Windows Terminal is Cool, Actually
I presented on the subject of Windows Terminals to HackLafayette/Purdue Perl Mongers on May 11. Here is a rough retelling of what I presented.
(I might release the video, but I so don’t want to watch myself present.)
History of Terminals, Handwaved
There’s a long history of terminals, going back to the days of punch cards. Much of the state of terminals is based on the history of the technology that existed before.
Thankfully, Rich Turner of Microsoft wrote a series of blog posts on the History of the Command Line which covers a lot of the greater issues with the old Terminal technology that I touched on. Go read him.
Me and Windows, Terminals, etc
So, I’m a Unix/Linux type. My intro to C/C++ programming on Unix systems had a lot of “there’s an ocean of things you need to understand beyond the language, and we’re going to show you very little, so learn to swim”, so I learned. My first job out of college, however, was with a Windows shop, with some light VMS on the side, and so there was some of that wonderful command-line goodness to my job, it was mostly not. I did not enjoy it.
Soon after, I started working at a research lab, and while I had a Windows box because I had to support Windows applications and Windows users, I spent most of my time in Linux. But I began to do things like using Synergy and a KVM switch so I only needed one keyboard, then using Chocolatey to get a native OpenSSH going instead of PuTTY (because, I mean, for real…), and eventually learned that Powershell is an acceptable bash for most non-hardcore uses. There’s much more to it than I’ve ever needed to teach myself, but it’s OK.
And then came Windows Subsystem for Linux, which allows you to have a real Unix in your Windows (and not the fake Unix-y goodness of [Git Bash][https://git-scm.com/]) (fake Unix-y, not fake goodness, because my goodness, it’ll do in a pinch). I mean, seriously, I’ve kept my last few laptops as Windows because I could do most of what I wanted with Linux in a terminal.
It was just that the terminal sucked. I was okay, I guess, but I definitely had Unicode issues, beyond the usual “Your language predated Unicode and isn’t optimized for expanded character sets” issues.
(When I tried to demonstrate my issues with Unicode, however, I was demonstrating from my Terminal-having machine, with Cascadia Code, which kinda comes with Windows Terminal, so :shrug:)
I am currently remote working with a Windows Server 2016 Datacenter “Desktop” that I use to connect to my Linux development environment (they want to test the webbiness in Windows, but I’ve not seen much difference between Chrome on Win an Lin, but eh, they pay me), and I am always fighting the Powershell and Command Prompt to get and keep them in the position and size I want to see all the text.
In Comes Windows Terminal
Anyway, thanks to Rich, I knew that Windows Terminal was coming, and I was expecting a fairly significant upgrade. Well, a significant upgrade from old Terminal programs, getting to what I might have expected from a Gnome terminal in the late 1990s, especially with images as your backgrounds.
Except…
If you could use an animated GIF as your terminal background (I don’t think you could, but I forget), there were few that were big enough and interesting enough that you might want to. Today is different.
Now, this specific GIF is too busy to really serve as a nice background, because it’d be too hard to distinguish your output from your background, but I feel it demonstrates that it’s possible. And the profile that gave it to you is:
{
"commandline": "%SystemRoot%\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe",
"backgroundImage": "ms-appdata:///roaming/kill_your_feelings.gif",
"backgroundImageAlignment": "center",
"backgroundImageOpacity": 0.4,
"backgroundImageStretchMode": "uniformToFill",
"font": {
"face": "Cascadia Code PL",
"size": 12
},
"guid": "{61c54bbd-c2c6-5271-96e7-009a87ff44bf}",
"hidden": false,
"opacity": 99,
"name": "Windows PowerShell"
}
Let’s discuss a few of the fields here. commandline tells it which command you’re running (which is powerful; we’ll get back to that). The background fields tell it which image, how to align it, and how dark to display it. font clearly sets the face and size. name is the thing you choose from the menus, and guid is what it uses to tell them apart if you have several PowerShells. (I currently have five.) hide allows you to not display some of the things you don’t want to use, and then there’s opacity.
This effect allows you make the background transparent (or, minimize the opacity; here it’s at 29%) and the Asian woman on a very well-lit cyberpunk evening is my current default background. In order to get this, you need to turn on Transparency Effects in Settings. I’m finding it under Accessibility for some reason. I find it very cool, and have tested that you can have a transparent terminal over a YouTube video and watch it through your terminal. Maybe you need to watch your logs?
But there’s another word. useAcrylic. Making this true gives your terminal windows a frosted-shower-glass effect, where you can see the colors and shapes below your terminal window.
Unfortunately, that’s one levey beyond what MS’ Snipping Tool can handle, so I’m unable to give you a visual demonstration.
Additionally, you can also set your own colors with custom color scheme. I have a scheme, Retro, that emulated 80s-era green-screen monitors, and I have changed the cursorShape to vintage and added experimental.retroTerminalEffect to give more of a blown-out old-school VT100 effect.
{
"guid": "{1adbee5a-3d2a-4561-91f6-bf0a86281cd2}",
"experimental.retroTerminalEffect": true,
"colorScheme": "Retro",
"cursorShape": "vintage",
"opacity": 100,
"name": "SSH to Perl Mongers",
"commandline": "ssh mongers"
}
Shells and Remote Connections, Oh My!
And I hinted at a thing with commandline, underlined it with the several PowerShells I have available, and kinda gave up with the last JSON block. An option I always hide is Azure Cloud Shell, which gives you a terminal on Microsoft’s Cloud. This gave me an idea.
Your Windows 11 install probably comes with OpenSSH, which you can just turn on in Settings. Otherwise, you might have to install it using WinGet or Chocolatey, but however you get it, you can use ssh and scp directoly from PowerShell and Command Prompt now.
And, by telling it ssh me@my_host, you can open another terminal on your machine with one click.
{
"guid": "{1adbee5a-3d2a-4561-91f6-bf0a86281cd2}",
"experimental.retroTerminalEffect": true,
"colorScheme": "Retro",
"cursorShape": "vintage",
"opacity": 100,
"name": "SSH to Perl Mongers",
"commandline": "ssh mongers"
}
And it doesn’t have to be remote. My friend Brian was Getting into Nushell recently, which is entirely new to me. I’ve said that PowerShell is an almost-acceptable bash for trivial uses, but it has a “piping objects instead of text” thing which sounds hella powerful, but has so far been beyond me. Nushell seems like it’s built along the same lines, and, y’know what? They put a block to add it to your Terminal config in their documentation.
{
"guid": "{2b372ca1-1ee2-403d-a839-6d63077ad871}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "Nu Shell",
"commandline": "nu.exe"
}
It’d be similarly easy to add R or Perl’s REPL, Reply as a tool that pops up in it’s own terminal. The only limit is your imagination, just like Zombo.com.
In Conclusion
There’s a lot in Windows Terminal that’s cool, and I’ve barely dented it. It contains a lot of display hacks, but it isn’t all for that, but also very practical and useful things. Tools like Windows Terminal make Windws 11 to be a powerful and enjoyable development environment, even if most of the actual code is Linux-style code.
My Current settings.json
{
"$help": "https://aka.ms/terminal-documentation",
"$schema": "https://aka.ms/terminal-profiles-schema",
"actions": [
{
"command": {
"action": "copy",
"singleLine": false
},
"keys": "ctrl+c"
},
{
"command": "paste",
"keys": "ctrl+v"
},
{
"command": "find",
"keys": "ctrl+shift+f"
},
{
"command": {
"action": "splitPane",
"split": "auto",
"splitMode": "duplicate"
},
"keys": "alt+shift+d"
}
],
"copyFormatting": "none",
"copyOnSelect": false,
"defaultProfile": "{07b52e3e-de2c-5db4-bd2d-ba144ed6c273}",
"focusFollowMouse": true,
"profiles": {
"defaults": {
"bellStyle": "taskbar",
"opacity": 76,
"useAcrylic": false
},
"list": [
{
"background": "#000000",
"backgroundImage": "ms-appdata:///roaming/cyberpunk.gif",
"backgroundImageAlignment": "center",
"backgroundImageOpacity": 0.14999999999999999,
"backgroundImageStretchMode": "uniformToFill",
"bellStyle": "window",
"colorScheme": "Void",
"cursorColor": "#AAAAAA",
"cursorHeight": 99,
"cursorShape": "filledBox",
"font": {
"face": "Cascadia Code PL",
"size": 9
},
"guid": "{07b52e3e-de2c-5db4-bd2d-ba144ed6c273}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "Ubuntu-20.04",
"opacity": 80,
"source": "Windows.Terminal.Wsl",
"useAcrylic": true
},
{
"antialiasingMode": "cleartype",
"background": "#000000",
"backgroundImage": "ms-appdata:///roaming/Spider-man-Into-the-Spider-Verse.jpg",
"backgroundImageAlignment": "center",
"backgroundImageOpacity": 0.5,
"backgroundImageStretchMode": "uniformToFill",
"bellStyle": "window",
"colorScheme": "Vintage",
"cursorShape": "vintage",
"experimental.retroTerminalEffect": true,
"font": {
"face": "Cascadia Code PL",
"size": 10
},
"guid": "{574e775e-4f2a-5b96-ac1e-a2962a402336}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "PowerShell",
"opacity": 60,
"source": "Windows.Terminal.PowershellCore",
"useAcrylic": true
},
{
"commandline": "%SystemRoot%\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe",
"backgroundImage": "ms-appdata:///roaming/kill_your_feelings.gif",
"backgroundImageAlignment": "center",
"backgroundImageOpacity": 0.4,
"backgroundImageStretchMode": "uniformToFill",
"font": {
"face": "Cascadia Code PL",
"size": 12
},
"guid": "{61c54bbd-c2c6-5271-96e7-009a87ff44bf}",
"hidden": false,
"opacity": 29,
"useAcrylic": false,
"name": "Windows PowerShell"
},
{
"background": "#123456",
"backgroundImage": "ms-appdata:///roaming/static2.gif",
"backgroundImageOpacity": 0.34999999999999998,
"backgroundImageStretchMode": "fill",
"commandline": "%SystemRoot%\\System32\\cmd.exe",
"font": {
"face": "Comic Mono",
"size": 11
},
"guid": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "Command Prompt",
"opacity": 30,
"useAcrylic": true
},
{
"guid": "{5fb123f1-af88-5b5c-8953-d14a8def1978}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "PowerShell 7",
"source": "Windows.Terminal.PowershellCore"
},
{
"guid": "{a3a2e83a-884a-5379-baa8-16f193a13b21}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "PowerShell 7 Preview",
"source": "Windows.Terminal.PowershellCore"
},
{
"guid": "{b453ae62-4e3d-5e58-b989-0a998ec441b8}",
"hidden": true,
"name": "Azure Cloud Shell",
"source": "Windows.Terminal.Azure"
},
{
"guid": "{42a28d9c-ebf8-55ba-a5af-23687ae7e4e1}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "Developer Command Prompt for VS 2022",
"source": "Windows.Terminal.VisualStudio"
},
{
"guid": "{7663e180-2974-5b71-b27a-b59b3ef04104}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "Developer PowerShell for VS 2022",
"source": "Windows.Terminal.VisualStudio"
},
{
"colorScheme": "Vintage",
"cursorShape": "vintage",
"experimental.retroTerminalEffect": true,
"font": {
"face": "Cascadia Code PL",
"size": 10
},
"guid": "{2ece5bfe-50ed-5f3a-ab87-5cd4baafed2b}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "Git Bash",
"source": "Git"
},
{
"guid": "{2b372ca1-1ee2-403d-a839-6d63077ad871}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "Nu Shell",
"commandline": "nu.exe"
},
{
"guid": "{1adbee5a-3d2a-4561-91f6-bf0a86281cd2}",
"experimental.retroTerminalEffect": true,
"colorScheme": "Retro",
"cursorShape": "vintage",
"opacity": 100,
"name": "SSH to Perl Mongers",
"commandline": "ssh mongers"
},
{
"experimental.retroTerminalEffect": true,
"colorScheme": "Retro",
"cursorShape": "vintage",
"opacity": 90,
"name": "REPLY - Perl REPL",
"commandline": "C:/Strawberry/perl/site/bin/reply.bat"
}
]
},
"schemes": [
{
"background": "#212121",
"black": "#151515",
"blue": "#6C99BB",
"brightBlack": "#505050",
"brightBlue": "#6C99BB",
"brightCyan": "#7DD6CF",
"brightGreen": "#7E8E50",
"brightPurple": "#9F4E85",
"brightRed": "#AC4142",
"brightWhite": "#F5F5F5",
"brightYellow": "#E5B567",
"cursorColor": "#D0D0D0",
"cyan": "#7DD6CF",
"foreground": "#D0D0D0",
"green": "#7E8E50",
"name": "Afterglow",
"purple": "#9F4E85",
"red": "#AC4142",
"selectionBackground": "#303030",
"white": "#D0D0D0",
"yellow": "#E5B567"
},
{
"background": "#1A1A1A",
"black": "#000000",
"blue": "#579BD5",
"brightBlack": "#797979",
"brightBlue": "#9CDCFE",
"brightCyan": "#2BC4E2",
"brightGreen": "#1AD69C",
"brightPurple": "#975EAB",
"brightRed": "#EB2A88",
"brightWhite": "#EAEAEA",
"brightYellow": "#E9AD95",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#00B6D6",
"foreground": "#EA549F",
"green": "#4EC9B0",
"name": "Aurelia",
"purple": "#714896",
"red": "#E92888",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#EAEAEA",
"yellow": "#CE9178"
},
{
"background": "#492D7C",
"black": "#0C0C0C",
"blue": "#0037DA",
"brightBlack": "#B1B1B1",
"brightBlue": "#3B78FF",
"brightCyan": "#61D6D6",
"brightGreen": "#16C60C",
"brightPurple": "#B4009E",
"brightRed": "#E74856",
"brightWhite": "#F2F2F2",
"brightYellow": "#F9F1A5",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#3A96DD",
"foreground": "#F1F1F1",
"green": "#13A10E",
"name": "Build",
"purple": "#881798",
"red": "#C50F1F",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#812727",
"yellow": "#C19C00"
},
{
"background": "#0C0C0C",
"black": "#0C0C0C",
"blue": "#0037DA",
"brightBlack": "#767676",
"brightBlue": "#3B78FF",
"brightCyan": "#61D6D6",
"brightGreen": "#16C60C",
"brightPurple": "#B4009E",
"brightRed": "#E74856",
"brightWhite": "#F2F2F2",
"brightYellow": "#F9F1A5",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#3A96DD",
"foreground": "#CCCCCC",
"green": "#13A10E",
"name": "Campbell",
"purple": "#881798",
"red": "#C50F1F",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#CCCCCC",
"yellow": "#C19C00"
},
{
"background": "#012456",
"black": "#0C0C0C",
"blue": "#0037DA",
"brightBlack": "#767676",
"brightBlue": "#3B78FF",
"brightCyan": "#61D6D6",
"brightGreen": "#16C60C",
"brightPurple": "#B4009E",
"brightRed": "#E74856",
"brightWhite": "#F2F2F2",
"brightYellow": "#F9F1A5",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#3A96DD",
"foreground": "#CCCCCC",
"green": "#13A10E",
"name": "Campbell Powershell",
"purple": "#881798",
"red": "#C50F1F",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#CCCCCC",
"yellow": "#C19C00"
},
{
"background": "#FFFFFF",
"black": "#3C5712",
"blue": "#17B2FF",
"brightBlack": "#749B36",
"brightBlue": "#27B2F6",
"brightCyan": "#13A8C0",
"brightGreen": "#89AF50",
"brightPurple": "#F2A20A",
"brightRed": "#F49B36",
"brightWhite": "#741274",
"brightYellow": "#991070",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#3C96A6",
"foreground": "#000000",
"green": "#6AAE08",
"name": "Frost",
"purple": "#991070",
"red": "#8D0C0C",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#6E386E",
"yellow": "#991070"
},
{
"background": "#282C34",
"black": "#282C34",
"blue": "#61AFEF",
"brightBlack": "#5A6374",
"brightBlue": "#61AFEF",
"brightCyan": "#56B6C2",
"brightGreen": "#98C379",
"brightPurple": "#C678DD",
"brightRed": "#E06C75",
"brightWhite": "#DCDFE4",
"brightYellow": "#E5C07B",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#56B6C2",
"foreground": "#DCDFE4",
"green": "#98C379",
"name": "One Half Dark",
"purple": "#C678DD",
"red": "#E06C75",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#DCDFE4",
"yellow": "#E5C07B"
},
{
"background": "#FAFAFA",
"black": "#383A42",
"blue": "#0184BC",
"brightBlack": "#4F525D",
"brightBlue": "#61AFEF",
"brightCyan": "#56B5C1",
"brightGreen": "#98C379",
"brightPurple": "#C577DD",
"brightRed": "#DF6C75",
"brightWhite": "#FFFFFF",
"brightYellow": "#E4C07A",
"cursorColor": "#4F525D",
"cyan": "#0997B3",
"foreground": "#383A42",
"green": "#50A14F",
"name": "One Half Light",
"purple": "#A626A4",
"red": "#E45649",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#FAFAFA",
"yellow": "#C18301"
},
{
"background": "#000000",
"black": "#00FF00",
"blue": "#00FF00",
"brightBlack": "#00FF00",
"brightBlue": "#00FF00",
"brightCyan": "#00FF00",
"brightGreen": "#00FF00",
"brightPurple": "#00FF00",
"brightRed": "#00FF00",
"brightWhite": "#00FF00",
"brightYellow": "#00FF00",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#00FF00",
"foreground": "#00FF00",
"green": "#00FF00",
"name": "Retro",
"purple": "#00FF00",
"red": "#00FF00",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#00FF00",
"yellow": "#00FF00"
},
{
"background": "#002B36",
"black": "#002B36",
"blue": "#268BD2",
"brightBlack": "#073642",
"brightBlue": "#839496",
"brightCyan": "#93A1A1",
"brightGreen": "#586E75",
"brightPurple": "#6C71C4",
"brightRed": "#CB4B16",
"brightWhite": "#FDF6E3",
"brightYellow": "#657B83",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#2AA198",
"foreground": "#839496",
"green": "#859900",
"name": "Solarized Dark",
"purple": "#D33682",
"red": "#DC322F",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#EEE8D5",
"yellow": "#B58900"
},
{
"background": "#FDF6E3",
"black": "#002B36",
"blue": "#268BD2",
"brightBlack": "#073642",
"brightBlue": "#839496",
"brightCyan": "#93A1A1",
"brightGreen": "#586E75",
"brightPurple": "#6C71C4",
"brightRed": "#CB4B16",
"brightWhite": "#FDF6E3",
"brightYellow": "#657B83",
"cursorColor": "#002B36",
"cyan": "#2AA198",
"foreground": "#657B83",
"green": "#859900",
"name": "Solarized Light",
"purple": "#D33682",
"red": "#DC322F",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#EEE8D5",
"yellow": "#B58900"
},
{
"background": "#000000",
"black": "#000000",
"blue": "#3465A4",
"brightBlack": "#555753",
"brightBlue": "#729FCF",
"brightCyan": "#34E2E2",
"brightGreen": "#8AE234",
"brightPurple": "#AD7FA8",
"brightRed": "#EF2929",
"brightWhite": "#EEEEEC",
"brightYellow": "#FCE94F",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#06989A",
"foreground": "#D3D7CF",
"green": "#4E9A06",
"name": "Tango Dark",
"purple": "#75507B",
"red": "#CC0000",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#D3D7CF",
"yellow": "#C4A000"
},
{
"background": "#FFFFFF",
"black": "#000000",
"blue": "#3465A4",
"brightBlack": "#555753",
"brightBlue": "#729FCF",
"brightCyan": "#34E2E2",
"brightGreen": "#8AE234",
"brightPurple": "#AD7FA8",
"brightRed": "#EF2929",
"brightWhite": "#EEEEEC",
"brightYellow": "#FCE94F",
"cursorColor": "#000000",
"cyan": "#06989A",
"foreground": "#555753",
"green": "#4E9A06",
"name": "Tango Light",
"purple": "#75507B",
"red": "#CC0000",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#D3D7CF",
"yellow": "#C4A000"
},
{
"background": "#000000",
"black": "#000000",
"blue": "#000080",
"brightBlack": "#808080",
"brightBlue": "#0000FF",
"brightCyan": "#00FFFF",
"brightGreen": "#00FF00",
"brightPurple": "#FF00FF",
"brightRed": "#FF0000",
"brightWhite": "#FFFFFF",
"brightYellow": "#FFFF00",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#008080",
"foreground": "#C0C0C0",
"green": "#008000",
"name": "Vintage",
"purple": "#800080",
"red": "#800000",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#C0C0C0",
"yellow": "#808000"
},
{
"background": "#0B0B0F",
"black": "#50435C",
"blue": "#7F7AB6",
"brightBlack": "#505050",
"brightBlue": "#8D87CC",
"brightCyan": "#90CAC5",
"brightGreen": "#A6FA62",
"brightPurple": "#9F4E85",
"brightRed": "#BE6482",
"brightWhite": "#F5F5F5",
"brightYellow": "#AD8F5D",
"cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
"cyan": "#79ADA9",
"foreground": "#D0D2DF",
"green": "#16141B",
"name": "Void",
"purple": "#8B4F78",
"red": "#793E52",
"selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
"white": "#D0D0FF",
"yellow": "#AD8F5D"
}
]
}