Midday Commander

A modern dual-panel terminal file manager written in Go, inspired by Midnight Commander.

Midday Commander (mdc) brings the classic dual-panel file management paradigm into the modern terminal with fuzzy finding, bookmarks, archive browsing, themes and customizable keybindings.

Bookmarks — bookmarks for most visited locations

Themes — TOML-based themes with live preview

Fuzzy Find

Features

• Dual-panel file browsing with independent navigation and selection
• Archive browsing - enter ZIP, TAR, 7z, RAR, GZ, BZ2, XZ, LZ4 files as virtual directories
• Fuzzy finder - recursive file search with real-time fuzzy matching
• Bookmarks to quickly jump to most visited locations
• Configurable keybindings - every key is remappable via config.toml
• Smart autocomplete - path and command suggestions with Tab completion in Go to path and Execute command
• File operations - copy, move, delete, rename, mkdir with confirmation dialogs
• Live theme picker - browse and preview themes with Ctrl-T
• Multi-file selection - tag files with Insert or Shift+Arrow for batch operations
• Quick search - start typing to jump to matching files instantly
• External editor/viewer - opens files in $EDITOR and $PAGER
• Quick view - preview the selected file in the other pane (read-only, follows the cursor) with Ctrl+Q
• Execute files - run executable files directly with Enter (configurable)
• Terminal access - open shell in current directory with Ctrl+O
• Mouse support - clickable menu bar and panel interaction
• Go to path - quickly jump to any directory with ~ expansion
• Single binary - no runtime dependencies

Installation

Using Homebrew

brew install kooler/apps/middaycommander

Run: mdc

From releases (MacOS/Windows/Linux)

Download a binary from the Releases in Github.

Using Mise en place

mise use --global github:kooler/MiddayCommander

Build from source

Requires Go 1.21 or later.

git clone https://github.com/kooler/MiddayCommander.git
cd mdc
make build

The binary will be at ./mdc. Move it to your $PATH:

sudo mv mdc /usr/local/bin/

Build targets

make build   # Build the binary
make run     # Build and run
make test    # Run tests
make vet     # Run go vet
make clean   # Remove binary

Quick Start

mdc

The left panel opens in the current directory, the right panel in your home directory. Navigate with arrow keys or j/k, switch panels with Tab.

Return active path on exit (-r)

With mdc -r the active panel's path is printed on stdout when you quit. Why is it needed? for example if you want to cd to that directory, add the following to your ~/.zshrc / ~/.bashrc:

mdcd() {
    local dir
    dir=$(mdc -r) && [ -n "$dir" ] && cd "$dir"
}

Now mdcd launches mdc; when you quit, the shell cds into the directory the active panel was showing. Good way to navigate around.

Keybindings

Global

Key	Action
F1	Help - show keybinding reference
F2	Bookmarks
F3	View file ($PAGER)
F4	Edit file ($EDITOR)
F5	Copy to other panel
F6	Move to other panel
F7	Create directory
F8	Delete
F9	Fuzzy finder
F10	Quit
Esc Esc	Quit (double-press)
Tab	Switch active panel
Ctrl-U	Swap panels
Ctrl-G	Go to path (with directory autocomplete)
Ctrl-R	Execute command (with path/command autocomplete; inside overlay, Ctrl+E toggles exec-only mode)
Ctrl-P	Fuzzy finder
Ctrl-B	Bookmarks
Ctrl-T	Theme picker (live preview)
Ctrl-H	Toggle hidden files
Ctrl-Q	Quick view - preview selected file in the other pane

Navigation

Key	Action
Up / k	Move cursor up
Down / j	Move cursor down
PgUp / PgDn	Page up / down
Home / End	Jump to first / last
Enter	Enter directory or edit file
Space	Preview file ($PAGER)
Backspace	Go to parent directory
Type any letter	Quick search - jump to matching file

Selection

Key	Action
Insert	Toggle selection on current file (and move down)
Shift-Up	Select and move up
Shift-Down	Select and move down
+	Select group by shell pattern (e.g. *.go)
-	Deselect group by shell pattern
*	Invert selection of all entries

Group selection uses standard shell globs (*, ?, [abc]) matched against file names. The dialog opens with * pre-filled, so + Enter tags every entry and - Enter clears the selection.

Bookmarks

Key	Action
a	Add current directory
d	Delete selected bookmark
f	Filter bookmarks
0-9	Quick jump to bookmark
Enter	Navigate to bookmark
Esc	Close

Quick view

Press Ctrl-Q to turn the inactive pane into a live, read-only preview of the file selected in the active pane. As you move the cursor, the preview follows the selection. Press Tab to move focus into the preview and scroll it (Up/Down, PgUp/PgDn, Home/End), and Tab again to return to the listing. Press Esc (or Ctrl-Q again) to close it.

Non-text files stay visible in the preview with a short summary (binary, directory, empty) rather than garbled content. Only the head of large files is loaded.

Note: on some terminals Ctrl-Q is reserved for XON/XOFF flow control and never reaches the application. If it does nothing, rebind quick_view to another key in config.toml.

Archives

Press Enter on any supported archive file to browse its contents as a virtual directory. Backspace exits the archive.

Supported formats: .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz, .zip, .7z, .rar, .gz, .bz2, .xz, .lz4, .lz, .zst

Configuration

Configuration lives at ~/.config/mdc/config.toml (respects XDG_CONFIG_HOME).

Copy the example to get started:

mkdir -p ~/.config/mdc
cp config.example.toml ~/.config/mdc/config.toml

Example config

# Theme (loads from ~/.config/mdc/themes/<name>.toml)
theme = "catppuccin-mocha"

[behavior]
# What Enter does on a file: "edit", "preview", or "execute"
enter_action = "edit"
# What Space does on a file: "preview" or "edit"
space_action = "preview"
# Whether to ask for confirmation before executing a file.
confirm_execute = true
# Whether to pause and wait after execution before returning to Midday Commander.
pause_after_execute = false

[keys]
quit          = ["f10", "ctrl+c"]
toggle_panel  = "tab"
copy          = "f5"
move          = "f6"
mkdir         = "f7"
delete        = "f8"
fuzzy_find    = ["f9", "ctrl+p"]
bookmarks     = ["f2", "ctrl+b"]
help          = "f1"
goto          = "ctrl+g"
terminal      = "ctrl+o"
quick_view    = "ctrl+q"
# ... all keys are configurable

See config.example.toml for the full reference.

Themes

Themes are TOML files stored at ~/.config/mdc/themes/.

Live theme picker

Press Ctrl-T to open the theme picker overlay. Use Up/Down to browse themes with live preview — the entire UI updates instantly as you navigate. Press Enter to apply the selected theme or Esc to cancel and revert to the previous theme.

Installing themes

mkdir -p ~/.config/mdc/themes
cp themes/*.toml ~/.config/mdc/themes/

Theme format

Themes use a [palette] section to define named colors, then reference them throughout:

name = "My Theme"

[palette]
bg     = "#1e1e2e"
fg     = "#cdd6f4"
blue   = "#89b4fa"
green  = "#a6e3a1"

[panel]
border_fg        = "blue"
border_bg        = "bg"
border_active_fg = "fg"
border_active_bg = "bg"

[panel.file]
normal_fg  = "fg"
normal_bg  = "bg"
dir_fg     = "blue"
dir_bold   = true
exec_fg    = "green"

[statusbar]
fg = "bg"
bg = "blue"

[menubar]
fg           = "bg"
bg           = "blue"
fkey_hint_fg = "fg"
fkey_hint_bg = "bg"
fkey_label_fg = "bg"
fkey_label_bg = "blue"

Colors can be hex values ("#89b4fa"), ANSI color numbers ("4"), or palette references ("blue"). Any missing values fall back to the built-in default theme.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please open an issue to discuss significant changes before submitting a pull request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add my feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/my-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Development

git clone https://github.com/kooler/MiddayCommander.git
cd mdc
make build
make test

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.