How to switch the editor in mc (midnight commander) from nano to mcedit?

Question

Using ubuntu 10.10 the editor in mc (midnight commander) is nano. How can i switch to the internal mc editor (mcedit)?

score 97 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 28 '22 at 07:21

97

Press the following keys in order, one at a time:

F9 or Alt + 9 Activates the top menu.
o Selects the Option menu.
c Opens the configuration dialog.
i Toggles the use internal edit option.
s Saves your preferences.

screenshot

edited Apr 28 '22 at 07:21

Pablo Bianchi

15,657

answered Dec 09 '10 at 18:14

Isaiah

59,344

11

Can you also add how to change the editor to any other editor? – trusktr Nov 04 '12 at 20:34
It would be better to specify a way to change this from the command line, but not by changing the OS default editor. – sorin Apr 30 '13 at 08:10
This is great, but is there a way to do the same in the command line, say, by adding/changing an environment variable? I'd like to automate this. – Nickolai Leschov Apr 05 '14 at 17:34
5

Looks it has changed to 't' instead of 'i' image – pshirishreddy Feb 15 '16 at 05:43
1

@trusktr to change to other editor you need to uncheck the option and set the EDITOR environment variable, easily with select-editor – Pablo Bianchi May 20 '20 at 02:46

score 64 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 24 '16 at 18:40

64

Run MC as usual. On the command line right above the bottom row of menu selections type select-editor. This should open a menu with a list of all of your installed editors. This is working for me on all my current linux machines.

edited Oct 24 '16 at 18:40

Nux

81
9

answered Jun 21 '14 at 02:34

Hurnst

641
5
3

Thank you! That was the only solution that worked for me with the mc version in the Ubuntu 14.04 repositories. – Sledge Hammer Aug 09 '15 at 11:57
6

Doesn't work for me. I get a "Command not found" error from Bash. – marlar Mar 17 '16 at 08:50
2

This solution is useful in Ubuntu (not tested in Debian) but in Redhat or Centos you need to do something like this blog rhel-centos-set-default-editor-to-nano – hermeslm Aug 09 '19 at 15:09
1

@hermeslm, Thank you ^_^ – Sam Sirry May 08 '22 at 02:16
+1 as this works in Debian 11 as well and allows one to change the editor to eg nano after mcedit was selected, as Debian activates mcedit as an external editor so changing it becomes impossible with the menu-based solution given by Isaiah. – fvu Mar 02 '23 at 11:34

score 21 · Answer 3 · edited May 20 '20 at 02:39

21

You can also change the standard editor system-wide. Open a terminal and type this command:

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

You will get a list of the installed editors on your system, and you can choose your favorite.

edited May 20 '20 at 02:39

Pablo Bianchi

15,657

answered Dec 09 '10 at 18:07

4

OP is not asking how to change the system default editor. – Ryan C. Thompson Dec 09 '10 at 18:33
@RyanC.Thompson yes, but changing the default system editor would also change the default external MC editor, thus answering the OP's question. It's still a valid answer. – user213769 Jul 13 '23 at 15:41

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 27 '15 at 07:06

6

If you want to leave mc and system settings as it is now, you may just run it like

$ EDITOR=mcedit mc

answered Jan 27 '15 at 07:06

AntonioK

271

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 07 '20 at 09:14

4

In user's home folder (/home/<user-name>/) there should be a file named .selected_editor. One can edit it and change it there to a desired editor.

# Generated by /usr/bin/select-editor
SELECTED_EDITOR="/path/to/mcedit"

Or remove this file to force MC to ask about default editor on first edit.

answered Mar 07 '20 at 09:14

qba-dev

344

This is the best way to also set a custom editor like micro. – Vassilis Oct 16 '20 at 07:38
This is the way it worked for me as mc is not showing the "save" option – fabatera Mar 12 '24 at 11:10

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 09 '10 at 18:02

2

Open Midnight Commander, go to Options -> Configuration and check "use internal editor" Hit save and you are done.

answered Dec 09 '10 at 18:02

PengiunPillup

29

How to switch the editor in mc (midnight commander) from nano to mcedit?

6 Answers6

Linked