Windows Terminal 0.4 Preview Update brings improved features

Microsoft’s Windows Terminal is the modern version of the terminal like Command Prompt, PowerShell and WSL, It brings features including multiple tabs, Unicode and UTF-8 character support, a GPU accelerated text rendering engine, and custom themes, styles, and configurations. In its recent update, which is still in preview, Microsoft has rolled out some significant updates.

Windows Terminal Preview 0.4

The list of updates include Tab Title customizations, Warning Messages, HTML Copy,  Copy Updates, Key Binding Updates,  Settings Warning Messages, Settings Updates, and Accessibility Update

Tab Title Customizations

Tab Title will be set to the profile name rather than an executable path. If you want to change, the setting"tabTitle" will replace the profile’s name in the tab. The update sets the shell title rather than overwriting the displayed title. Those who don’t know, the shell title is the title given by the command line application using that instance of the profile.

Those using WSL distribution, you can change this behavior in your bash or ZSH profiles in /etc.

Settings Warning Messages

Settings warning messages are now distinct and pass the actual error message. If there is an issue with profiles.json file, the Terminal will display an error message describing what is incorrect. If it cannot read it, then a default message is displayed.

Key Binding Updates

• You can now use both AltGr keypress along with “Ctrl+Alt” key bindings! The terminal detects AltGr keypress before, and hence it works.
• You can not configure key binding to open the tab dropdown. The default is  “Ctrl+Shift+Space”.

For details, visit Microsoft.

Copy Updates

Copy on Select

It’s a new global setting available which is set to false by yes. When you change it to true the clipboard will once a select has been made within the terminal thus saving you from one extra step. It also means that it will overwrite anything on the clipboard. So set up wisely.

HTML Copy

When you select a range of text and copy it to your clipboard, Terminal now writes the selected text to the clipboard as styled HTML. It will allow you to paste styled console contents to other applications such as Outlook, Microsoft Word, etc.

Accessibility Update

The UIA bounding rectangles are now correctly aligned with the text ranges on 100%-scale displays. Bounding rectangles define the regions where the text is displayed on the buffer inside the Terminal. It supports panes as well as improves accessibility!