After switching from windows-systems, it is extremely unusual to see key designations with Ctrl, Alt, and others.

For example, in mc, the command chown is Cx o - when searching for a short search, you realize that this is the Ctrl-x o key combination.

And what kind of combination is M-? ( Find file in mc) and how to type it?

Or another example from tmux :

M-1 to M-5 Arrangements for one of the five preset layouts: even-horizontal, even-vertical, main-horizontal, main-vertical, or tiled.

In general, what designations are used in linux for such special keys, such as Ctrl , Shift , Alt , Win ?

1 answer 1

The oldest mention of such abbreviations found in the source code gnu emacs version 18.59 , which was released 25 years ago . quote from man/emacs.texi :

 You can use modifier keys such as @key{CTRL}, @key{META} and @key{SHIFT} with function keys. To represent these modifiers, prepend the strings @samp{C-}, @samp{M-} and @samp{S-} to the symbol name.

but, of course, such a reduction was widely used before. it is difficult to find enough reasoned confirmation of this.

And what kind of combination is M-? (Find file in mc) and how to type it?

This is the meta key, which can be represented in different ways .

now it's usually the alt key. Ie, it is necessary to hold alt and press the key ? .

but it is possible and more portable way - through the escape key: press and release it, and then press the key ? .