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

Chapter 1: Getting started with the new Windows Terminal

At the Build 2019 conference, Microsoft made an exciting announcement: Windows 10 was getting a brand new command-line terminal! Custom built for the command prompt, PowerShell, and the Windows Subsystem for Linux, this new terminal promised to bring a modern, configurable, and open source command-line experience. In May 2020, Microsoft released the 1.0 version of the new Windows Terminal.

Windows Terminal is a separate application from the old Windows command line. This approach allows both terminals to live side by side, and enables Microsoft to rapidly release new features for Windows Terminal without endangering the backward compatibility of the old terminal.

By the end of this chapter, we will be up and running with Windows Terminal, having covered the following topics:

  • Why a new terminal?
  • The modern foundations of Windows Terminal
  • Installing Windows Terminal
  • Launching Windows Terminal

We'll cover why Windows needed a new terminal at all, how this new terminal is radically different from the old one, and take our first steps to download, install, and launch it.