Windows Terminal 1.18 released: improved tab page drag and drop features, enhanced text rendering engine, etc.

IT House News on May 27th, Microsoft recently launched Windows Terminal 1.18 in the form of a preview version.In addition to fixing bugs, improving background, and improving performance, this update also introduces some new functions and features.

According to reports from foreign technology media, IT Home summarizes and updates the content as follows:

Drag and drop a tab to generate an independent window

After the user upgrades to Windows Terminal 1.18, drag a certain tab to the blank area, and release it to automatically create a new window instance of Windows Terminal.

Users can also move a tab from one Windows Terminal window to another.

variable update

Windows Terminal 1.18 automatically reloads environment variables when you open a new tab or pane without requiring a program restart.

Additionally, you can now add environment variables in settings.json. This can be done in defaults or any configuration file:

"profiles": 
    
        "defaults": 
        
            "environment": 
                "MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE": "Hi from defaults!"
            ,
        ,
        "list": 
        [
            
                "guid": "574e775e-4f2a-5b96-ac1e-a2962a402336",
                "name": "PowerShell",
                "source": "Windows.Terminal.PowershellCore",
                "environment": 
                
                    "MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE": "Hi from PowerShell!"
                
            
        ]
    

right click menu

As part of the experimental project, users can open the settings.json configuration file and set “experimental.rightClickContextMenu“: “true” default, to manually enable the right-click context menu functionality.

"profiles": 
{
    "defaults": 
    
        "experimental.rightClickContextMenu": true
    ,

text rendering engine

Microsoft has improved the text rendering engine (AtlasEngine) by supporting overlapping text and more. No more cutting off italic text, emoji, or complex scripts. It will continue clipping the box glyph to its cell.

portable mode

Starting with version 1.18, Windows Terminal can be deployed in “portable mode”. The new mode ensures that all data created and maintained by Windows Terminal is kept alongside the application so that it can be moved more easily between environments.

Microsoft is using “Zip” containers to distribute this new portable mode, but this feature is not supported in Windows Terminal’s packaged or preinstalled kit distributions.

You have to manually enable portable mode.After unzipping Windows Terminal, create a file next to WindowsTerminal.exe called .portable document.

Windows Terminal will automatically create a directory called settings after starting WindowsTerminal.exe. The settings directory will store settings such as window layout and runtime state.

GitHub Copilot AI

Users with access to the GitHub Copilot experience will be able to use natural language AI in the inline and experimental chat experience to suggest commands, interpret errors, and perform actions within Windows Terminal. You can sign up for early access to Copilot Hub on GitHub.