A quick look at prerelease mc 4.7.0

I decided to go wild the other day, and build a brand-spanking-new version of Midnight Commander, pulling down a prerelease version of 4.7.0. mc is one of those programs that make life at the console an utter joy, just because of the sheer beauty and perfect convenience of it.

There’s not so much that’s new in the jump between 4.6.x and 4.7.0 that it warrants a huge, in-depth discussion, but there are a lot of nice little “flairs” that I find appealing. The newer version has a newer face, as you can see.

The biggest draws for me are the little things — a chance to color-code entries by filetype, or the free space display in the lower right corner of the panels. I also like that the F-key menu at the bottom stretches over the width of the screen. And I see now that you can also prename new directories as you make them.

I see a few other little bonuses in places — the ability to shift the proportion between panes, and so forth. Take a closer look for yourself.

I know this is technically prerelease, but I’ve been using it for a couple of days and haven’t run into any problems. If you’re a fellow mc fan, you should give it a whirl. There are bound to be a few little tweaks here and there that you enjoy.