You can install a pager called most. It is a paging program that displays, one windowful at a time, the contents of a file on a terminal. It pauses after each windowful and prints on the window status line the screen the file name, current line number, and the percentage of the file so far displayed.
How Do I Install most Under FreeBSD unix?
To install the port, enter:
# cd /usr/ports/sysutils/most/
# make install clean
Alternatively, you can add the binary package called most using the the following command:
# pkg_add -r most
Newer version of FreeBSD user should use the pkg command:
# pkg install most
How Do I Install most Under Debian / Ubuntu Linux?
Type the following apt-get command or apt command:
$ sudo apt-get install most
OR
$ sudo apt install most
How Do I Install most Under Fedora / RHEL / SL / CentOS Linux?
Make sure EPEL repo is configured on a CentOS/RHEL based system. Type the following yum command to install the same:
# yum install most
Fedora Linux user should type the following dnf command:
$ sudo dnf install most
How Do I Use most Command?
Type the following command to set PAGER bash shell variable, enter:
export PAGER="most" |
OR
export PAGER="/usr/bin/most -s" |
I recommend that you modify and setup environment variable called PAGER in ~/.bashrc file.
A Note About CSH / TCSH Shell Users
CSH / tcsh shell users, type the following command:
setenv PAGER /usr/local/bin/most |
Try viewing man for any command. To view the man page of Linux date command, enter:
$ man date
Sample outputs:
most Command Summary
Quitting:
Q Quit MOST.
:N,:n Quit this file and view next.
(Use UP/DOWN arrow keys to select next file.)
Movement:
SPACE, D *Scroll down one Screen.
U, DELETE *Scroll Up one screen.
RETURN, DOWN *Move Down one line.
UP *Move Up one line.
T Goto Top of File.
B Goto Bottom of file.
> , TAB Scroll Window right
< Scroll Window left
RIGHT Scroll Window left by 1 column
LEFT Scroll Window right by 1 column
J, G Goto line.
% Goto percent.
Window Commands:
Ctrl-X 2, Ctrl-W 2 Split window.
Ctrl-X 1, Ctrl-W 1 Make only one window.
O, Ctrl-X O Move to other window.
Ctrl-X 0 Delete Window.
Searching:
S, f, / *Search forward
? *Search Backward
N *Find next in current search direction.
Miscellaneous:
W Toggle width between 80 and 132 char mode.
Ctrl-X Ctrl-F Read a file from disk
R, Ctrl-R Redraw Screen.
F Simulate tail -f mode
:o Toggle options: b-binary, w-wrap, t-tab
E Edit file. Uses MOST_EDITOR and EDITOR
environment variables.
*Note: This command may be repeated `n' times By entering a number then
the command key, e.g., '5 SPACE' moves 5 screens forward.
External links
- Download most paging program for Unix, VMS, MSDOS, and win32 systems.
- Unix / Linux: Display Color Man Pages
- Linux / Unix: Colored Man Pages With less Command
10 comment
On Mac OSX there are some interesting options. I use zsh as my shell and I use homebrew instead of macports for installing stuff like “most”.
If you have homebrew you can open terminal and:
“brew install most”
Then with “most” installed you can pipe man to most:
“man date | most”
I also found out today you can pipe man to preview:
“man -t most | open -f -a /Applications/Preview.app”
This creates a PDF, although it’s not colored.
Thanks for the sharing OS X specific info.
I use Termcap to add color to manpages.
1. Add the following to ~/.LESS_TERMCAP
2. Source this file from .bashrc :
# Use colors for less, man, etc. [[ -f ~/.LESS_TERMCAP ]] && . ~/.LESS_TERMCAPMore details at http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/147/4
Great info. I appreciate your comment.
Archlinux has same package , vÃa pacman
I like most however I’m too used to use J and K to scroll in less.
If there was a way to bind J and K to scroll up/down I’d be sold.
On CENTOS/RED HAT you can change the pager for MAN pages only from “less” to “most”.
Edit the setting for PAGER setting in /etc/man.config
PAGER /usr/bin/less -is
to
PAGER /usr/bin/most -s
Built fine from source on OSX. First download slang from the same site.
./configure, make, sudo make install
I couldn’t get most to build with an uninstalled version of slang
Then the same thing for most
i also use “most” but what i dislike about it is that it does not do search highlight. When searching using “/” it scrolls to the location but the found word is not highlighted … annoying somewhat as you have to read around the page to figure out where exactly it found it.
I’ll try the LESS_TERMCAP tip from Stefan, thanks!
most is a standard part of Fedora without RPMforge, and has been for some time. You can install it with:
yum install most