Introducing Windows Terminal

We are beyond excited to announce Windows Terminal! Windows Terminal is a new, modern, fast, efficient, powerful, and productive terminal application for users of command-line tools and shells like Command Prompt, PowerShell, and WSL.

Windows Terminal will be delivered via the Microsoft Store in Windows 10 and will be updated regularly, ensuring you are always up to date and able to enjoy the newest features and latest improvements with minimum effort.

Windows Terminal key features

Multiple tabs

You’ve asked and we’ve listened! The most frequently requested feature for the Terminal is multiple tab support and we are SUPER excited to FINALLY be able to deliver this key feature. You will now be able to open any number of tabs, each connected to a command-line shell or app of your choice, e.g. Command Prompt, PowerShell, Ubuntu on WSL, a Raspberry Pi via SSH, etc.

Beautiful text

The Windows Terminal uses a GPU accelerated DirectWrite/DirectX-based text rendering engine. This new text rendering engine will display text characters, glyphs, and symbols present within fonts on your PC, including CJK ideograms, emoji, powerline symbols, icons, programming ligatures, etc. This engine also renders text much faster than the previous Console’s GDI engine!

You will also have the option of using our new font! We wanted to create a fun, new, monospaced font to enhance the modern look and feel of the Terminal. Not only will this font include programming ligatures, but it will also be open sourced and have its own repository. Stay tuned for more information on the new font project!

Settings and configurability

We have connected with so 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 great deal of control over the Terminal’s appearance and each of the shells/profiles that you can open as new tabs. Settings are stored in a structured text file making it easy for users and/or tools to configure.

Using Terminal’s configuration mechanism, you will be able to create multiple “profiles” for each shell/app/tool you want to use, whether it be 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, etc. You can now create your own custom-styled Terminal that is personalized to your unique taste!

After we’ve shipped Windows Terminal 1.0, we plan to get started on many of the features already in our backlog, in addition to the many features you as the community are likely to add!

When can I get my hands on it?

As of today, the Windows Terminal and Windows Console have been made open source and you can clone, build, run, and test the code from the repository on GitHub: https://github.com/Microsoft/Terminal

This summer in 2019, Windows Terminal previews will be released to the Microsoft Store for early adopters to use and provide feedback.

This winter in 2019, our goal is to launch Windows Terminal 1.0 and we’ll work with the community to ensure it’s ready before we release!

[Happy Joy Gif – Giphy]

Wait… did you say open source?

Yes we did! We are excited to announce that we are open sourcing not just Windows Terminal, but also the Windows Console which hosts the command-line infrastructure in Windows and provides the traditional Console UX.

We can’t wait to work with you on improving and enhancing the Windows command-line experience!

This sounds awesome, but why couldn’t you just improve the existing Windows Console?

The primary goal of the Windows Console is to preserve backward compatibility with existing command-line tools, scripts, etc. While we’ve managed to introduce many key improvements to the Console’s features (e.g. adding VT and 24-bit color support, etc. see this blog post), we are unable to introduce further meaningful improvements to the Console’s UI without “breaking the world.”

Therefore, the time has come for a new, fresh approach.

Windows Terminal installs and runs alongside the existing in-box Windows Console application. If you run Cmd/PowerShell/etc. directly, they will start attached to a traditional Console instance in the exact same way they do today. This way, backward compatibility remains intact while providing you the option of experiencing Windows Terminal if/when you wish to do so. Windows Console will continue to ship within Windows for decades to come in order to support existing/legacy applications and systems.

Okay, but what about contributing to an existing open source terminal/app project instead?

We carefully explored this option during planning and determined our involvement in an existing project would require changing the project’s requirements and architecture in ways that would be too disruptive.

Instead, by creating a new open-source terminal application, and open-sourcing Windows Console, we can now invite the community to collaborate with us on improving the code and leveraging 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 aim to help the ecosystem of terminal (and related) applications flourish and grow through the introduction of new ideas, interesting approaches, and exciting innovations in this space.

I’m sold! How can I get involved?

Visit the repo at https://github.com/Microsoft/Terminal to clone, build, test, and run the Terminal! You can file bugs and share feedback with us and the community as well as fix issues and make improvements on GitHub.

Starting this summer, try installing and running Windows Terminal from the Microsoft Store. If you come across any bugs, share feedback either via the Feedback Hub or GitHub issues for detailed issues/discussions.

We are thrilled to be working with you! If you have any questions or feedback, don’t hesitate to reach out to Kayla @cinnamon_msft and/or Rich @richturn_ms on Twitter. We can’t wait to see what exciting improvements and features you make to Windows Terminal and Windows Console.

Что такое Терминал Windows? What is Windows Terminal?

Терминал Windows — это современное приложение терминала для пользователей таких программ и оболочек командной строки, как «Командная строка», PowerShell и «Подсистема Windows для Linux» (WSL). Windows Terminal is a modern terminal application for users of command-line tools and shells like Command Prompt, PowerShell, and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). К его основным функциям относится поддержка нескольких вкладок, панелей, символов Юникода и UTF-8, а также модуль отрисовки текста с ускорением GPU, возможность создания собственных тем и настройки текста, цвета, фона и сочетаний клавиш. Its main features include multiple tabs, panes, Unicode and UTF-8 character support, a GPU accelerated text rendering engine, and the ability to create your own themes and customize text, colors, backgrounds, and shortcuts.

Несколько профилей, поддерживающих различные приложения командной строки Multiple profiles supporting a variety of command line applications

Любое приложение с интерфейсом командной строки можно выполнять в Терминале Windows. Any application that has a command line interface can be run inside Windows Terminal. Это касается всех приложений: от PowerShell и Командной строки до Azure Cloud Shell и любого дистрибутива WSL, например Ubuntu или Oh-My-Zsh. This includes everything from PowerShell and Command Prompt to Azure Cloud Shell and any WSL distribution such as Ubuntu or Oh-My-Zsh.

Настраиваемые схемы и конфигурации Customized schemes and configurations

В Терминале Windows можно настроить различные цветовые схемы и параметры. You can configure your Windows Terminal to have a variety of color schemes and settings. Сведения о создании собственной цветовой схемы см. на этой странице. To learn how to make your own color scheme, visit the Color schemes page. Пользовательские конфигурации Терминала также можно найти на странице о настраиваемой коллекции терминала. You can also find custom Terminal configurations in the Custom terminal gallery.

Настраиваемые действия Custom actions

Существует множество пользовательских команд, которые можно использовать в Терминале Windows для удобства работы. There are a variety of custom commands you can use in Windows Terminal to have it feel more natural to you. Если вам не нравится конкретное сочетание клавиш, вы можете изменить его на любое другое. If you don’t like a particular keyboard shortcut, you can change it to whatever you prefer.

Например, для копирования текста из командной строки по умолчанию используются клавиши CTRL+SHIFT+C . For example, the default shortcut to copy text from the command line is ctrl+shift+c . Вы можете изменить его на CTRL+1 или другое сочетание. You can change this to ctrl+1 or whatever you prefer. Для открытия новой вкладки по умолчанию используется сочетание клавиш CTRL+SHIFT+T , но его можно изменить на CTRL+2 . To open a new tab, the default shortcut is ctrl+shift+t , but maybe you want to change this to ctrl+2 . Для перехода на другие открытые вкладки по умолчанию используется сочетание клавиш CTRL+TAB . Его можно изменить на CTRL+- и использовать для создания новой вкладки. The default shortcut to flip between the tabs you have open is ctrl+tab , this could be changed to ctrl+- and used to create a new tab instead.

Дополнительные сведения о настройке сочетаний клавиш см. на странице «Действия». You can learn about customizing shortcuts on the Actions page.

Поддержка символов Юникода и UTF-8 Unicode and UTF-8 character support

В Терминале Windows могут отображаться символы Юникода и UTF-8, например эмодзи и символы из различных языков. Windows Terminal can display Unicode and UTF-8 characters such as emoji and characters from a variety of languages.

Отрисовка текста с ускоренным GPU GPU accelerated text rendering

Терминал Windows использует GPU для отрисовки текста, что обеспечивает повышенную производительность по сравнению с использованием интерфейса командной строки Windows по умолчанию. Windows Terminal uses the GPU to render its text, thus providing improved performance over the default Windows command line experience.

Поддержка фоновых изображений Background image support

В окне Терминала Windows можно использовать фоновые изображения и изображения в формате GIF. You can have background images and gifs inside your Windows Terminal window. Сведения о добавлении фоновых изображений в профиль см. на странице Профиль — внешний вид. Information on how to add background images to your profile can be found on the Profile — Appearance page.

Аргументы командной строки Command line arguments

Вы можете настроить запуск Терминала Windows в определенной конфигурации с помощью аргументов командной строки. You can set Windows Terminal to launch in a specific configuration using command line arguments. Вы можете указать, какой профиль следует открыть на новой вкладке и какой каталог папки следует выбрать. Кроме того, терминал можно открыть с разделенными панелями и выбрать основную вкладку. You can specify which profile to open in a new tab, which folder directory should be selected, open the terminal with split window panes, and choose which tab should be in focus.

Например, чтобы открыть Терминал Windows из PowerShell с тремя панелями (на левой панели будет запущен профиль Командной строки, а правая панель будет разделена для PowerShell и ваш профиль по умолчанию с WSL), введите: For example, to open Windows Terminal from PowerShell with three panes, with the left pane running a Command Prompt profile and the right pane split between your PowerShell and your default profile running WSL, enter:

Сведения о настройке аргументов командной строки см. на этой странице. Learn how to set up command-line arguments on the Command line arguments page.

Windows Terminal: The Complete Guide

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In this article, we’ll explore Windows Terminal, the ideal accompaniment to WSL2. It’s fast, configurable, looks great, and offers all the benefits of both Windows and Linux development.

Windows has fully embraced Linux, and WSL2 makes it a seamless pleasure.

Your distro’s terminal can be accessed by:

1. clicking its Start menu icon
2. entering wsl or bash at a Powershell or command prompt
3. using a third-party terminal option such as Cmder, ConEmu, and Hyper with a profile which launches %windir%\system32\bash.exe

setting Linux as the default shell in VS Code by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P and typing/choosing Terminal: Select Default Shell, and selecting WSL Bash.

Windows Terminal (downloadable from the Microsoft Store) offers a further choice, but you won’t regret installing it. The new application features:

• support for WSL2, SSH, Powershell, cmd and other command lines
• multiple tabs and split panes
• configurable themes, background images, and transparency effects
• a search box
• custom key bindings
• GPU accelerated text rendering
• a great-looking new font, Cascadia Code
• low resource usage (typically 10MB per tab)
• auto-updating (if using the Microsoft Store)
• good documentation
• and it’s open source!

How to Install Windows Terminal

The easiest way to install Windows Terminal is via the Microsoft Store:

If this link fails, try opening the Microsoft Store in your browser or launching the Microsoft Store app from the Windows Start menu and searching for “Terminal”.

Note: be careful not to select the earlier “Windows Terminal Preview” application.

Hit Get and wait a few seconds for installation to complete.

If you don’t have access to the Store, you can download the latest release from GitHub.

The Windows Terminal app icon is now available in the Windows Start menu. For easier access, right-click the icon and choose Pin to Start or More, followed by Pin to taskbar.

Getting Started with Windows Terminal

When it’s first run, Windows Terminal starts with Powershell as the default profile. A drop-down menu is available to launch other tabs and access the settings:

Terminal automatically generates profiles for all WSL distros and Windows shells you have installed, although it’s possible to disable generation in the global settings.

Managing Tabs and Panes

Open a new tab for the default profile by clicking the + icon or Ctrl + Shift + T . To open a tab for a different profile, choose it from the drop-down menu or press Ctrl + Shift + N, where N is the profile’s number.

Press Alt + Shift + D to duplicate and split the pane. The active pane is split in two along the longest axis each time it is used:

To force creation of a:

• vertical pane, press Alt + Shift + + , or
• horizontal pane, press Alt + Shift + —

To open another profile in a new pane, hold down the Alt key when choosing it from the drop-down menu.

Hold down Alt and use the cursor keys to switch between active panes from the keyboard. The size of a pane can be adjusted by holding Alt + Shift and using the cursor keys to resize accordingly.

Tabs can be renamed by double-clicking the text. You can also change the name or color by right-clicking the tab and choosing a menu option:

This only affects the current tab; it doesn’t permanently change the profile.

To close the active pane or tab, press Alt + Shift + W or enter the terminal’s standard exit command (usually exit ).

Text size

The text size of the active terminal can be resized with Ctrl + + and Ctrl + — . Alternatively, hold down Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel.

Scrolling

Use the scroll bar to navigate through the terminal output. Alternatively, hold down Ctrl and press cursor up, cursor down, Page Up or Page Down to navigate using the keyboard.

Search

Press Ctrl + Shift + F to open the search box:

Enter any term then use the up and down icons to search the terminal output. Click the Aa icon to activate and deactivate exact-case matching.

Copy and Paste

By default, copy and paste are bound to Ctrl + Shift + C and Ctrl + Shift + V respectively, although Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V will also work.

Note: be wary that Ctrl + C can terminate a Linux application, so using Shift is advisable.

An automatic copy-on-select option is available in the global settings, and you can also paste the current clipboard item by right-clicking the mouse.

Settings

Settings are accessed from the drop-down menu or Ctrl + , (comma). The configuration is defined in a single settings.json file, so you may be prompted to choose a text editor. VS Code is a great choice, although Notepad is fine if you’re happy to edit without color-coding and syntax checking.

The file uses the following format:

Defaults are defined in defaults.json . Open it by holding down Alt when clicking Settings in the drop-down menu.

Warning: do not change the defaults file! Use it to view default settings and, where necessary, add or change a setting in settings.json .

Global Settings

The following global settings are the most useful, although more are documented in the Terminal documentation.

«defaultProfile» defines the GUID of the profile used as the default when Windows Terminal is launched.

Set «copyOnSelect» to true to automatically copy selected text to your clipboard without having to press Ctrl + Shift + C .

Set «copyFormatting» to false to just copy plain text without any styling. (I wish this were the default for every application everywhere!)

Set «initialColumns» and «initialRows» to the number of characters for the horizontal and vertical dimensions.

«tabWidthMode» can be set to:

1. «equal» : each tab is the same width (the default)
2. «titleLength» : each tab is set to the width of its title, or
3. «compact» : inactive tabs shrink to the width of their icon.

«disabledProfileSources» sets an array which prevents profiles being automatically generated. For example:

This would disable all generated profiles; remove whichever ones you want to retain.

Profile Settings

New profiles are defined by creating an object group in the «profiles» , «list» array. A WSL2 Ubuntu example:

Each profiles is defined with the following settings: