Hidden Windows Terminal goodies to check out: Retro mode that emulates blurry CRT display – and more
- Reference: 1598554033
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/08/27/windows_terminal_update/
- Source link:
It's the features that now appear in the released version that are most interesting. Windows Terminal – as found in the Microsoft Store – has reached version 1.2, with enhancements including focus mode, always on top, command palette and more. The preview version has been bumped to 1.3 with a new tab switcher, tab search, and some other tweaks.
By default the Terminal offers much more than the old command prompt. Multiple tabs is the most obvious feature, and a drop-down menu lets you choose between profiles by default command shell, PowerShell, WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), and Azure Cloud Shell (this list is configurable).
Getting the best from the Terminal does require a bit of work, though, and it remains a largely hidden feature of Windows 10. Some of the features are documented as "not bound by default", which means there is no keyboard shortcut for them: you can find them using the command palette, but this too is off by default in the current release.
[1]
The command palette in Terminal lets users easily manage and discover its features
Another catch is that if you have been using Windows Terminal for a while, the settings file will be based on an old version. A handy tip is to open settings from the drop-down menu then open settings again with the Alt key held down. This shows the latest default settings in your default JSON editor. These settings do not overwrite the current ones, but you can then copy and paste selected parts, or the whole thing if you want to start from scratch. Microsoft is planning a GUI settings applet for Windows Settings, which will help to make the Terminal more discoverable, though some users may still prefer editing the JSON directly.
Command Palette is in version 1.2 and enhanced in 1.3. Enable it in 1.2 by adding the following to the "actions" section of settings.json : { "command": "commandPalette", "keys": "ctrl+shift+p" },
Then press the key combination, and up comes a searchable list of commands in a style familiar to users of Visual Studio Code. Use the arrow keys to select a command and press Enter. These commands control the appearance and behaviour of the Terminal itself, such as changing the font size or duplicating a tab. Users can also amuse themselves with options like "Toggle retro terminal effect", which "will emulate a classic CRT display with scan lines and blurry text edges. This is an experimental feature and its continued existence is not guaranteed," [2]state the docs . In version 1.3 the Command Palette is enabled by default, and there is a command line mode that lets you run wt commands on the current window ( wt being the executable that runs the Terminal).
[3]
Retro mode emulates a blurry CRT display – ouch!
Always-on-top mode does what you expect, pushing the Terminal in front of all other windows – annoying in normal use but could be handy in some troubleshooting scenarios.
Focus mode, which again is "not bound by default", hides the tabs and title bar. Maximise the Terminal, hide the taskbar, and enter focus mode for an immersive command line experience. Add retro mode and travel back in time.
Tabs are more tweakable in version 1.2, with new commands to set the tab colour, and rename the tab (also possible by double-clicking a tab). In the 1.3 preview, users can also set the tab colour per profile in settings.
The Windows Terminal in conjunction with WSL is a great enhancement to Windows 10 for those who enjoy the speed and scripting capabilities of the command line and the new command palette is a useful improvement. ®
Get our [4]Tech Resources
[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/08/27/palette.png
[2] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/customize-settings/profile-settings
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/08/27/retro.png
[4] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
MobaXterm, it's got a built-in X-Server, Cygwin, package installer, and tabs.
My rant is a little further down below ;)
I made this tmux clone. https://github.com/osen/vimux
It isn't perfect but does just about allow us to avoid making multiple SSH sessions. You might find it useful too?
(Edit: I tested it on Win7+ but it should also run on older, such as Windows XP)
The standard console in Windows 10 has supported Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V for copy and paste for quite a while now. It's even smart enough for Ctrl+C to copy (if there's a text selection) or kill the current process as you would expect. Suffice to say I miss it when I have to use bash for something (talk about awkward copy+paste functionality - enter to copy, right click to paste... uh-huh, that makes sense).
And you've always been able to change the font - at least as long as I can remember.
>> Suffice to say I miss it when I have to use bash for something (talk about awkward
That probably means you are running bash in the standard (pre-10) Windows console. Agreed, the copy and paste in the Windows console is bizarre.
Normally bash is distributed by Cygwin and with it, the mintty terminal. In that case you just select the text with your mouse (no copy needed) and then middle click to paste. Copying off the traditional X11 approach. Works very nicely and no risk of sending a ctrl-c signal to the running program (haha!) (actually I guess that *was* the reason behind the decision for Microsofts weird "enter" to copy system of old)
I'm guessing you mean putty? Copy/paste and inability to CTRL arrow through lines of text. Native bash on Linux is a much better experience....
Not as cute as a tektronix terminal! They are so trippy I wish I had one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZsiR45tKKw
Hmm, tabs... how quaint. Do people not use SSH or (even less likely) Remote Powershell? How about some sort of sodding console multiplexer on the hosts end so I don't need to make about 5 separate ssh connections just to develop/debug software remotely on this annoying platform?
tmux, screen.... (even DESQview from the 90s!). All very popular for a reason.
I even had to hack up a "poor man's tmux" (https://github.com/osen/vimux) for whenever I have to babysit a "special" Windows machine.
What's wrong with tabs?
I didn't know this existed but I might have a play on my windows 10 box.
The main issue with local tabs is you need to keep relogging into the SSH server every time you create a new one. It is much more effective to "open up a tab" on the server session instead.
Sure, if you only edit the occasional config file, who cares but if you have many tabs, i.e text editor (nvi), compiler (clang), debugger (lldb) and manpages all up at once on the remote machine, it soon becomes inefficient to log in and change directory for each one.
In the past we happily solved this with job control (ctrl-z, bg, fg) and it worked great but... of course flipping Windows is lacking that fundamental thing too! XD
Most people install a POSIX layer like Cygwin and get on with their lives but unfortunately Cygwin minces up the environment just enough that it can make testing and debugging native win32 software unreliable (for example it changes a lot of environmental variables).
While it's nice to finally actually get Terminal actually working, it's galloping towards Bloat Mode.
So how many years and millions have Microsoft spent...
...to very badly copy xemacs?
Slowly trying to monitorise Linux....
Better late than never I suppose. By late I'm measuring in decades.
The windows command prompt has always sucked and the powershell terminal really isn't much better except for more easily allowing a terminal wider than 80 columns.
I've tried a few 3rd party terminal emulators and I'm yet to find one that I'm happy with. PuTTY is the smoothest for SSH but the lack of tabs means it's too cumbersome for me when working with multiple sessions.
I just don't get why terminals in Windows have to be so damn bad - from hideous, chunky fonts to awkward and cumbersome copy+paste functionality.
I'm stuck with server 2012r2 for the foreseeable future so given this terminal apparently requires Windows 10 I doubt it'll help me much. But if it gets backported I'll give it a whirl.