Windows Terminal v0.9 Released With Command Line Arguments Support

Windows Terminal v0.9 is out with a number of new features that include Command Line arguments, Auto-Detect PowerShell, a "Close All Tabs" confirmation dialog. The v0.9 release is the last version of the Terminal that will include new features before the v1 release.

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'.

What's new in Windows Terminal 0.9

Command Line Arguments

The wt execution alias now supports command line arguments. You can now launch Terminal with new tabs and panes split, specify the needed profiles, starting them in the directories of your choice. Here are some examples:

wt -d .
Opens the Terminal with the default profile in the current working directory.

wt -d . ; new-tab -d C:\ pwsh.exe
Opens the Terminal with two tabs. The first is running the default profile starting in the current working directory. The second is using the default profile with pwsh.exe as the "commandline" (instead of the default profile’s "commandline") starting in the C:\ directory.

wt -p "Windows PowerShell" -d . ; split-pane -V wsl.exe
Opens the Terminal with two panes, split vertically. The top pane is running the profile with the name “Windows Terminal” and the bottom pane is running the default profile using wsl.exe as the "commandline" (instead of the default profile’s "commandline").

wt -d C:\Users\cinnamon\GitHub\WindowsTerminal ; split-pane -p "Command Prompt" ; split-pane -p "Ubuntu" -d \\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\cinnak -H

See the following video

Also, new command line arguments are well explained on GitHub.

Auto-Detect PowerShell

The Windows Terminal will now detect any version of PowerShell installed on your computer and automatically create a profile for you. The PowerShell with highest version number will be named as “PowerShell” and will take the original PowerShell Core slot in the dropdown.

Confirm Close All Tabs

A new global setting has been created that allows you to always hide the “Close All Tabs” confirmation dialog. You can set "confirmCloseAllTabs" to true at the top of your profiles.json file, and Windows Terminal won't display the close all tabs confirmation dialog.

Other Improvements

• Accessibility: You can now navigate word-by-word using Narrator or NVDA
• You can now drag and drop a file into the Terminal and the file path will be printed
• Ctrl+Ins and Shift+Ins are bound by default to copy and paste respectively
• You can now hold Shift and click to expand your selection
• VS Code keys used for key bindings are now supported (i.e. "pgdn" and "pagedown" are both valid)

Bug Fixes

• Accessibility: Terminal won’t crash when Narrator is running.
• Terminal won’t crash when you provide an invalid background image or icon path.
• Our popup dialogs all now have rounded buttons.
• The search box now works properly in high contrast.
• Some ligatures will render more correctly.

The actual app version can be found on Microsoft Store.

Windows Terminal on Microsoft Store

The source code is on GitHub.

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