How to create a new file / directory using ranger

Here is a tricky way to do this, and this may not always work if they change their code (and there could be cases where restarting ranger is better/safer).

rc.conf

In ranger, assuming you have a custom rc.conf in ~/.config/ranger/rc.conf, type:

:eval fm.source(fm.confpath('rc.conf'))

I tested this by changing set draw_borders true/false in ~/.config/ranger/rc.conf.

rifle.conf

In ranger, assuming you have a custom rifle.conf in ~/.config/ranger/rifle.conf, type:

:eval fm.rifle.reload_config()

Note that this was tested with the latest Git commits.

With the files / directories marked, press dd, then navigate to the directory you want to paste them in and press p.