal= , as shown here:

[Colors] base_color=default,default:menunormal=black,cyan:menuhot=brightmagenta,cyan:menusel=white,blue:menuhotsel=brightmagenta,blue

Note that for some reason the base_color parameter must appear, or the other items are ignored. Save the change, exit the editor, and open Midnight Commander. If you then close Midnight Commander, you may find that the position of the [Colors] section has moved within the ini file -- apparently Midnight Commander rewrites the file when you close it -- but if you don't like the changes you can remove the [Colors] section to reverse the change.

I figured out how to do this after reading this blog post:
Ajnasz Blog – Midnight Commander colors and themes
Another source of information is:
Zagura's blog – Midnight Commander Color Themes

Related Posts

• Link: Midnight Commander Custom Interface Colors
• Link: Video Monkey – an excellent free video encoding (format converter) application exclusively for Mac OS X
• How to install Midnight Commander under Mac OS X (the easy way, using Rudix)
• How to install Midnight Commander under Mac OS X (the easiest way?)
• Link: 7 Apps To Help You Run Windows Programs On Another OS
• Link: How to Easily Create Audiobooks From Text Files in OS X
• Link: Do More, Faster In The Linux Terminal With Midnight Commander
• [OS X] Don't Put Tape On Your Webcam, This Free App Alerts You When Someone Hacks It
• Link: Send an SMS Text Message from the Command Line
• Link: Linux alias command explained with examples
• LinuxCommand.org: Midnight Commander
• Link: Get started with Midnight Commander, a Linux file manager

[Aug 10, 2019] LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] Midnight Commander Help

Aug 10, 2019 | www.linuxquestions.org

CrazyCatLover 12-22-2014 02:40 AM Midnight Commander Help Hi, I need to know how to check the current colour for mc and how to change it. I google it and they talk about changeing some initial file /.mc/ini which i have no idea (no one ever gives full filename.)and i cant find it at all. Wasted an hour of my life. I just need the simplest way to change it, not another 10+ steps to change a stupid colour.

gengisdave 12-22-2014 03:22 AM in some distros (mine, e.g.) it is located in ~/.local/mc/ini

sycamorex 12-22-2014 03:24 AM This is the full filename. Mind you on my distro it's in ~/.config/mc/ini Find / Create this file and add the following (obviously change the colour values): The syntax is: variable=foreground_colour,background_colour Code: [Colors] base_color=lightgray,green:normal=green,default:selected=white,gray:marked=yellow,default:markselect=yellow,gray:directory=blue,default:executable=brightgreen,default:link=cyan,default:device=brightmagenta,default:special=lightgray,default:errors=red,default:reverse=green,default:gauge=green,default:input=white,gray:dnormal=green,gray:dfocus=brightgreen,gray:dhotnormal=cyan,gray:dhotfocus=brightcyan,gray:menu=green,default:menuhot=cyan,default:menusel=green,gray:menuhotsel=cyan,default:helpnormal=cyan,default:editnormal=green,default:editbold=blue,default:editmarked=gray,blue:stalelink=red,default Also, have a look at this: http://blog.mybox.ro/2010/05/10/skin...ght-commander/

[Aug 10, 2019] Plug-and-Pray Editing Midnight Commander's color scheme

Aug 10, 2019 | plug-and-pray.blogspot.com

Editing Midnight Commander's color scheme In a previous post I was sort of laying out a "formula" on how to transform your Midnight Commander default color scheme into a trasnparent skin, without talking too much about how you can change the other colors.

To my great shame, I didn't pay too much attention to this blog or to the comments asking for further advice. I found Mateus' comment rather late (just now!) and decided to dig further, in order to find out how exactly to deal with more refined color changes, while still keeping the transparent background (in both in Midnight Commander and its editor).

So the first thing to know is which are the colors that Midnight Commander supports; the available colors are:

black
gray
lightgray
white
red
brightred
green
brightgreen
blue
brightblue
magenta
brightmagenta
cyan
brightcyan
brown
yellow
default

The " default " color is the one giving out the nice transparency.

Now, there are certain "components" in Midnight Commander's display that can have their colors altered. Here they are:

base_color, normal, selected, marked, markselect, errors, menu, reverse, dnormal, dfocus, dhotnormal, dhotfocus, viewunderline, menuhot, menusel, menuhotsel, helpnormal, helpitalic, helpbold, helplink, helpslink, gauge, input, directory, executable, link, stalelink, device, core, special, editnormal, editbold, editmarked, errdhotnormal, errdhotfocus

Each and every one of these "components" can have its own colors set accordingly to the user's wish. Each component is assigned a color pair and must be followed by a colon (':') in order to separate it from the color pair of the next component. Here's how this basic syntax must look like:

component=foreground_color,background_color:

When you start modifying the color scheme in your Midnight Commander configuration file (located at ~/.mc/ini ), you just have to add a section called " [Colors] " and proceed with enumerating the color pairs. So you'd have something like this:

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors]
component1=foreground_color1,background_color1:...:componentN= foreground_colorN,background_colorN

For increased readability, I will "truncate" that long line, adding a backslash ('\') to indicate that in fact what follows on the next line should be adjacent to the text on the previous line. This being said, the [Colors] section could look like this:

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors]
component1=foreground_color1,background_color1:\
component2=foreground_color2,background_color2:\
...
componentN=foreground_colorN,background_colorN

Now that you've gotten the hang of this, let's see how the [Colors] section looks like in the default Midnight Commander color scheme (you know, the "ugly" one, with blue and dull cyan):

IMPORTANT NOTE: For visual impact's sake and due to Blogspot breaking long lines, I wrote each color pair on a single row, followed by a backslash ('\'). Please note that this does NOT work in the ~/.mc/ini file, so the final [Colors] section in your Midnight Commander configuration file MUST be a SINGLE line with no spaces and with each color pair separated from the next one by a colon (':').

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors]
base_color=lightgray,blue:\
normal=lightgray,blue:\
selected=black,cyan:\
marked=yellow,blue:\
markselect=yellow,cyan:\
errors=white,red:\
menu=white,cyan:\
reverse=black,lightgray:\
dnormal=black,lightgray:\
dfocus=black,cyan:\
dhotnormal=blue,lightgray:\
dhotfocus=blue,cyan:\
viewunderline=brightred,blue:\
menuhot=yellow,cyan:\
menusel=white,black:\
menuhotsel=yellow,black:\
helpnormal=black,lightgray:\
helpitalic=red,lightgray:\
helpbold=blue,lightgray:\
helplink=black,cyan:\
helpslink=yellow,blue:\
gauge=white,black:\
input=black,cyan:\
directory=white,blue:\
executable=brightgreen,blue:\
link=lightgray,blue:\
stalelink=brightred,blue:\
device=brightmagenta,blue:\
core=red,blue:\
special=black,blue:\
editnormal=lightgray,blue:\
editbold=yellow,blue:\
editmarked=black,cyan:\
errdhotnormal=yellow,red:\
errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

Now let's see. What you want to change first of all is most of the background of these "components", such that the display will be one with a neat looking transparent background. So first of all you might want to make a few changes to these color pairs by replacing the background color "blue" with "default". After doing these changes, your [Colors] section will look a bit like this:

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors]
base_color=lightgray,default:\
normal=lightgray,default:\
selected=black,cyan:\
marked=yellow,default:\
markselect=yellow,cyan:\
errors=white,red:\
menu=white,cyan:\
reverse=black,lightgray:\
dnormal=black,lightgray:\
dfocus=black,cyan:\
dhotnormal=blue,lightgray:\
dhotfocus=blue,cyan:\
viewunderline=brightred,default:\
menuhot=yellow,cyan:\
menusel=white,black:\
menuhotsel=yellow,black:\
helpnormal=black,lightgray:\
helpitalic=red,lightgray:\
helpbold=blue,lightgray:\
helplink=black,cyan:\
helpslink=yellow,default:\
gauge=white,black:\
input=black,cyan:\
directory=white,default:\
executable=brightgreen,default:\
link=lightgray,default:\
stalelink=brightred,default:\
device=brightmagenta,default:\
core=red,default:\
special=black,default:\
editnormal=lightgray,default:\
editbold=yellow,default:\
editmarked=black,cyan:\
errdhotnormal=yellow,red:\
errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

Now you've got the basic "Midnight Commander transparent scheme" that was the result of this post .

Proceeding to Mateus' question, regarding how to change the rest of the colors now, it's about the same as before. What he didn't like there (and as a matter of fact I don't quite like it, either) is the dull cyan that's still seen in the following places:

1. the bottom line (the one displaying the F1...F10 function keys);
2. the line that signifies the current selection, the "prompt" which shows you on which file/directory you're "on" at a given moment;
3. the uppermost line (the "menu" line);
4. the menus themselves, once you open them.

To "fix" issues 1, 2, and 3 it is sufficient to alter the value of the " selected " parameter. Notice how it is initially

selected=black,cyan:\

My personal choice is to replace the background cyan, which I don't really like, with green. To do this, I'll change this color pair to

selected=black,green:\

You can, of course, change the foreground color as well. For me, it's alright to keep the foreground (the text) "black". You can change it to whatever suits your taste.

To "fix" issue number 4 in the list above, you need to change the " menu " parameter. To get it transparent, just change the "cyan" background to "default". Make other adjustments as you see fit. In other words, change

menu=white,cyan:\

into, for instance,

menu=ligthgray,default:\

However, there are a few "leftovers" from the default color scheme.

One of them is the parameter regarding the hotkeys in the menus (the "underlined" character on most of the menu options, showing you what key you can press in order to access that option faster than by moving to it with the arrow keys). This color pair is called " menuhot ". I changed it from

menuhot=yellow,cyan:\

into

menuhot=yellow,default:\

Another thing which might bother you is the color of the line in the panel you're in when you've "selected all" files (when you've pressed the "*" key). This parameter is called " markselect ". I changed it from

markselect=yellow,cyan:\

into

markselect=white,green:\

The color pair of the selected buttons in dialogs is called " dfocus ". I changed mine from

dfocus=black,cyan:\

into

dfocus=black,green:\

In the "focused" buttons or options, the underlined character is called " dhotfocus ". I changed mine from

dhotfocus=blue,cyan:\

into

dhotfocus=brightgreen,green:\

since the background color was already green, after I modified the " dfocus " color pair.

The other buttons or options in the dialogs which have hotkeys assigned to them, but which are not "focused" (the buttons/options that you're not located on at a given moment) are still displayed in blue on a light gray background. This color pair is referred to as " dhotnormal ". Since the blue looks a bit odd there, I changed

dhotnormal=blue,lightgray:\

into

dhotnormal=brightgreen,default:\

Well, this is nice, in window titles and on normal (unfocused) hotkeys I get the transparent background. The problem now is that the rest of the dialog window is still light gray. To change this (to make the window transparent as well), you only need to alter the " dnormal " color pair, such as changing it from

dnormal=black,lightgray:\

into

dnormal=white,default:\

You may notice that the input fields stay cyan, as well; you find these fields in quite a lot of dialog boxes. To alter this, I changed

input=black,cyan:\

into

input=black,green:\

One thing which I consider useful is to have symbolic links displayed in bright cyan (as in the colored listings in the terminal). So I just changed

link=lightgray,default:\

into

link=brightcyan,default:\

Now, regarding the rest of the color pairs, I don't really know what they do. However, if at some point after using Midnight Commander more with this new, neat, transparent/green color scheme you'll notice unwanted leftovers, you can try out other changes in the color pairs values, one at a time, until you determine the troublesome one.

After operating the changes above, my [Colors] section in ~/.mc/ini now looks like this:

[Colors]
base_color=lightgray,default:\
normal=lightgray,default:\
selected=black,green:\
marked=yellow,default:\
markselect=white,green:\
errors=white,red:\
menu=lightgray,default:\
reverse=black,lightgray:\
dnormal=white,default:\
dfocus=black,green:\
dhotnormal=brightgreen,default:\
dhotfocus=brightgreen,green:\
viewunderline=brightred,default:\
menuhot=yellow,default:\
menusel=white,black:\
menuhotsel=yellow,black:\
helpnormal=black,lightgray:\
helpitalic=red,lightgray:\
helpbold=blue,lightgray:\
helplink=black,cyan:\
helpslink=yellow,default:\
gauge=white,black:\
input=black,green:\
directory=white,default:\
executable=brightgreen,default:\
link=brightcyan,default:\
stalelink=brightred,default:\
device=brightmagenta,default:\
core=red,default:\
special=black,default:\
editnormal=lightgray,default:\
editbold=yellow,default:\
editmarked=black,cyan:\
errdhotnormal=yellow,red:\
errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

I need to direct you to the " IMPORTANT NOTE " above. The final [Colors] section above is written like this - one pair on each row, followed by a backslash - for clarity's sake. The actual final [Colors] section in your ~/.mc/ini file will have to be a one-liner, with no blanks and no backslashes. So it will probably look similar to this:

base_color=lightgray,default:normal=lightgray,default:selected=black,green:marked=yellow,default:markselect=white,green:errors=white,red:menu=lightgray,default:reverse=black,lightgray:dnormal=white,default:dfocus=black,green:dhotnormal=brightgreen,default:dhotfocus=brightgreen,green:viewunderline=brightred,default:menuhot=yellow,default:menusel=white,black:menuhotsel=yellow,black:helpnormal=black,lightgray:helpitalic=red,lightgray:helpbold=blue,lightgray:helplink=black,cyan:helpslink=yellow,default:gauge=white,black:input=black,green:directory=white,default:executable=brightgreen,default:link=brightcyan,default:stalelink=brightred,default:device=brightmagenta,default:core=red,default:special=black,default:editnormal=lightgray,default:editbold=yellow,default:editmarked=black,cyan:errdhotnormal=yellow,red:errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

Now, the next time you start mc , the new color scheme will take effect.

As a bonus, here's a picture of how my Midnight Commander looks like, with this new "skin" on:

Posted by Alexandra at 1:54 PM Labels: color scheme , mc , transparency

[Aug 10, 2019] Midnight Commander color scheme ~ centosvn

Aug 10, 2019 | centos-vn.blogspot.com

Midnight Commander (or "mc") can have transparent panels instead of the ugly, dull default blue. So can "mcedit", its text editor.

Here's how to do it. Edit the file ~/.mc/ini and add at the end the following:

[Colors]
base_color=normal=,default:selected=,:marked=,default:\
markselect=,:menu=,:menuhot=,:menusel=,:\
menuhotsel=,:dnormal=,:dfocus=,:dhotnormal=,:dhotfocus=,:\
input=,:reverse=,:executable=,default:directory=,default:\
link=,default:device=,default:special=,:core=,:helpnormal=,:\
helplink=,:helpslink=,:editnormal=,default:

Note #1: In the above 'code' block, there is only one line below [Colors] . I truncated the line with the backslash because of blogspot rendering issues. You just write all that on one single line, without the "\" (backslash-es).

Note #2: At the end of this line, the " editnormal,=default: " option means that mcedit will have transparent background in your console, as well.

To my great shame, I didn't pay too much attention to this blog or to the comments asking for further advice. I found Mateus' comment rather late (just now!) and decided to dig further, in order to find out how exactly to deal with more refined color changes, while still keeping the transparent background (in both in Midnight Commander and its editor).

So the first thing to know is which are the colors that Midnight Commander supports; the available colors are:

black
gray
lightgray
white
red
brightred
green
brightgreen
blue
brightblue
magenta
brightmagenta
cyan
brightcyan
brown
yellow
default

The " default " color is the one giving out the nice transparency.

Now, there are certain "components" in Midnight Commander's display that can have their colors altered. Here they are:

base_color, normal, selected, marked, markselect, errors, menu, reverse, dnormal, dfocus, dhotnormal, dhotfocus, viewunderline, menuhot, menusel, menuhotsel, helpnormal, helpitalic, helpbold, helplink, helpslink, gauge, input, directory, executable, link, stalelink, device, core, special, editnormal, editbold, editmarked, errdhotnormal, errdhotfocus

Each and every one of these "components" can have its own colors set accordingly to the user's wish. Each component is assigned a color pair and must be followed by a colon (':') in order to separate it from the color pair of the next component. Here's how this basic syntax must look like:

component=foreground_color,background_color:

When you start modifying the color scheme in your Midnight Commander configuration file (located at ~/.mc/ini ), you just have to add a section called " [Colors] " and proceed with enumerating the color pairs. So you'd have something like this:

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors]
component1=foreground_color1,background_color1:...:componentN= foreground_colorN,background_colorN

For increased readability, I will "truncate" that long line, adding a backslash ('\') to indicate that in fact what follows on the next line should be adjacent to the text on the previous line. This being said, the [Colors] section could look like this:

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors]
component1=foreground_color1,background_color1:\
component2=foreground_color2,background_color2:\
...
componentN=foreground_colorN,background_colorN

Now that you've gotten the hang of this, let's see how the [Colors] section looks like in the default Midnight Commander color scheme (you know, the "ugly" one, with blue and dull cyan):

IMPORTANT NOTE: For visual impact's sake and due to Blogspot breaking long lines, I wrote each color pair on a single row, followed by a backslash ('\'). Please note that this does NOT work in the ~/.mc/ini file, so the final [Colors] section in your Midnight Commander configuration file MUST be a SINGLE line with no spaces and with each color pair separated from the next one by a colon (':').

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors]
base_color=lightgray,blue:\
normal=lightgray,blue:\
selected=black,cyan:\
marked=yellow,blue:\
markselect=yellow,cyan:\
errors=white,red:\
menu=white,cyan:\
reverse=black,lightgray:\
dnormal=black,lightgray:\
dfocus=black,cyan:\
dhotnormal=blue,lightgray:\
dhotfocus=blue,cyan:\
viewunderline=brightred,blue:\
menuhot=yellow,cyan:\
menusel=white,black:\
menuhotsel=yellow,black:\
helpnormal=black,lightgray:\
helpitalic=red,lightgray:\
helpbold=blue,lightgray:\
helplink=black,cyan:\
helpslink=yellow,blue:\
gauge=white,black:\
input=black,cyan:\
directory=white,blue:\
executable=brightgreen,blue:\
link=lightgray,blue:\
stalelink=brightred,blue:\
device=brightmagenta,blue:\
core=red,blue:\
special=black,blue:\
editnormal=lightgray,blue:\
editbold=yellow,blue:\
editmarked=black,cyan:\
errdhotnormal=yellow,red:\
errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

Now let's see. What you want to change first of all is most of the background of these "components", such that the display will be one with a neat looking transparent background. So first of all you might want to make a few changes to these color pairs by replacing the background color "blue" with "default". After doing these changes, your [Colors] section will look a bit like this:

# the rest of your ~/.mc/ini file

[Colors]
base_color=lightgray,default:\
normal=lightgray,default:\
selected=black,cyan:\
marked=yellow,default:\
markselect=yellow,cyan:\
errors=white,red:\
menu=white,cyan:\
reverse=black,lightgray:\
dnormal=black,lightgray:\
dfocus=black,cyan:\
dhotnormal=blue,lightgray:\
dhotfocus=blue,cyan:\
viewunderline=brightred,default:\
menuhot=yellow,cyan:\
menusel=white,black:\
menuhotsel=yellow,black:\
helpnormal=black,lightgray:\
helpitalic=red,lightgray:\
helpbold=blue,lightgray:\
helplink=black,cyan:\
helpslink=yellow,default:\
gauge=white,black:\
input=black,cyan:\
directory=white,default:\
executable=brightgreen,default:\
link=lightgray,default:\
stalelink=brightred,default:\
device=brightmagenta,default:\
core=red,default:\
special=black,default:\
editnormal=lightgray,default:\
editbold=yellow,default:\
editmarked=black,cyan:\
errdhotnormal=yellow,red:\
errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

Now you've got the basic "Midnight Commander transparent scheme" that was the result of this post .

Proceeding to Mateus' question, regarding how to change the rest of the colors now, it's about the same as before. What he didn't like there (and as a matter of fact I don't quite like it, either) is the dull cyan that's still seen in the following places:

1. the bottom line (the one displaying the F1...F10 function keys);
2. the line that signifies the current selection, the "prompt" which shows you on which file/directory you're "on" at a given moment;
3. the uppermost line (the "menu" line);
4. the menus themselves, once you open them.

To "fix" issues 1, 2, and 3 it is sufficient to alter the value of the " selected " parameter. Notice how it is initially

selected=black,cyan:\

My personal choice is to replace the background cyan, which I don't really like, with green. To do this, I'll change this color pair to

selected=black,green:\

You can, of course, change the foreground color as well. For me, it's alright to keep the foreground (the text) "black". You can change it to whatever suits your taste.

To "fix" issue number 4 in the list above, you need to change the " menu " parameter. To get it transparent, just change the "cyan" background to "default". Make other adjustments as you see fit. In other words, change

menu=white,cyan:\

into, for instance,

menu=ligthgray,default:\

However, there are a few "leftovers" from the default color scheme.

One of them is the parameter regarding the hotkeys in the menus (the "underlined" character on most of the menu options, showing you what key you can press in order to access that option faster than by moving to it with the arrow keys). This color pair is called " menuhot ". I changed it from

menuhot=yellow,cyan:\

into

menuhot=yellow,default:\

Another thing which might bother you is the color of the line in the panel you're in when you've "selected all" files (when you've pressed the "*" key). This parameter is called " markselect ". I changed it from

markselect=yellow,cyan:\

into

markselect=white,green:\

The color pair of the selected buttons in dialogs is called " dfocus ". I changed mine from

dfocus=black,cyan:\

into

dfocus=black,green:\

In the "focused" buttons or options, the underlined character is called " dhotfocus ". I changed mine from

dhotfocus=blue,cyan:\

into

dhotfocus=brightgreen,green:\

since the background color was already green, after I modified the " dfocus " color pair.

The other buttons or options in the dialogs which have hotkeys assigned to them, but which are not "focused" (the buttons/options that you're not located on at a given moment) are still displayed in blue on a light gray background. This color pair is referred to as " dhotnormal ". Since the blue looks a bit odd there, I changed

dhotnormal=blue,lightgray:\

into

dhotnormal=brightgreen,default:\

Well, this is nice, in window titles and on normal (unfocused) hotkeys I get the transparent background. The problem now is that the rest of the dialog window is still light gray. To change this (to make the window transparent as well), you only need to alter the " dnormal " color pair, such as changing it from

dnormal=black,lightgray:\

into

dnormal=white,default:\

You may notice that the input fields stay cyan, as well; you find these fields in quite a lot of dialog boxes. To alter this, I changed

input=black,cyan:\

into

input=black,green:\

One thing which I consider useful is to have symbolic links displayed in bright cyan (as in the colored listings in the terminal). So I just changed

link=lightgray,default:\

into

link=brightcyan,default:\

Now, regarding the rest of the color pairs, I don't really know what they do. However, if at some point after using Midnight Commander more with this new, neat, transparent/green color scheme you'll notice unwanted leftovers, you can try out other changes in the color pairs values, one at a time, until you determine the troublesome one.

After operating the changes above, my [Colors] section in ~/.mc/ini now looks like this:

[Colors]
base_color=lightgray,default:\
normal=lightgray,default:\
selected=black,green:\
marked=yellow,default:\
markselect=white,green:\
errors=white,red:\
menu=lightgray,default:\
reverse=black,lightgray:\
dnormal=white,default:\
dfocus=black,green:\
dhotnormal=brightgreen,default:\
dhotfocus=brightgreen,green:\
viewunderline=brightred,default:\
menuhot=yellow,default:\
menusel=white,black:\
menuhotsel=yellow,black:\
helpnormal=black,lightgray:\
helpitalic=red,lightgray:\
helpbold=blue,lightgray:\
helplink=black,cyan:\
helpslink=yellow,default:\
gauge=white,black:\
input=black,green:\
directory=white,default:\
executable=brightgreen,default:\
link=brightcyan,default:\
stalelink=brightred,default:\
device=brightmagenta,default:\
core=red,default:\
special=black,default:\
editnormal=lightgray,default:\
editbold=yellow,default:\
editmarked=black,cyan:\
errdhotnormal=yellow,red:\
errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

I need to direct you to the " IMPORTANT NOTE " above. The final [Colors] section above is written like this - one pair on each row, followed by a backslash - for clarity's sake. The actual final [Colors] section in your ~/.mc/ini file will have to be a one-liner, with no blanks and no backslashes. So it will probably look similar to this:

base_color=lightgray,default:normal=lightgray,default:selected=black,green:marked=yellow,default:markselect=white,green:errors=white,red:menu=lightgray,default:reverse=black,lightgray:dnormal=white,default:dfocus=black,green:dhotnormal=brightgreen,default:dhotfocus=brightgreen,green:viewunderline=brightred,default:menuhot=yellow,default:menusel=white,black:menuhotsel=yellow,black:helpnormal=black,lightgray:helpitalic=red,lightgray:helpbold=blue,lightgray:helplink=black,cyan:helpslink=yellow,default:gauge=white,black:input=black,green:directory=white,default:executable=brightgreen,default:link=brightcyan,default:stalelink=brightred,default:device=brightmagenta,default:core=red,default:special=black,default:editnormal=lightgray,default:editbold=yellow,default:editmarked=black,cyan:errdhotnormal=yellow,red:errdhotfocus=yellow,lightgray

Now, the next time you start mc , the new color scheme will take effect.

As a bonus, here's a picture of how my Midnight Commander looks like, with this new "skin" on:

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[Aug 10, 2019] Midnight Commander colors and themes

Aug 10, 2019 | ajnasz.hu

Koszti Lajos Midnight Commander is the most pupular file manager on unix like systems. It's fast and it has all features what you need. But it's only blue and we know, that everyone loves the eyecandy, everyone likes customizing his/her own desktop. But is there any way to custimize the mc ?
Yes, and I try to show you, how can you create your theme .

• Midnight Commander Skin

You can change the Midnight Commander colors if you edit the ~/.mc/ini file, where you have to add a new section, named [Colors] . You should define the new colors in this section, for example:

[Colors] base_color=lightgray,green:normal=green,default:selected=white,gray ...

As you see, it has a simple syntax:

<keyword>=<foregroundcolor>,<backgroundcolor>:<keyword>= ...

The colors are optional, so you can use this:

[Colors] base_color=lightgray,green:normal=green:selected=,gray ...

It's not the exactly the same as the first version!

Fine, you can change some colors of the filemanager, but which are the keywords? These are:

• Base colors: normal, selected, marked, markselect, errors, input, reverse, gauge
• Menu colors: menu, menusel, menuhot, menuhotsel
• Dialog colors: dnormal, dfocus, dhotnormal, dhotfocus
• Help colors: helpnormal, helpitalic, helpbold, helplink, helpslink
• Viewer color: viewunderline
• Special highlighting colors: executable, directory, link, stalelink, device, special, core
• Editor colors: editnormal, editbold, editmarked

And which are the colors? I don't know all, but here are some of them:
white, gray, blue, green, yellow, magenta, cyan, red, brown, birghtgreen, brightblue, brightmagenta, brightcyan, brightred, default

Here is the config, what I use:

[Colors] base_color=lightgray,green:normal=green,default:selected=white,gray:marked=yellow,default:markselect=yellow,gray:directory=blue,default:executable=brightgreen,default:link=cyan,default:device=brightmagenta,default:special=lightgray,default:errors=red,default:reverse=green,default:gauge=green,default:input=white,gray:dnormal=green,gray:dfocus=brightgreen,gray:dhotnormal=cyan,gray:dhotfocus=brightcyan,gray:menu=green,default:menuhot=cyan,default:menusel=green,gray:menuhotsel=cyan,default:helpnormal=cyan,default:editnormal=green,default:editbold=blue,default:editmarked=gray,blue:stalelink=red,default

Screenshot about my redesigned Midnight Commander

On the screenshot you can see, that the directory color is blue, the files are green, the executable files are birghtgreen and the selected line is white on a gray background.

And another one, what I use recently:

[Colors] base_color=lightgray,blue:normal=blue,default:selected=white,brightblue:marked=yellow,default:markselect=yellow,gray:directory=brightblue,default:executable=brightgreen,default:link=cyan,default:device=brightmagenta,default:special=lightgray,default:errors=red,default:reverse=green,default:gauge=green,default:input=white,gray:dnormal=green,gray:dfocus=brightgreen,gray:dhotnormal=cyan,gray:dhotfocus=brightcyan,gray:menu=green,default:menuhot=cyan,default:menusel=green,gray:menuhotsel=cyan,default:helpnormal=cyan,default:editnormal=green,default:editbold=blue,default:editmarked=gray,blue:stalelink=red,default

Screenshot about my redesigned Midnight Commander

And here is a small shell script, which will help for you to test your new theme:

#!/bin/sh mc --colors normal=green,default:selected=brightmagenta,gray:marked=yellow,default:markselect=yellow,gray:directory=blue,default:executable=brightgreen,default:link=cyan,default:device=brightmagenta,default:special=lightgray,default:errors=red,default:reverse=green,default:gauge=green,default:input=white,gray:dnormal=green,gray:dfocus=brightgreen,gray:dhotnormal=cyan,gray:dhotfocus=brightcyan,gray:menu=green,default:menuhot=cyan,default:menusel=green,gray:menuhotsel=cyan,default:helpnormal=cyan,default:editnormal=green,default:editbold=blue,default:editmarked=gray,blue:stalelink=red,default

Download the shell script to make your own mc theme

Save it as mccolortest.sh, make it executable with the chmod +x mccolortest.sh command, and run it with the ./mccolortest.sh command. If you want to change a color, just edit this file. When you done, copy the colors and paste it below the [Colors] section in the ~/.mc/ini . If it doesn't exists, make it yourself.

For more information of the mc redesigning check its manual page .

---

Mauricio • 2 hónapja ,

Awesome!
Thank you for your clear explanation.

Anonymous • 6 éve ,

Thank you for theme. I tried your last theme and it is exactly what I was searching for.

Anonymous • 6 éve ,

Also, in 4.8.3 here, I copied the first example scheme line and my colors are different. I can't even set the background of the select bar to gray (or "grey"): it gets replaced with black. Also, the panel headings remain blue here, unlike the (first) screenshot, and I can see no corresponding tag in the line anyway.

Good intro, regardless. Someone should post a pointer to a more up-to-date one, though, as Google seems to find this old thread within the top few hits. Király! ;)

--lunakid

Ajnasz Anonymous • 6 éve ,

The colors are depends on the color settings of your terminal. I don't have those settings anymore which was when I posted this article, but here is my current. If I'm right, it's similar to that. Put it into your .Xdefaults

*background: #000000
*foreground: #EEEEEC

! Default
! 0: black
*color0: #1C1C1C
*color8: #333333
! 1: red
*color1: #C14242
*color9: #EF2929
! 2: green
*color2: #6AA037
*color10: #9DCF70
! 3: yellow
*color3: #CFAB2F
*color11: #FCDA4F
! 4: blue
*color4: #2D578A
*color12: #729FCF
! 5: magenta
*color5: #A85EB4
*color13: #AD7FA8
! 6: cyan
*color6: #2F8D8F
*color14: #34E2E2
! 7: white
*color7: #D3D7CF
*color15: #EEEEEC

Anonymous • 7 éve ,

Now ~/.mc dir is ignored. Now is ~/.config/mc ;)

Anonymous • 10 éve ,

Midnight Commander supports skins starting from 4.7.0-pre3 version. You can download a skin with black as a main color from here:
http://zool.in.ua/software/bluemoon/

Anonymous • 10 éve ,

I am using MC on my router ASUS WL-500GP and I am developing php scripts on it. but as I see MC in openwrt (kmaikaze 8.09) does not use syntax-highlighting and it is very unconfortable.
Do you know how could I turn it on? I have already downloaded php.syntax file and put it into /usr/share/syntax dir but it does not seem to work. is it possible that some support is not compiled into my version or the syntax file must be compiled to another format?
Br Zé.

Anonymous Anonymous • 10 éve ,

I found it. in ~/.mc/cedit/Syntax must be this:
file ..\*\\.(php|PHP)$ PHP\sFile
include php.syntax

and in the same dir php.syntax file must be placed. (copied out from a source distrib)
Zé

Anonymous • 10 éve ,

hei ajnasz, your color theme so very nice, keep my eye on my pc longer than usual. Well, i don't have much time to do more explore with this tricks. I think your taste so cool. If you have any kind of theme, i should be try it. :-)

Regards,

Dedi

Anonymous • 10 éve ,

Any chance to change the color of the files by extension?

Anonymous Anonymous • 10 éve ,

Midnight Commander supports this starting from 4.7.0-pre3 version.

Ajnasz Anonymous • 10 éve ,

I didn't find anything about it. By the way, since the extension doesn't determinate the file type in UNIX like systems, it wouldn't make any sense to do it.

Anonymous Ajnasz • 9 éve ,

Don't be silly. Mp3 is just music, txt is text, doc is document. The only thing, which is not exactly determinable is the executables, but whatever, it has +x flag.

Anonymous • 11 éve ,

Also, you should know that most modern terminal applications allow you to redefine the exact shade of those 16 colors.

Some of them (such as the Gnome or KDE terminals) may have a place under their preferences where you can redefine the colors.

Older terminals, such as aterm, use ~/.Xdefaults for this. You can edit that file and add lines like this: "aterm*color1: OrangeRed" (without the quotes). What I've done with that is tell aterm that the "color1" (which was red) should now be "OrangeRed". See /usr/share/X11/rgb.txt for valid color names. You can use *color0 through *color15. So when you'll say "red" in MC's ini file, and if you use aterm, it will get replaced by color1 in ~/.Xdefaults and changed to OrangeRed. (Sorry, I don't remember the mappings between the names used by MC and 0-15 in Xdefaults by heart.)

Anonymous • 12 éve ,

On the same subject:
http://www.zagura.ro/index....

[Nov 16, 2012] " Midnight Commander in Action

polishlinux.org

Add following lines to your ~/.mc/ini file for cool color scheme like this one.

[Colors]
base_color=dnormal=brightblue,default:dfocus=brightcyan,default:dhotnormal=brightcyan,default:dhotfocus=white,default:menu=white,blue:menusel=yellow,cyan:menuhot=yellow,blue:menuhotsel=white,cyan:input=white,blue:reverse=brightblue,default:gauge=brightblue,default:normal=cyan,default:selected=white,blue:marked=yellow,default:directory=brightcyan,default:link=red,default:device=brightblue,default:special=red,default:core=brightred,default:executable=green,default:editnormal=lightgray,default:editbold=brightred,default:editmarked=black,lightgray (Comments

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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Last modified: August, 20, 2019