$VIEWER

[MK <halfcountplus intergate com>]

Mikolaj Machowski further explained:

> Define $VIEWER or View command in bindings as
> vim -X --noplugin -c "colorscheme desert" -c "map <F10> :qa!<cr>"
>
> It will load vim with desert (just example) colorscheme and F10 will
> quit vim. Note: you may need to escape ! with \ depending on your
> shell.

thanks MM, i did not understand your initial advice because i had  
forgotten about vim keybindings, which i surely should be using more of  
anyway ;)

bash actually makes noise about more than just !, forcing me to quote  
the whole thing (which then...) but it does work in (/~/.mc) bindings.