Microsoft Releases First Preview Of Windows Terminal

[duby229]

I guess the only use for this mistake of a terminal is to mosh (or ssh if you're stuck in the past) into remote machines. I hope Microsoft just adds X11 to windows so it can work both ways. It would allow to run a Windows VM and have sofware in it exposed as native X11 windows.

you can already sort of do that today with mingw (xming i think I recall?)

[jbysmith]

Heh, I remember some colorful discussions by Windows guys bragging about Powershell and how it was as good as or better than Linux terminal emulators. I guess this MS move ends that debate.

Just as an Fyi, PowerShell is, well, a shell, like Bash. Another program (say a terminal for example) is used to host it. Two different things entirely. For example, my terminal typically had three or four PowerShell sessions going in a tiled layout at any given time, plus a couple remote Bash sessions. And yes, plenty of people will say PowerShell will give Bash a good run for the money.

[cl333r]

Just as an Fyi, PowerShell is, well, a shell, like Bash. Another program (say a terminal for example) is used to host it. Two different things entirely. For example, my terminal typically had three or four PowerShell sessions going in a tiled layout at any given time, plus a couple remote Bash sessions. And yes, plenty of people will say PowerShell will give Bash a good run for the money.

PowerShell is only good for a narrow set of people because it's bloody slow, when I ran for the first time "ls" and it took like 3 seconds I was "WTF??", I don't know why it happens but it's the reason along with its weird behaviour (like taking a long time to start up) why almost anyone ignores it. I think "The Windows Terminal" is finally what normal people have been waiting for - a modern responsive windows terminal.

[Djhg2000]

KDE Konsole actually does as well - https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...October-7-2018

Yes, and as much as I like Konsole I still disagree with the need for such functionality.

What do you propose happens when a program prints unicode text containing emoji to the terminal, eg cat a chat log?

Just print them as two "unknown sequence" characters, possibly with embedded hex values. Just like any other unprintable garbage.

Emoji is eternally broken anyway because nobody can decide on a uniform way to represent them, so why even bother. We already have smileys and kaomoji, both of which are friendly to monochromatic terminals and standardized by design, so you can make the case that emojis are redundant as well.

[c117152]

Terminology does all that and possibly more.

Yup. I use it for mail clients and IRC daily. A good way to test it out is with https://github.com/michael-lazar/rtv running "rtv -s unixporn" and see how it previews pngs, jpegs, gifs and even videos in-window just fine. It also makes reddit nice and responsible for a change.

[F.Ultra]

Yes, and as much as I like Konsole I still disagree with the need for such functionality.



Just print them as two "unknown sequence" characters, possibly with embedded hex values. Just like any other unprintable garbage.

Emoji is eternally broken anyway because nobody can decide on a uniform way to represent them, so why even bother. We already have smileys and kaomoji, both of which are friendly to monochromatic terminals and standardized by design, so you can make the case that emojis are redundant as well.

Adding such behaviour might actually require more complex code than simply handing Unicode the correct way (which is what this emoji support really is).

[JPFSanders]

Fantastic, well played MS, port all the userland tools from Linux to Windows, sabotage Canonical so they shoot themselves in both feet and in one eye, and continue supporting the 32bit software library until the sun runs out of hydrogen.

Meanwhile the most used Linux distribution loses its value due to stupid deprecations no one asked for.

This is the way of progress. Yes sir!

[Djhg2000]

Adding such behaviour might actually require more complex code than simply handing Unicode the correct way (which is what this emoji support really is).

Not really. Either test for the emoji codepage(s) and return the generic square (again, possibly with embedded hex) or do the same thing but at the font level.

I genuinely don't understand the obsession with emojis. In my experience they lead to more misunderstandings than they solve because of how they don't even map to the same expressions across platforms. It's like it was make by a committee and then everyone went home and did their own versions anyway. On top of that you need to support half a rainbow of skin colors nowadays. This is not what a sane character encoding standard looks like.

[Danny3]

Fantastic, well played MS, port all the userland tools from Linux to Windows, sabotage Canonical so they shoot themselves in both feet and in one eye, and continue supporting the 32bit software library until the sun runs out of hydrogen.

Meanwhile the most used Linux distribution loses its value due to stupid deprecations no one asked for.

This is the way of progress. Yes sir!

Well said!
Just a small correction.
Microsoft didn't sabotage Canonical.
Canonical was the one, with its thirst for money, took the bribe and decided to sabotage themselves and in the same time WINE and Valve.
And yet some people think that Microsoft has changed.

[Chugworth]

Not really. Either test for the emoji codepage(s) and return the generic square (again, possibly with embedded hex) or do the same thing but at the font level.

I genuinely don't understand the obsession with emojis. In my experience they lead to more misunderstandings than they solve because of how they don't even map to the same expressions across platforms. It's like it was make by a committee and then everyone went home and did their own versions anyway. On top of that you need to support half a rainbow of skin colors nowadays. This is not what a sane character encoding standard looks like.

Yeah, that's one complaint I have about it also. One of the best examples is when they changed the gun icon to a water pistol. It would have been one thing if they removed the gun, and added a new code for a water pistol, but they just changed the image. So if you send a message that includes the water pistol, it could have an entirely different meaning if the recipient's device still has the gun icon.

I think emoji icons do have a good place in messaging, but the database is getting a bit out of hand and becoming sort of a stage for virtue signaling. When they start making icons that look more like real people, then they have to make sure they include every race, gender, and sexual orientation in every occupation. How about just a set of smilies?