Windows Terminal Preview v1.19.2682.0

[DHowett]

It's finally here: Windows Terminal Preview 1.19! We've been heads-down, working on a new input buffer, new output buffer, shell suggestions, and a bunch of other stuff that we're excited to finally release.

Buckle up! This release might be a little more Preview than you've come to expect . . . but that's the fun of the preview channel!

Why are there so many packages? How do I choose?

Please visit our page documenting the different Windows Terminal Distributions!

Features

• We've added support for a new opt-in and shell-driven suggestions UI (Add Suggestions UI & experimental shell completions support #14938) (A first couple Suggestion UI nits #15848)
  • The protocol for suggestions is not finalized, and will change before final release.
  • You can find more information on the Experimental Shell Completion Menu wiki page
  • Suggestions can take into account...
    • ... the command you've already typed on the input line (Add a useCommandline property to the suggestions action #15027)
    • ... commands you have recently submitted (Add support for opening the Suggestions UI with recent commands #14943)
    • ... any sendInput actions you have in your settings file, to be used as a sort of "snippet" (Add support for "Tasks" in the Suggestions UI #15664)
• The search box will now display a count of found results, and--if scrollbar marks are enabled--display graphical indicators for every match (Show number of search results & positions of hits in scrollbar #14045) (thanks @Don-Vito and @zadjii-msft!)
• You can now enable broadcast mode via the Command Palette, which will broadcast input to all panes in a tab (Add support for broadcasting to all panes in a tab #14393) (Fix some smaller broadcast bugs #15993)
• You can now launch a profile via wt and keep its built-in command line with the --appendCommandLine flag (Add --appendCommandLine flag for appending to command #15822) (thanks @hanpuliu-charles!)
  • For example, if your PowerShell profile specifies pwsh.exe, you can run wt --appendCommandLine -p PowerShell -- -Command echo Hello, which will run pwsh.exe -Command echo Hello. That's a lot of dashes. Wow.
• You can now search the web with your selected text via... (Search web for selected text #15539) (thanks @mpela81!)
  • ...the experimental right-click context menu!
  • ...the searchWeb action!
    • You can customize each action to launch any search engine by specifying the queryUrl. %s will be replaced with your query.
  • You can customize the default search engine for both of these by specifying the global setting searchWebDefaultQueryUrl. %s will be replaced with your query.
• If you have shell integration enabled, you can enable using the mouse to reposition the text cursor (Add an experimental setting for moving the cursor with the mouse #15758)
  • {profile}.experimental.repositionCursorWithMouse (the dot is part of the name, sorry) (boolean, default false)

Theming and Scheming

• You can now set the window border color on Windows 11 via the {theme}.window.frame and {theme}.window.unfocusedFrame color entries (Add support for setting the window frame color #15441)
  • For more fun, you can set {theme}.window's experimental.rainbowFrame to true 🙂
• You can now (finally!) enable support for using the acrylic material in an unfocused window (Enable unfocused acrylic #15923) (Fix a bug when changing EnableUnfocusedAcrylic at runtime #15944) (thanks @Jaswir!)
  • Set useAcrylic to true in {profile}.unfocusedAppearance
  • You can turn unfocused acrylic off globally with the global setting compatibility.enableUnfocusedAcrylic (boolean, default false)
• Themes can now indicate whether tab icons should be shown in color or monochrome or hidden entirely (Option to default to show icon in tab, hide tabicon or make icon in tab monochrome. #15948) (thanks @bundgaard!)
  • Set {theme}.tab.iconStyle (enum default, hidden, monochrome; default default (default))

Changes

• wt -- foo will once again inherit the environment from its parent (Allow inheriting env vars from wt again and other env var changes too #15897)
  • You can customize this behavior with wt --inheritEnvironment or wt --reloadEnvironment on a per-tab/per-pane basis.
  • You can also override this behavior with the profile setting {profile}.compatibility.reloadEnvironmentVariables (boolean, default true)
• We have rewritten "cooked read", the input line used by Command Prompt, Python, and a whole host of other applications (COOKED_READ_DATA: Fix scrolling under ConPTY #15930) (Merge ReadConsoleA/W API routines #15780) (Modernize CommandHistory and switch to int32 #15782) (Rewrite COOKED_READ_DATA #15783) (Fix the prompt sometimes not being erased properly #15880)
  • This includes changes to command history, popups (F7 and the like), and how input is echoed to the display.
  • This may have a wide-ranging impact, so please file any unexpected input issues in Win32 applications!
• Input event record handling has been rewritten to support wide encodings like UTF-8, to be more maintainable, and to be much simpler to read (Clean up InputBuffer coalescing and preprocessing #15671) (Properly filter focus events from the console API #15606) (Deduplicate INPUT_RECORD based ApiRoutines #15605) (Refactor TerminalInput to return strings #15611) (Replace IInputEvent with INPUT_RECORD #15673) (Clean up WriteConsoleInputA conversion #15672)
• Console applications can now more reliably print characters composed of surrogate pairs (aka "We've been trying to reach you about your WriteCharsLegacy's extended Emoji support") (We've been trying to reach you about your WriteCharsLegacy's extended Emoji support #15567)
• We've added an action that opens the about dialog (openAbout) (Add an openAbout action. #15990)
• conhost will now ignore key events with an invalid virtual keycode and a scan code of 0 (such as those emitted by strange software keyboards) (ConHost: Ignore WM_[SYS]KEYDOWN/WM_[SYS]KEYUP events with an invalid virtual keycode and a scan code of 0 #15753) (thanks @tusharsnx!)
• We will no longer generate WINDOW_BUFFER_SIZE_EVENT when the viewport moves, confusing applications that translate it into a destructive operation (ConPTY: Avoid WINDOW_BUFFER_SIZE_EVENT when the viewport moves #15935)
• You can now configure any copy action to dismiss or keep the selection after it runs (dismissSelection, boolean, default true) (Added: Copy text without dismissing the selection #15552) (thanks @gonzalo-garcian!)
• The text buffer has been reorganized to be (1) faster (2) smaller (3) harder, better, etc.
  • Rows are initialized lazily in chunks of 128 or so; we no longer spend memory on blank space you'll never see (Initialize rows lazily #15524) (Stop committing the whole buffer when determining if it's empty #15582)
  • Reading, writing, initialization, etc. has been cleaned up and vectorized (Vectorize ROW initialization #15501) (Vectorize StateMachine::ProcessString #15498) with fast passes and other optimizations (Add an ASCII fast-pass to ROW #15499) (A small optimization of COOKED_READ_DATA::_erase #15879) (Move AdaptDispatch::_FillRect into TextBuffer #15541) (Reduce cost of resetting row attributes #15497)
  • We've rewritten resize with reflow so it's like a billion times faster and more correct (Reimplement TextBuffer::Reflow #15701)
    • If you see any issues when resizing (other than "bash prints the prompt 600 times every frame" (that's apparently just how bash works)), please file them!
• We no longer load the Settings editor library on launch, saving you tens of kilobytes of memory (Lazily load the settings UI DLL #15628) (Launch the settings in the PGO harness #15631)
• We will now display an indicator in the tab of any disconnected/closed/crashed application. You can right-click the tab to restart it! ( Display connection state in tab and add context menu entry for restarting connection #15760) (thanks @mpela81!)
• You can now run profiles as Admin from the new tab menu by right-clicking them (Add support for running profiles from Add tab menu as admin without a keyboard #15679) (thanks @jamespack!)
• The profile preview in settings now shows you what a "powerline" font will look like when one is selected (Detect likely Powerline fonts, add a special powerline preview #15365)
• We actually did fix the homoglyph thing this time; hovering a URL that is pretending to be someone else through funny characters will see right through it (Display Unicode URIs side-by-side with their Punycode encoding #15488)
• You can now right-click a tab and move it to a new window (Add support for a "Move Tab to New Window" tab context menu item #15376) (thanks @Jaswir!)
• All text search now uses ICU, and is like blazing fast. URL detection, Search, everything is covered! (Use ICU for text search #15858) (Avoid moving the selection while typing a search query #15998) (Fix pattern coordinates to be viewport relative #15892)
• For those of you debugging Terminal/the console with ETW, you can now group all API calls by originating process (Consolidate and clean up all API logging #15737)
• Also for debugging purposes, you can now add the debugTerminalCwd action to display a pop-up with Terminal's current "virtual" working directory (Add an action to display toast with the CWD of the Terminal #15282)
• If you are using Preview, Canary or Dev we will now set an appropriate JSON $schema so you can auto-complete new settings (Use a different schema for each branding #15856)

VT

• We now support Erase Color Mode (DECECM) (Add support for Erase Color Mode (DECECM) #15469) (thanks @j4james!)
• The horizontal scrolling sequences DECIC, DECDC, DECBI and DECFI finally work! (Add support for horizontal scrolling sequences #15368) (thanks @j4james!)
• @tusharsnx put a lot of work into making ITU T.416 color sequences work! He...
  • ... added support for sub-parameters separated with : (Add support for colon separated sub-parameters #15648)
  • ... added support for ODA SGR sequences (38:2::R:G:B, 48:...) (Add support for ITU's T.416 - ODA SGR (38/48) sequence #15729) ([Tests] Add test for subparameter based GraphicOptions #15844)
• We will now pass through kitty's underline color (58:...) and style (4:...) sequences (we won't render them yet! but maybe soon! 🤞) (Add support for underline style and color in VT #15795) (thanks @tusharsnx!)

Bug Fixes

Accessibility

• We've added automation property names to the 'Delete Color Scheme' button (Add Auto Prop Name to 'Delete Color Scheme' button #15994)
• The key chord indicator in the command palette now has a background color (Added background to CommandKeyChord #15677) (thanks @RickleAndMortimer!)
• Settings now groups elements in their containers for screen readers (Add UIA element grouping to SettingsContainer #15756)
• Screen reader users can now determine which color scheme is the current default (Expose 'Default' tag to Screen Readers in Color Schemes page #15486)
• Default Terminal and Color Scheme ComboBoxes no longer crop at 200% text scale (Fix Default Terminal and Color Scheme ComboBoxes cropping at 200% Text Size #15762)
• Screen readers will now announce successful pane and tab moves (Make screen reader announce successful MovePane and MoveTab actions #15771)

VT and terminal emulation

• Hard Reset (RIS) no longer disables Win32 input mode or focus event mode for pty clients (like Terminal) (Make sure RIS re-enables win32 input and focus events #15476) (thanks @j4james!)
• We no longer log traces or telemetry about aggregated VT sequence use (Remove the telemetry for VT sequences #15494) (thanks @j4james!)
  • We started to do this in ~2016 or so when we were trying to figure out what VT sequences applications were using. We're way beyond needing that now!
• The Terminal will now enter mouse mode immediately when a Win32 console app enables it (among other output flushing changes! If you see any flickering in modern VT applications, let us know!) (ConPTY: Fix missing flush on console mode changes #15991)
• Scrollbar marks will now be cleared by clear (and friends) (Let marks be cleared by clear (and friends) #15686)

Usability and UI

• We will no longer reload the settings as often when various OS knobs and switches change (Don't update the settings, unless the theme actually changed #16004)
• The tab right-click menu now remembers which terminal pane was active when it was invoked... (Use the control that requested the context menu, instead of the active one #15999)
• You can once again restart the first pane in a split with Enter after it exits (Fix enter to restart the first pane in a split #16001)
• All actions now remember which pane originated them, so things like "export text" and "Move tab to new window" and "Duplicate" no longer summon one of the Old Ones (Raise ShortcutActions with the sender (tab, control) context #15773)
• The about dialog no longer tells you that you've got an update available to the same version you already have (Remove the pending update version from the About dialog #15378)
• When the tab close button is disabled, it will no longer randomly reappear to taunt you (Update close button visibility based on BOTH settings and readonly mode #15914)
• Duplicated tabs now consider the existing configuration option for where to put tabs (Make duplicate tabs consider the existing configuration option for its insertion #15972) (thanks @codecruisedor!)
• The launch parameters (position, size) now properly support negative numbers (Allows negative values in launch parameters #15941) (thanks @codecruisedor!)

New Rendering Engine

• We no longer leave cursors all over the place (AtlasEngine: Fix invalidation when the cursor is invisible #15904)
• Fonts like JetBrains Mono that render their ligatures in reverse now appear in the right colors (AtlasEngine: Fix ligature splitting for JetBrains Mono #15810)
• We no longer invalidate more of the screen than we need to (AtlasEngine: Fix overly aggressive invalidation #15929)
• It now works properly on Windows versions earlier than 10.0.14393.0 (AtlasEngine: Fix some Windows 10 <14393 bugs #15485)
• Font features and axes work once again! (AtlasEngine: Fix support for font features #15912)
• We no longer crash when trying to render to a 0x0 surface ( AtlasEngine: Harden against empty target sizes #15615)
• DRCS soft fonts that are invalid (or have disappeared, or were never enabled) no longer crash the Terminal (AtlasEngine: Harden against invalid soft fonts #15889)
• Both rendering engines have been prepared for horizontal scrolling (???) (Fix horizontal scrolling bugs in AtlasEngine/DxEngine #15707)

Performance

• Having thousands of scrollbar marks no longer causes thousands of dropped frames (Improve performance of scrollbar marks #16006)
• conhost: the GDI engine has reduced input latency (Reduce GdiEngine input latency #15608)

Reliability

• We no longer use the modern clipboard API, opting instead to use the much more reliable (and faster!) Win32 one (Replace WinRT clipboard API with Win32 for pasting #15360)
• We've refined the locking around a bunch of internal terminal control operations (Add missing lock guards on Terminal access #15894)
• One infinite loop (async, so it never hung anything) has been stomped out (Avoid async infinite loop on tab close #15335)
• Any active dialogs will be closed during close to avoid crashing during close (Manually close the ContentDialog in teardown #15387)
• We will no longer crash when checking for updates without a network (Don't crash when the checking for updates without a network #16002)
• If you're the one person who marks HKCU\Console as read-only, we won't crash during save for you (Don't explode if HKCU\Console is write-protected #15916)
• Actions with an empty keys array no longer cause unexpected kinetic disassembly (Don't explode if we try to parse an empty keys #16003)
• Duplicating elevate: true tabs has been fixed to not blast terminal off into space (Fix a crash when duplicating tabs with elevate:true #15548)
• The backing console no longer hangs when resizing while scrolling (Fix VtEngine hang when resizing while scrolling #15618)
• Instead of leaking memory for each window on Windows 10, we'll cache old windows and recycle them as needed (Refrigerate our threads for later reuse  #15424)
  • We introduced the leak to fix a crash in closing windows on Windows 10; this allows us to still leak the window but still be able to reclaim them.

Schema

• No longer is there a multiple schema conflict on "colorScheme" (Fix matches of multiple schemas on "colorScheme" #15748) (thanks @brandondong!)

Miscellaneous

• We've merged the WPF control's code into the UWP control's DLL (Merge PublicTerminalCore into TermControl #15992)
  • This is the first step on the road to merging their functionality, too!
• The WPF control now delay-loads UIAutomationCore.dll because it's incomplete in Windows RS1 (wpf: delay-load UIAutomationCore because it's incomplete in RS1 #15614)

[2] With additional thanks to @floh96, @daverayment, @ushuz, and @LitoMore for documentation updates and @tusharsnx,
[2] @Jvr2022, @Dan-Albrecht, @ebarnabas644, @jamespack for build system, project config, and compiler compatibility fixes.

---

Binary files inside the unpackaged distribution archive bear the version number 1.19.230925002-preview.

Asset Hashes

• Microsoft.WindowsTerminalPreview_1.19.2682.0_8wekyb3d8bbwe.msixbundle
  • SHA256 7B57906D885F7E1AD45802B27089F0105DA586806AF50EF7967DF3973BFB31E8
• Microsoft.WindowsTerminalPreview_1.19.2682.0_arm64.zip
  • SHA256 A73F198DC598204862903F06B2D1E06266F4A4004CF817305D65F9126FB18025
• Microsoft.WindowsTerminalPreview_1.19.2682.0_x64.zip
  • SHA256 3BE7DC515AC755456EFB7C5898786F03907B5F6082691C2BF14F4B13A79661DF
• Microsoft.WindowsTerminalPreview_1.19.2682.0_x86.zip
  • SHA256 20042BDB6611035096E755B7511C03E1E049F9176A2BE154A408C4478A4DD397

---

This discussion was created from the release Windows Terminal Preview v1.19.2682.0.

[HotCakeX]

Acrylic material in an unfocused window is awesome! Also love the rainbow frame

There used to be a Theme section in Terminal settings where I could choose colors for tabs etc. without using JSON but they're gone now. Can they be brought back along with the new appearance settings so that we'll be able to use the GUI to customize Terminal appearance and then use JSON for backup/restore?