Microsoft Terminal 1.0 Stable Will Be Released in May 2020

Windows Terminal a new terminal app for command-line users that has plenty of new features including tabs, a GPU accelerated DirectWrite/DirectX-based text rendering engine, profiles, and more.

Windows Terminal a new terminal app for command-line users that has plenty of new features including tabs, a GPU accelerated DirectWrite/DirectX-based text rendering engine, profiles, and more.

Windows Terminal is fully open-sourced. Thanks to the new tabbed console, it allows organizing instances of Command Prompt, PowerShell, and Windows Subsystem for Linux together in a single app.

The app comes with an icon that reminds of new Office and OneDrive icons, reflecting Microsoft's modern design view known as 'Fluent Design'.

With version 1.0, Windows Terminal will get a new useful feature. It will allow opening a new tab, or a new app instance using the command line switches. Version 1.0 is scheduled to be released on May, 1st, although the release date might be changed.

The appropriate change will be already included in version 0.9, which is coming on February 11, 2020.

Terminal v0.9 is scheduled for 2/11

• This is the last release that will have new features before the v1 release
• Subsequent releases are strictly for bug fixes and polishing
• Features include:
  • Command line arguments
    • new-tab, split-pane, focus-tab
    • Examples:
      • wt -d . (opens a new Terminal in the current working directory)
      • wt -p "profile name" (opens a new Terminal with the given profile)
      • wt; new-tab -p "profile name"; split-pane -V -p "profile name"
  • Accessibility improvements

This will be a great change for Windows Terminal users, who are mostly developers. Having the ability to manage tabs and windows from the command line can be useful in various automation scenarios.

The actual app version can be found on Microsoft Store.

Windows Terminal on Microsoft Store

The source code is on GitHub.