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Total Commander Tip of the Day #4

Your daily Total Commander tip (or as often as I can be bothered).

Some key combinations are well advertised in the program, either the buttons at the bottom (you can switch that off if you know these Norton Commander function keys) or in the menu. Others are not so obvious or well known. Here are a few:

  1. Shift+F6               – Rename a file under the cursor with no entries (files or folders) selected. F2 doesn’t do it.
  2. Ctrl+E                    – Previous command (on the command line near the bottom). Always handy for the cmd command that then opens in the current folder.
  3. Space                    – Calculate the size of a folder
  4. Ctrl+R                    – Reread the source. Normally items are up to date but if changed from another program or from another machine sometimes you need to reread the contents of a folder. See also the Refresh in the Configuration->Options menu.
  5. Del                         – Deletes files/folders same as F8
  6. Alt+F1/F2            – Change left/right drive
  7. Alt+F11/F12        – Use breadcrumb bar left/right
  8. Alt+F5                   – Pack files/folders. A bit like a copy but put it in a zip file. It’s in the file menu.
  9. Ins                          – Add file/folder to the selection
  10. Num+                   – Add files/folders to the selection using wildcards
  11. Num-                    – Remove files/folders from the selection using wildcards
  12. Ctrl+Num-           – Deselect all
  13. Num*                   – Inverse the selection
  14. Ctrl+PgUp           – In folder up, same as Backspace
  15. Ctrl+PgDn            – Open folder/archive, same as Enter
  16. Tab                         – Switch between panes
  17. Ctrl+U                   – Switch panes
  18. Ctrl+T                    – Add another tab
  19. Ctrl+W                  – Remove tab
  20. Ctrl+Tab               – Switch tabs

There are lots more of course, but these are the shortcuts I regularly use. More are either mentioned in all menu’s or in the help file under Operation->Keyboard layout. And you can of course configure your own in Configuration->Options->Misc.->Redefine hotkeys (Keyboard remapping).