Windows Terminal is a new, modern, fast, efficient, powerful and productive terminal application for users of command line tools and shells such as Command Prompt, PowerShell and WSL.
Windows Terminal will ship through the Microsoft Store in Windows 10 and will be updated regularly, ensuring you're always up to date and able to enjoy the latest features and latest enhancements with minimal effort.
Key Features of Windows Terminal
Multiple tabs
You asked and we heard! The most frequently requested feature for the terminal is multi-tab support, and we're thrilled to finally be able to provide this feature. You can now open any number of tabs, each connected to a command line shell or application of your choice, such as Command Prompt, PowerShell, Ubuntu on WSL, Raspberry Pi via SSH, etc.
beautiful text
Windows Terminal uses DirectWrite/DirectX GPU acceleration based on a text rendering engine. This new text rendering engine will render text characters, glyphs and symbols present in fonts on your PC, including CJK ideograms, emojis, powerline characters, icons, programming ligatures, etc. This engine even renders text much faster than the previous engine GDI consoles!
You will also have the opportunity to use our new font! We wanted to create a fun, new, monospaced font to enhance the modern look and feel of the terminal. This font will not only include programming ligatures, but will also have its own open-source repository. Stay tuned for more information on the new font project!
Settings and configurability
We have contacted many command line users who love to customize their terminals and command line applications. Windows Terminal provides many settings and configuration options that give you a lot of control over the appearance of the terminal and each of the skins/profiles that can be opened as new tabs. The settings are stored in a structured text file, making configuration easy for users and/or tools.
Using the terminal configuration mechanism, you can create multiple βprofilesβ for each shell/application/tool ββyou want to use, be it PowerShell, Command Prompt, Ubuntu, or even SSH connections to Azure or IoT devices. These profiles can have their own combination of font styles and sizes, color themes, background blur/transparency levels, and more. Now you can create your own custom terminal that is personalized to your unique taste!
More!
With the release of Windows Terminal 1.0, we plan to start working on many of the features that we already have in our backlog, in addition to the many features that you, as a community, are likely to add!
When can I receive it?
Today, Windows Terminal and Windows Console are available in the open source, so you can already clone, build, run and test the code from the GitHub repository:
Also, a preview version of Windows Terminal will be released this summer in the Microsoft Store for early adopters and feedback.
We're planning to finally release Windows Terminal 1.0 this winter, and we'll be working with the community to make sure it's complete before we release it!
Wait... did you say open source?
Yes it is! We are happy to announce that we are opening not only the Windows Terminal, but also the Windows Console, which contains the command line infrastructure in Windows and provides the traditional Console UX.
We can't wait to work with you to improve and expand the capabilities of the Windows command line!
It sounds amazing, but why don't you just improve the existing Windows Console?
The main goal of the Windows Console is to maintain backward compatibility with existing command line tools, scripts, etc. While we have been able to add many key enhancements to the functionality of the console (such as adding support for VT and 24-bit color, etc.) see this blog post), we can't make further significant improvements to the console UI without breaking the peace.
So it's time for a new, fresh approach.
Windows Terminal installs and runs alongside the existing Windows Console application. If you directly launch Cmd/PowerShell/etc, they will start connecting to the traditional console instance just like they normally would. This way the backwards compatibility stays the same and at the same time you can use the Windows Terminal if/when you want to do so. The Windows Console will continue to ship with Windows for decades to support existing/legacy applications and systems.
Okay, but what about contributing to an existing terminal project or an open-source application?
We carefully considered this option during planning and decided that our involvement with an existing project would require changing the project's requirements and architecture in a way that would be too disruptive.
Instead, by creating a new open-source terminal application and an open-source Windows Console, we can invite the community to work with us to improve the code and use it in their respective projects.
We believe there is plenty of room in the market for new/different ideas about what a terminal can and should do, and we are committed to helping the ecosystem of terminal (and related) applications thrive and evolve through new ideas, interesting approaches, and exciting innovations. in this space.
Convinced! How to take part?
Visit the repository at to clone, build, test and run a terminal! In addition, we would appreciate it if you would report bugs and share feedback with us and the community, as well as fix issues and make improvements to GitHub.
This summer, try installing and running Windows Terminal from the Microsoft Store. If you encounter any bugs, please provide feedback via the Feedback Hub or the Issues section on GitHub, which is for questions and discussions.
We are happy to work with you! If you have any questions or requests feel free to contact Kayla and/or Rich on Twitter. We can't wait to see what great improvements and features you bring to Windows Terminal and Windows Console.
Source: habr.com