How to set default editor/viewer for Midnight Commander to Sublime

Question

The question is quite straightforward, so no further description is needed according to me.

I just add that I am running Ubuntu 13.04.

Any help is welcomed.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

In Midnight Commander go to Options menu / Configuration... command / Use internal edit checkbox and uncheck it. (Don't forget to execute the Save setup command if the Auto save setup option is off.)

Then set the EDITOR environment variable to Sublime. You may prefer to add one of these to your shell's resource file:

• Global setting for all programs that use EDITOR (not recommended):

  EDITOR=sublime
  export EDITOR
  

• Temporary setting for the given Midnight Commander session only:

  alias mc='EDITOR=sublime mc'
  

Same for the viewer, just you uncheck the Use internal view option and set the VIEWER environment variable instead.

Answer 3

Although this topic is old, Midnight Commander keeps using vi as default in my Tumbleweed.

I checked the setup on my Raspberry (that is Debian based Buster). At first run mc offers there "select editor", that is creating a writable file in $HOME/.selected_editor. You can create it with

touch $HOME/.selected_editor

It further has a symlink

/etc/alternatives/@editor pointing to /usr/bin/nano

Create that symlink and save the three further executable script files in /usr/bin:

sensible-pager

#!/bin/sh

# Prevent recursive loops, where these values are set to this script
p="$(which sensible-pager)"
[ "$(which $PAGER || true)" = "$p" ] && PAGER=

${PAGER:-pager} "$@"
ret="$?"
if [ "$ret" -eq 126 ] || [ "$ret" -eq 127 ]; then
    more "$@"
    ret="$?"
    if [ "$ret" -eq 126 ] || [ "$ret" -eq 127 ]; then
        echo "Couldn't find a pager!" 1>&2
        echo "Set the \$PAGER environment variable to your desired pager." 1>&2
        exit 1
    fi
fi

sensible-editor

#!/bin/sh

ret="$?"

# Prevent recursive loops, where these values are set to this script
p="$(which sensible-editor)"
[ "$(which $EDITOR || true)" = "$p" ] && EDITOR=
[ "$(which $VISUAL || true)" = "$p" ] && VISUAL=
[ "$(which $SELECTED_EDITOR || true)" = "$p" ] && SELECTED_EDITOR=

if [ -n "$VISUAL" ]; then
    ${VISUAL} "$@"
    ret="$?"
    if [ "$ret" -ne 126 ] && [ "$ret" -ne 127 ]; then
        exit "$ret"
    fi
fi

if [ -r ~/.selected_editor ]; then
    . ~/.selected_editor 2>/dev/null || true
elif [ -z "$EDITOR" ] && [ -z "$SELECTED_EDITOR" ] && [ -t 0 ]; then
    select-editor && . ~/.selected_editor 2>/dev/null || true
fi
${EDITOR:-${SELECTED_EDITOR:-editor}} "$@"
ret="$?"
if [ "$ret" -eq 126 ] || [ "$ret" -eq 127 ]; then
    nano "$@"
    ret="$?"
    if [ "$ret" -eq 126 ] || [ "$ret" -eq 127 ]; then
        nano-tiny "$@"
        ret="$?"
        if [ "$ret" -eq 126 ] || [ "$ret" -eq 127 ]; then
            vi "$@"
            ret="$?"
            if [ "$ret" -eq 126 ] || [ "$ret" -eq 127 ]; then
                echo "Couldn't find an editor!" 1>&2
                echo "Set the \$EDITOR environment variable to your desired editor." 1>&2
                exit 1
            fi
        fi
    fi
fi
exit "$ret"

sensible-browser

#!/bin/sh

# Prevent recursive loops, where these values are set to this script
p="$(which sensible-browser)"
[ "$(which $BROWSER || true)" = "$p" ] && BROWSER=

if test -n "$BROWSER"; then
    ${BROWSER} "$@"
    ret="$?"
    if [ "$ret" -ne 126 ] && [ "$ret" -ne 127 ]; then
        exit "$ret"
    fi
fi

if test -n "$DISPLAY"; then
    if test -n "$GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID"; then
        if test -x /usr/bin/gnome-www-browser; then
            exec /usr/bin/gnome-www-browser "$@"
        elif test -x /usr/bin/x-www-browser; then
            exec /usr/bin/x-www-browser "$@"
        elif test -x /usr/bin/gnome-terminal && test -x /usr/bin/www-browser; then
            exec /usr/bin/gnome-terminal -x /usr/bin/www-browser "$@"
        fi
    fi
    if test -x /usr/bin/x-www-browser; then
        exec /usr/bin/x-www-browser "$@"
    elif test -x /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator && test -x /usr/bin/www-browser; then
        exec /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator -x /usr/bin/www-browser "$@"
    fi
elif test -x /usr/bin/www-browser; then
    exec /usr/bin/www-browser "$@"
fi

printf "Couldn't find a suitable web browser!\n" >&2
printf "Set the BROWSER environment variable to your desired browser.\n" >&2 
exit 1;

I was really surprised but after these steps nano is the editor when using F4.