9 Miscellaneous Commands

Miscellaneous features not fitting anywhere else:

dired-find-subdir

Default: nil

If non-nil, Dired does not make a new buffer for a directory if it can be found (perhaps as subdirectory) in some existing Dired buffer.

If there are several Dired buffers for a directory, the most recently used is chosen.

Dired avoids switching to the current buffer, so that if you have a normal and a wildcard buffer for the same directory, C-x d RET will toggle between those two.

M-G

(dired-goto-subdir) Go to the header line of an inserted directory. This command reads its argument, with completion derived from the names of the inserted subdirectories.

dired-smart-shell-command

Like function shell-command, but in the current Dired directory. Bound to M-! in Dired buffers.

dired-jump

Bound to C-x C-j. Jump back to Dired: If in a file, edit the current directory and move to file's line. If in Dired already, pop up a level and go to old directory's line. In case the proper Dired file line cannot be found, refresh the Dired buffer and try again.

dired-jump-other-window

Bound to C-x 4 C-j. Like dired-jump, but to other window.

These functions can be autoloaded so they work even though dired-x.el has not been loaded yet (see Optional Installation Dired Jump).

If the variable dired-bind-jump is nil, dired-jump will not be bound to C-x C-j and dired-jump-other-window will not be bound to C-x 4 C-j.

dired-vm

Bound to V if dired-bind-vm is t. Run VM on this file (assumed to be a UNIX mail folder).

If you give this command a prefix argument, it will visit the folder read-only. This only works in VM 5, not VM 4.

If the variable dired-vm-read-only-folders is t, dired-vm will visit all folders read-only. If it is neither nil nor t, e.g., the symbol if-file-read-only, only files not writable by you are visited read-only. This is the recommended value if you run VM 5.

If the variable dired-bind-vm is t, dired-vm will be bound to V. Otherwise, dired-bind-rmail will be bound.

dired-rmail

Bound to V if dired-bind-vm is nil. Run Rmail on this file (assumed to be mail folder in Rmail format).

dired-info

Bound to I. Run Info on this file (assumed to be a file in Info format).

If the variable dired-bind-info is nil, dired-info will not be bound to I.

dired-man

Bound to N. Run man on this file (assumed to be a file in nroff format).

If the variable dired-bind-man is nil, dired-man will not be bound to N.

dired-do-relsymlink

Bound to Y. Relative symlink all marked (or next ARG) files into a directory, or make a relative symbolic link to the current file. This creates relative symbolic links like

              foo -> ../bar/foo

not absolute ones like

              foo -> /ugly/path/that/may/change/any/day/bar/foo

dired-do-relsymlink-regexp

Bound to %Y. Relative symlink all marked files containing regexp to newname. See functions dired-do-rename-regexp and dired-do-relsymlink for more info.