Scott Hanselman

Windows Terminal 1.0 is coming - Update now and set up your split pane hotkeys!

March 20, 2020 Comment on this post [11] Posted in Win10
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The Windows Terminal is free and in the Windows Store and you should go make sure you have the latest update. The v0.10 is out and it's got a number of lovely quality of life improvements, not the least of which is Mouse Support!

Mouse Support

What's that mean, doesn't it already support mice? This means Text-Mode mouse support. So your apps like tmux and Midnight Commander can receive and react to mouse events, event when you're ssh'ed in remotely! That's because it's using VT (virtual terminal) textual commands under the covers.

Mouse Support for text mode is super useful if you use apps like Midnight Commander under Linux, or if you split plans with tmux.

Split Pane

You can change Windows Terminal in any way with themes, colors, gifs, key bindings and more. Many of you use screen or tmux under Linux and you can and should do that.

Terminal also supports splitting natively and for any shell (remember terminal != console != shell) and they just added a lovely splitMode=duplicate that makes a copy of the shell/profile in focus.

NOTE: You might consider starting with a fresh profile if yours is getting out of control.

{
"keys": ["ctrl+shift+d"],
"command": {
"action": "splitPane",
"split": "auto",
"splitMode": "duplicate"
}
}

Here's my whole keybindings section right now, including the part above.

"keybindings": [
{
"command": "closeTab",
"keys": ["ctrl+w"]
},
{
"command": "newTab",
"keys": ["ctrl+t"]
},
{
"command": {
"action": "splitPane",
"split": "auto"
},
"keys": ["ctrl+|"]
},
{
"keys": ["ctrl+shift+d"],
"command": {
"action": "splitPane",
"split": "auto",
"splitMode": "duplicate"
}
}
],

So I can split with ctrl+shift+d and get a copy of whatever is in front. I can use ctrl+| to get my default terminal, and I can use ctrl+shift+w to close the pane in focus, while ctrl+w close the current tab. Yummy.

Currently, the Terminal teams says they are fixing bugs to prepare for the release of v1. Windows Terminal v1 will be released in May!


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About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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March 24, 2020 5:49
Nice. Your keybindings have been shamelessly stolen.

Um...er...I mean, respectfully used in homage...Yeah, that's it.

And the release notes for this project are hilarious.

Resizing the terminal when you have an absurd amount of history should no longer result in us consuming all of the RAM in the known universe and subsequently crashing (#4964).
  • I do mean "absurd" by 1980s standards: 32767 lines.
  • March 24, 2020 10:47
    Extremely annoying that for every windows terminal update the first recomendation is "delete your profile and start from scratch". Considering that it's supposed to be a productivity tool, this is exact opposite of productivity
    March 24, 2020 17:51
    @Pavel: Well, this is a product going through a beta period. It doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest clearing out if your configuration is becoming unwieldy. At least it is a stand-alone file, and you can add back in pieces after you test new functionality.
    March 24, 2020 19:02
    Any tips on how to quickly move between panes?
    March 25, 2020 3:50
    @Jesper Liljegren

    Keyboard shortcuts to move the focus or resize the active pane are provided as well. The shortcut Alt-Up|Down|Left|Right moves the focus accordingly, and the shortcut Alt-Shift-Down|Left|Right|Up resizes the pane instead.
    March 25, 2020 3:52
    How do you close split panes and go back to "fullscreen" again for the given tab?
    March 25, 2020 12:59
    Quick tip if you are creating a custom profile eg to ssh in to a Raspberry Pi as per one of Scott's previous blog posts:

    The icon property takes a URL (rather than having to download and reference an icon from a local folder on disk), eg https://img.icons8.com/color/48/000000/raspberry-pi.png
    March 26, 2020 20:43
    thanks for informtaion about Mouse Support for text mode is super useful if you use apps like Midnight Commander under Linux, or if you split plans with tmux.

    March 26, 2020 20:45
    why Windows Terminal v1 will be released in May???
    March 28, 2020 13:26
    I really like Windows Terminal, especially out of the box support for many tabs.
    April 03, 2020 1:28
    For Health labs related coupon plz check Coupon Fond Health Labs

    Comments are closed.

    Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.