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
• 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
• 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.

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.

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
Ctrl-P	Fuzzy finder
Ctrl-B	Bookmarks
Ctrl-T	Theme picker (live preview)

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
Shift-Up	Select and move up
Shift-Down	Select and move down
Insert	Toggle selection and move down

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

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" or "preview"
enter_action = "edit"
# What Space does on a file: "preview" or "edit"
space_action = "preview"

[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"
# ... 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.