Book Image

Windows Terminal Tips, Tricks, and Productivity Hacks

By : Will Fuqua
5 (1)
Book Image

Windows Terminal Tips, Tricks, and Productivity Hacks

5 (1)
By: Will Fuqua

Overview of this book

Windows Terminal is a new and open-source command-line application for Windows 10, built for the Command Prompt, PowerShell, Windows Subsystem for Linux, and more. It's fast, modern, and configurable thanks to its GPU-accelerated rendering, excellent UTF-8 support, and JSON-based configurability, and this book can help you learn how to leverage these features. You’ll start by learning the benefits of Windows Terminal and its open-source development, as well as how to use the built-in tabs, panes, and key bindings to build your own efficient terminal workflows. After you’ve mastered Windows Terminal, this book shows how to use and configure PowerShell Core and the Windows Subsystem for Linux within Windows Terminal. You’ll maximize your productivity using powerful tools such as PSReadLine for PowerShell and ZSH on Linux, and discover useful tips and tricks for common developer tools like Git and SSH. Finally, you’ll see how Windows Terminal can be used in common development and DevOps tasks, such as developing frontend JavaScript applications and backend REST APIs, and managing cloud-based systems like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. By the end of this book, you'll not only be well-versed with Windows Terminal, but also have learned how to effectively use shells like PowerShell Core and ZSH to become proficient at the command line.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introducing the New Windows Terminal
5
Section 2: Configuring your Windows Terminal and its shells
12
Section 3: Using your Windows Terminal for development

Using terminal panes

Tabs are just one way of managing multiple tasks; the other way is to use terminal panes. Panes are a way of opening side-by-side shells within the same tab. They're useful when working with the output of multiple commands at the same time. For example, one pane can execute a long-running tracert command, while the other is left free for executing more exploratory commands:

Figure 2.5 – Windows Terminal with two panes. Left: a pane running a lengthy tracert command. Right: a pane we can use while waiting for the tracert command to complete

The same plus and downward arrow buttons we used to create tabs can also be used to create panes. Just hold down the Alt key while clicking the buttons:

  • Holding Alt while clicking the plus button will open the default shell in a new pane.
  • Holding Alt while selecting a shell from the new shell dropdown menu will open that shell in a new pane.

Like tabs, panes support a rich...