A fast, inbuilt, 2017-era terminal is.
- ConEmu has a UI that's a shotgun blast of shit.
- Hyper still fails at basic shortcuts.
- ConEmu plus other software still has a UI that's a shotgun blast of shit.
- Some person's half maintained fork of putty is some person's half maintained fork of putty and we already have Windows openssh for SSH purposes.
- A proprietary app you need to pay for is a proprietary app you need to pay for.
- tmux is not a tabbed terminal.
- Something that uses cygwin is something using cygwin.
The post is requesting a clean tabbed terminal, included in Windows, and maintained full time by Microsoft employees (whether Open Source or proprietary).
Edit: removed 'fully featured' as someone below thinks that means I want all the bullshit the other terminals add, rather than tabs, working escape sequences, and other terminal features.
You'd either get a Microsoft Word equivalent of a console window in that case, since everyone has a different set of features they consider essential, or the Notepad equivalent (more likely). A tool's value doesn't necessarily increase with more features and features are never cheap (in Windows, at least, where there are documentation, translation, configuration, group policy, and other concerns).
Tabbed console windows exist as 3rd-party applications already, seemingly with minor problems for one user or another, but I'd argue those problems are easier to rectify than for MS to develop yet another alternative that people grumble about even more because it doesn't contain their own personal pet feature.
What I mean when I write 'clean and fully featured' is: a console, tabs, a nice scroll buffer, working escape sequences, suppressing the bell. That's about it.
This is 1000x less features than ConEmu - I don't care about a new exciting way to set terminal variables, or integration with a file manager nobody uses, or support for a bitmap font format, or per-app antialiasing settings. Or various silly extras the other terminals add - I don't want a new way to do Unix on Windows, I don't want a new SSH client this isn't as good as openssh, I don't want a new windowing system.
I'm suggesting EXACTLY something like notepad.
Do 1000x less things, and do the remainder well.
> I'd argue those problems are easier to rectify than for MS to develop yet another alternative
Just add tabs to the console app as suggested. Or use whatever Edge uses for window chrome and shove the console app in there rather than html.
I wonder if an MS port/fork/patch-set contribution to putty might not be the best way to a great windows console host. At least until there's a native port of libvt.
Putty gets a lot of the console handling right - while win64/32 openssh is pretty outdated and lagging as a ssh client - I find it's preferable to run a recent full openssh under wsl to using openssh on Windows over putty.
As for console for Windows - I'm currently using conemu - considering moving to putty, but haven't quite figured out if it makes sense as a local powershell (and ipython) host...
ConEmu likes to do this cute thing where it stops accepting key presses. And with the all the options it has, "starting a new terminal in the directory of the previous" is nowhere to be found.
But still, it's probably the best on Windows if you want tabs.
We're working to fix that, but we have to clean things up a little first. Bear with us.
- Minimal contrast in active tabs - can't be fixed due to Windows XP support.
- Flashes it's hidden console proxy on screen continually
- Settings menu with around 5000 options and no sense of heirarchy - something that's rare is just as prominent as something that's common
- Giant colorful icons and wasted space in the title bar. I can't throw my mouse to the top and pick a tab when it's maximised.
- Freaks out when your console is too large
- Does a bunch of things better done elsewhere: my profile bash/powershell profile sets environment variables, I don't need my terminal to do this.
2. I've seen it, happens probably once a month for < 50 ms when resizing or something. I can deal with it.
3. This is awesome, you go through it once and have every detail exactly they way you want it just because everything was shown (contrast to being forced to read the entire manual just to know what you can do). Great for discoverability. Take 15 minutes, quickly test out different settings and looks, reap the benefits for years to come.
4. I've removed the titlebar altogether. No borders at all either - Just a tiny (half row) discrete status bar at the bottom.
5. No idea what you mean here, can't recall to have seen it freak out ever.
2. That's great for you. My experience differs.
3. See 1, but for heirarchy.
4. Are sure you sure you can get the tabs all the way to the top?
5. See 2. I suspect I maximise the terminal more often or use a larger screen than you do.
3. Yes, a perfect hierarchy of the settings would be nice, in theory. Because never mind that what is important depends on the user and context - making the whole concept extremely tricky to get right. It is a tradeoff. And I haven't seen any terminal and few other applications that I've enjoyed setting up as much as ConEmu, most settings are logically where they should be. There are, understandably considering the amount of options, a few places where it can be difficult - but to help with that there is a great search function.
4. I don't even have a tab bar anymore, takes up way too much space and I always switch between tabs using the keyboard (since I only interact with the terminal from the keyboard anyway). But I tested it now, there is about 2px of space above the tab bar but if you try to press that area you still hit the tab you intended. So if you have maximized the window there is no possible way to click above the tab bar.
ConEmu is one of the most well polished applications I use on a daily basis, it doesn't get in the way. I miss it to death every time I'm using a non-windows machine.
> I wouldn't mind it being configurable but I understand the reluctance to do it if it breaks XP support.
Users running a current OS needing to find their current terminal should take precedence over a small number of people running an unpatched 15 year old OS.
3. Re heirarchy:
> never mind that what is important depends on the user and context
Ultimately more users want to change the font than integrate with 'FAR', or change the method of anti-aliasing used.
4. Interesting (this really should be a default). How do I do it?
> There are, understandably considering the amount of options
The Settings app has more options than ConEmu. It controls an entire OS and it's still easier.
> to help with that there is a great search function.
I've only just found that now, because it's in a different place to every other search box on Windows.
I'm not arguing the non-UX bits of ConEmu aren't great. I'm stating that ConEmu doesn't care about UX and it's really obvious.
It is not uncommon at all to have a search-bar directly associated with a tree-view. I get the feeling that you primarily use other operating systems.
The settings app is an absolute nightmare. And that's understandable, because the target group are people with no interest or knowledge about computers or windows at all. So it is beginner friendly, but not user friendly by any stretch. Do not confuse the two. Contrast to ConEmu, not beginner friendly at all but quite user friendly.
I do not know how you've set it up but I'm guessing you need to: Main -> Appearance -> Title bar section, Check "Hide caption always". It is non-standard so that's why I think it is sensible that it isn't enabled by default.
I'm arguing that the UX is top notch for it's intended audience. If all you want is cmd.exe with tabs, then yes, I fully understand why ConEmu isn't for you.
But this is derailing, I probably won't be continuing this thread.
- There shouldn't be a 'main' section. 'Main' isn't a category. 'Appearance' would be more logical. Neither should we show that many controls on screen: use a 1/2 heirarchy rather than frames.
- "not uncommon at all to have a search-bar directly associated with a tree-view" Yep, I'd ditch the tree view, and move search to top right to be consistent with other apps.
- "The settings app is an absolute nightmare." How? Settings is aimed at people who want to configure an entire OS - it's doing a more complicated job than conemu is. You could measure the time taken by users of different skill levels and they'd all have a faster time finding something in Settings. Again, let's get or look at data rather than caring about our personal experiences.
> changing the anti-aliasing is about as important as the font
It's not important at all. If you measured it, how many users want custom anti-aliasing options for a single app? Does iterm do it? Does gnome? are their forums filled with people who really need different anti-aliasing settings for a single app?
- Re tabs in title bar: I've never heard window chrome be referred to as "caption".
> It is non-standard so that's why I think it is sensible that it isn't enabled by default.
Word, Edge and Explorer all put useful stuff in the title bar. Seems pretty standard to me.
> I'm arguing that the UX is top notch for it's intended audience.
I understand. I'm arguing it makes decisions that UX research either already has or would prove to be objectively poor for all users.
Thanks re: putting tabs in the title bar!
We're working hard on that architecture stuff now, because we want tabs just as bad as the community.
If this is more than could be enumerated in an HN comment, I'd love to have a blog post about it. This stuff is fascinating.
And, no, simply rewriting the Console is not an option: Entire businesses' core systems depend on the Console, its specific behaviors, and even its bugs.
If we break existing behaviors we get to hear about who we've broken very, VERY quickly ;)
It's so promising though, I paid for it.
I pretty much use it mostly for ssh and have never noticed any lag. There are one or two oddities, but I can live with them. It's miles better than plain old PuTTY.
If I'm doing RDP I use RoyalTS, another thing I paid for because it does RDP management so well:
YES ... one day ;)
We're keen to figure out a decent tab story for the console, and the feature ask is on our backlog, but we're currently fully booked completing some important internal re-factoring, after which we'll be able to return to working on important asks like this.
FWIW, we're currently giving the Windows Console its biggest overhaul in > 30 years!! We're re-factoring and modernizing many of the Console's core internals.
We'll be writing-up the why's and wherefores of what we're up to in a couple of months.
Stay tuned on our blog (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline) and follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/richturn_ms) for news, udpates, and info.
- Something called 'git-for-windows' which isn't actually git for Windows https://git-scm.com/download/win but unremarkable things like shell additions which give you git status in the prompt, and a not-particularly-good GUI.
- Clink (which is for cmd.exe).
I.e., this doesn't in any way address the limitations mentioned in the post you're replying to.
> It lets you create tabs, Ctrl+c - Ctrl+v, and works for Cmd, PowerShell, and Bash
Not sure why you think that's addressing this.
It has the added benefit of you being able to pick the terminal to spin up, and whether you want Administrator mode or not, on every new tab, so you can be working in a bash tab and pop a new Admin cmd tab to update packages using your Windows manager.
I personally don't want a terminal with built-in tabs or windows since I use tmux for that. On my Mac I use iTerm2 where tabs/windowing is integrated with tmux. Try it and see if you like it! :)
Current Windows terminal options:
- ConEmu: mainly excellent but a little dated - eg, the active tab color is hard to distinguish but it can't be changed, apparently due to maintainer's insistence it works on Windows XP.
- Hyper: excellent but Ctrl C, Ctrl R etc broken in powershell.
Adding tabs to the Windows console makes more sense than have a third party create an entire console just to support tabs.