7 ms·

Reimagining the Windows Command Line

54 points by tltjr 14y ago

alexholehouse 14y ago
Most features are incomplete Sounds all too familiar :-). I don't have a windowsbox available right now, but demo looks great.
runjake 14y ago
For what it's worth, it's very, very buggy on Windows 8 x64. I couldn't get tab completion working, and after the first dir command, everything went downhill. It began behaving like a text editor. When I typed or backspaced, it backspaced over the prompt and everything else. The kickstarter video was pretty promising, though. Might I suggest you compiled x64, too? x64 seems to be more commonly sold over x86 these days -- at least in the US.
- tltjr 14y ago
  Thanks for the input. I haven't tested on Windows 8, so I'm not too surprised. Maybe I'll make separate installers if there is a lot of interest.
- cocoflunchy 14y ago
  Same here, after a git pull it froze for ~20s and then started behaving like a text editor. (Win7 x86)
tinco 14y ago
The features sound nice, they could use a bit more slick design ;) Why not make it for the Metro UI? Might rock.. If you suggested you would dive into the WinAPI and use your C++ skills to write a new console _engine_ I would gladly pledge 50 bucks or more. I'm afraid many people will pledge thinking this will bring a usable console emulator to Windows, instead of just another Console2 like hack around the severely limited windows api. I think 5 years of .Net experience won't cut it for that ..
Tsts 14y ago
Windows is a dead OS walking. My humble advice is instead of learning Wish, get a Linux VM and start moving your skillset, aps, ets.
- vitalique 14y ago
  Check your facts, for example here: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp. See, your 'dead OS' is not walking - it is marching bravely here and there and all over the planet, led by army of Windows admins. Who, being just as smart as their other-OS-admin-brothers, are always looking for better tools to do their job.
  - samspot 14y ago
    It's ironic that linux is dying slightly compared to last year (according to the link). Not that I think linux is going anywhere :)
- mariusmg 14y ago
  You just won the troll of the year award. Congratulations.
alpb 14y ago
Man, this sounds like the best thing ever happened to cmd.exe, I will give it a try and back it on Kickstarter. But I think such a project should be developed under an open source license and maybe licenses can still be sold like Textmate.
- alpb 14y ago
  A few suggestions: * Make shortcuts for tab splits in both vertical and horizontal * Tab titles are not so necessary, right? Just draw a line between vertically or horizontally split Windows, like iTerm2 does (it is really neat). * Word-wraps? * I was in c:\demo, I wrote a nonexisting command (let's say lls), now I'm in c:\program files\wish. * On a prompt, I can use Backspace to delete PS1-like string, and after deleting something and pressing return, it crashes * Add it to PATH so that people can run it via Run window (Windows+R). * "set" command runs without params in cmd.exe, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490890.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490890.aspx this doc might help. I have recently joined Microsoft and I was using Linux-OSX before that for work and I miss zsh+iterm2 quite a lot.
  - tltjr 14y ago
    Thanks for all the ideas. The prototype is very buggy. I mostly wanted people to get a feel for the vision. I really like your feature suggestions and will definitely take them into consideration.
    - alpb 14y ago
      I'm still figuring out some ideas but dude, make this thing open source. This will be really better.
airfoil 14y ago
Nice work! I played with it for a bit and one thing I noticed was that the "Home" key took me to the beginning of the line/prompt instead of the start of my input. Also if I backspace far enough it will start to kill my prompt. One thing that would make this awesome for me is emacs keybindings. Overall though, I think this has nice potential to be a super useful tool. Thanks for sharing!
- tltjr 14y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. The UI is a bit of a hack for the prototype and will be a more proper control for release. Emacs and vim keybindings are on my feature list. I think Ctrl+P and Ctrl+N work for command history in the prototype, but don't quote me on that.
  - airfoil 14y ago
    Good to hear. Yours is the first kickstarter project I've ever backed. Thanks again for making this available.
kuida0r3 14y ago
When I work on windows, I just use cygwin with the mintty shell to get productive with a familiar look&feel. What am I missing with this setup that Wish fills?
- tltjr 14y ago
  A lot of Windows users (like myself) are somewhat committed to tools like Powershell in addition to Cygwin. I currently keep both Git Bash and Powershell open so I can switch back and forth as needed. Wish allows me to switch between these seemlessly with a common set of features across both.
  - kuida0r3 14y ago
    Ah that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
skrebbel 14y ago
I want this, bad, but I'm afraid of depending on little one-developer tools. How much do I pledge to make you consider open sourcing it?
joelverhagen 14y ago
One of my biggest pet peeves about the original "cmd.exe" or PowerShell is that resizing the window is not pixel-precise. Thank you for making this a part of wish! The snapping to the left and right of my screen works really well. Although it seems it is not working well on Windows 8 x64, I am having a good experience on Windows 7 x64. A couple of suggestions: - Wish takes a while to become responsive after starting the program (3-4 seconds for me). I am not sure if this is just me, I just wanted to make you aware! - Add a keystroke for clearing the terminal. I am addicted to Ctrl + L in bash. - Perhaps consider adding select to copy. Keep up the good work, and I'll keep an eye on this project :).
- tltjr 14y ago
  All great suggestions, thanks! I'll take a look at all these.
bashzor 14y ago
Not so much "reimagined" as "an improvement for windows' command prompt" it seems.
mariusmg 14y ago
There is already a full featured (including autocompletion), stable windows CLI called ConeEmu (available at http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/ ). Also, cli in wpf ?! Come on....
- tltjr 14y ago
  I mention ConEmu in the Kickstarter post. It is an excellent alternative. As for using WPF for a CLI, I think it adds some useful features. At the end of the day, a tool either makes your life easier and you more productive, or it doesn't. I think this tool can add a lot of value.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
manuscreationis 14y ago
This looks interesting, the tabbed effect is a major draw for me personally, but I feel like hes got a bit of a price tier issue with the rewards on the kickstarter... His target price for the released product is hopefully $10 ( a good deal ) The $20 pledge gets you 2 licenses Cost Per License: $10 Additional Perk: Nothing The $50 pledge gets you 1 license Cost Per License: $50 Additional Perk: Beta Access The $100 pledge gets you 5 licenses Cost Per License: $20 Additional Perk: Immediate Access And that's just a small analysis of those 3 price points. The higher points also seem a little off to me as well. It just seems odd to have the Cost Per License to vary so wildly, in my unsolicited opinion, anyways. I understand trying to play to the draw of people wanting quicker access to use the tool, but his pricing model creates tiers that are counter-intuitive to people who want to contribute, but do not want to receive what could be perceived as a poor value for the cash they have available to contribute.
- tltjr 14y ago
  Great feedback and something I have been concerned about myself. I'm considering adjusting the higher tiers so the cost per license is more consistent.
  - manuscreationis 14y ago
    Wow, thanks for responding! I hope it didn't come across as negative, it was just something I noticed and wondered if other people saw the same thing, or if I was just being nitpicky. I hope your project reaches funding, this looks like a really cool idea
    - tltjr 14y ago
      Kickstarter doesn't let you change your rewards after others have already pledged, but I am going to find a way to ensure that all reward levels will be offered enough licenses to average $10/license.
- greenyoda 14y ago
  If you want a tabbed Windows console, take a look at "Console": http://sourceforge.net/projects/console http://sourceforge.net/projects/console I've been using it for a while, and it works pretty well. From the project page: "Console is a Windows console window enhancement. Console features include: multiple tabs, text editor-like text selection, different background types, alpha and color-key transparency, configurable font, different window styles."
RyanMcGreal 14y ago
Quick note (Windows XP x86): every time I try to switch from Powershell to CMD, I get multiple "Keyboard History Utility has encountered a problem and needs to close" error dialogs followed by Wish crashing.
- tltjr 14y ago
  Thanks. I'll make a note to fix that.
  - RyanMcGreal 14y ago
    Thank you! Tool looks promising but I wasn't really able to test it out without it crashing.
mixmax 14y ago
This might be slightly off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks that command line tools are archaic with some pretty serious drawbacks? I see and acknowledge the power they can wield in the right hands, but for mere mortals it's a terrible experience. Especially on a windows box. I've started learning Symfony2, and the default is to get it up and running using the dependancy manager composer, a commandline based tool. I've spent a week trying to finish the simple task of installing the framework. No success. Now, I don't make a living programming, so I'm definitely at the shallow end of the programming pool. But still. A week. There are several problems as I see it: - No discoverability. You are given no clues whatsoever as to what commands are available to you. You have to know exactly what you want to do. Yes, you can read manpages, forum posts, etc. but finding, learning and memorising a whole set of commands used in some program you might never use again seems like a terrible waste of productive time. Without the manual you're flying blind. - All sorts of opaque dependencies. Composer for instance apparently requires git installed for it to work. But it doesn't say that anywhere. You also need to define paths, etc. which isn't covered anywhere. - A million minor flaws and bugs. Until now I've run up against at least a few bugs, either in composer or in some other part of the chain of software. Only opaque general warnings are given, and finding out exactly what is wrong is next to impossible. - Terrible UI. Copying and pasting doesn't follow convention, copying from a commandline to a notepad inserts linebreaks that you have to clean up manually, there's no way to maximise the cmd.exe window. The list of basic usability flaws goes on. This isn't meant as trolling or ranting, although I must say I'm genuinely alienated by the commandline. I understand that text is great way for programs to talk to each other, I understand that the commandline is a great way to talk to a remote server, and I understand the power that piping, etc. gives you, so it's not like I'm denouncing the power that's inherent in the tool. The problem is that the learning curve is tremendously steep, and I just don't feel it's worth it. To do the simplest thing I need to learn how a whole ecosystem works. I also have to page the information I need together from a number of different sources that I first have to find. It's kind of like having to build a car just to ride down to the baker to get some bread. It's quicker to walk than assemble a car before you can drive.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  Most of your complaints sound like problems with documentation (it existing and/or you using it) or problems with a poorly defined tool (edit), lol, or is specific to the Windows shell. I can think of several GUI apps that have ALL of those problems but I also can't script them, alias them or fix them. I spent 75% of my day in the terminal because I'm proficient and fast with it. Most of programming has a learning curve, I don't see why people expect otherwise when it comes to an interface that is every bit as powerful as a GUI but with a specific interface. No offense but with the number of misconceptions in that post, maybe you need to spend more time with it before dismissing it out of hand. (edit) seriously, you don't know about Notepad.exe and line breaks. :/ Man... if you would spend a bit of time on tooling and learning your environment you probably wouldn't be spending half the time you are doing whatever it is you're doing. Jumping into something is fun, but for sufficiently complex things, you DO have to step back and read the manual. Knowing what Symphony does, I'm quite sure that learning the CLI tool would be a far better use of everyone's effort than a GUI tool. This is even a place where I think the CLI tool makes exceedingly more sense to use. edit: To be fair, if I had to use Windows default tools and a PHP generator tool all day long, my words would probably be more angry than yours.
dredmorbius 14y ago
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/ http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/ Alternately: http://zshwiki.org/home/ http://zshwiki.org/home/ /thread
nsxwolf 14y ago
Is this a Windows port of wish (WIndowing SHell), or an all-new, confusingly named project (WIndows SHell)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_(Unix_shell) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_(Unix_shell)
- tltjr 14y ago
  Quite a few people have brought this to my attention, and it is unfortunately, a confusingly named project. I was unaware of the other project and will probably consider renaming my project if it gets funded. Thanks for pointing this out though.
- Zuider 14y ago
  No, not a port - it just has the same name. Tcl/Tk works on Windows too. I can see a name clash.
beatgammit 14y ago
I'm actually glad for the inefficiency of the Windows command-line. Every time I boot up into Windows to test something, I'm reminded of how much I hate it. Since moving to Linux, development is just easier in every way: * viM instead of Visual Studio has made me a better programmer * think more, guess less * I can keep customizations when I remote in and patch production code * Bash is much more productive than .bat files * Piping is amazing (cat file | sed | awk | ...) * Tons of documentation online If Windows had a decent command-line (with decent documentation of course), I might convince myself to put up with less malleable tools just to play games without rebooting. Don't get me wrong, Windows is fine, but it's not Unix. A better command-line app can't change that.
- gizmo686 14y ago
  >If Windows had a decent command-line (with decent documentation of course), I might convince myself to put up with less malleable tools just to play games without rebooting. Isn't the point of a commandline that it makes basic tools far more malleable? For example, I recently was working with an OCR tool that took as an input 1 image file path, and an output name, and extracted plaintext from the image. If this were a gui tool, I would be stuck manually running it on hundreds of images at once. As a command-ling tool, I can do: `find . | grep *.jpg | xargs -n 1 -I{} | tesseract '{}' '{}'`
SiVal 14y ago
For most of Microsoft's lifetime, I've wondered why MS didn't just build a unix-style command line into Windows, providing a major upgrade to the ridiculous DOS. As a Windows dev, I always downloaded unix utilities for DOS and the first thing I put on any new Windows box is Cygwin. After decades of the same ol' DOS, it's obvious that MS just doesn't care about the command line. One reason I switched to Mac for Web dev is the tightly integrated unix command line. I love it, but I don't think Apple does. I don't think the integrated unix CLI is any emblem of enlightenment on Apple's part; it's a historical accident. A company that believes that even granting users a "files and folders" view is giving them too much power (iOS) is no stalwart defender of the command line interface. As we make the Windows -> Metro, Mac -> iOS shift, the time may come when any command line access to a commercial OS is part of a "developer tools" package available only to "registered" developers who have "signed zee papers." I've only used Linux servers for years. I wonder if I'll end up a few short years from now with some sort of hackers' Android laptop, built with Apple-quality hardware/software integration by somebody like Samsung for the niche of people who want real computers instead of media purchasing appliances.
- drblast 14y ago
  Seriously, MS has been going toward easy scripting for years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell And Powershell ISE is like bash with Intellisense. You can access .Net from Powershell and pretty much do anything you want. You can easily write new commands in C#. Everything you want is already there. You just have to step slightly out of the Unix mindset to find the Windows equivalent. And I'd have to say that the powershell idea of passing objects around instead of text is exceptionally useful.
  - gizmo686 14y ago
    Whats an object? Some type of file?
    - drblast 14y ago
      I can best explain via example. Let's say I want to iterate through a directory and do something to each file: ls C:\ | foreach{echo $_.Name} That will print out the file name. The $_ variable represents each file object that ls returns. Let's say I want the file creation times instead: ls C:\ | foreach{echo $_.CreationTime} Or just the day of the week the file was created: ls C:\ | foreach{echo $_.CreationTime.DayOfWeek} It's incredibly powerful. And the default is always a text representation of the object anyway, so it seems like text is getting piped, just like Unix. If you do this: ls C:\ | foreach{echo $_} You get a typical directory listing.
Locke1689 14y ago
I'm a fan of ConEmu[1]. I've only been using it for a month or so now but it's pretty good. [1] http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/
Osiris 14y ago
I've never supported a Kickstarter project before, but I pledged to this one. I use Mac at work but PC at home and I would LOVE to have a better unix-like command line on the PC.

54 points by tltjr 14y ago

Most features are incomplete Sounds all too familiar :-). I don't have a windowsbox available right now, but demo looks great.

runjake 14y ago

For what it's worth, it's very, very buggy on Windows 8 x64. I couldn't get tab completion working, and after the first dir command, everything went downhill. It began behaving like a text editor. When I typed or backspaced, it backspaced over the prompt and everything else. The kickstarter video was pretty promising, though. Might I suggest you compiled x64, too? x64 seems to be more commonly sold over x86 these days -- at least in the US.

tltjr 14y ago
Thanks for the input. I haven't tested on Windows 8, so I'm not too surprised. Maybe I'll make separate installers if there is a lot of interest.
cocoflunchy 14y ago
Same here, after a git pull it froze for ~20s and then started behaving like a text editor. (Win7 x86)

tinco 14y ago

The features sound nice, they could use a bit more slick design ;) Why not make it for the Metro UI? Might rock.. If you suggested you would dive into the WinAPI and use your C++ skills to write a new console _engine_ I would gladly pledge 50 bucks or more. I'm afraid many people will pledge thinking this will bring a usable console emulator to Windows, instead of just another Console2 like hack around the severely limited windows api. I think 5 years of .Net experience won't cut it for that ..

Tsts 14y ago

Windows is a dead OS walking. My humble advice is instead of learning Wish, get a Linux VM and start moving your skillset, aps, ets.

vitalique 14y ago
Check your facts, for example here: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp. See, your 'dead OS' is not walking - it is marching bravely here and there and all over the planet, led by army of Windows admins. Who, being just as smart as their other-OS-admin-brothers, are always looking for better tools to do their job.
- samspot 14y ago
  It's ironic that linux is dying slightly compared to last year (according to the link). Not that I think linux is going anywhere :)
mariusmg 14y ago
You just won the troll of the year award. Congratulations.

alpb 14y ago

Man, this sounds like the best thing ever happened to cmd.exe, I will give it a try and back it on Kickstarter. But I think such a project should be developed under an open source license and maybe licenses can still be sold like Textmate.

alpb 14y ago
A few suggestions: * Make shortcuts for tab splits in both vertical and horizontal * Tab titles are not so necessary, right? Just draw a line between vertically or horizontally split Windows, like iTerm2 does (it is really neat). * Word-wraps? * I was in c:\demo, I wrote a nonexisting command (let's say lls), now I'm in c:\program files\wish. * On a prompt, I can use Backspace to delete PS1-like string, and after deleting something and pressing return, it crashes * Add it to PATH so that people can run it via Run window (Windows+R). * "set" command runs without params in cmd.exe, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490890.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490890.aspx this doc might help. I have recently joined Microsoft and I was using Linux-OSX before that for work and I miss zsh+iterm2 quite a lot.
- tltjr 14y ago
  Thanks for all the ideas. The prototype is very buggy. I mostly wanted people to get a feel for the vision. I really like your feature suggestions and will definitely take them into consideration.
  - alpb 14y ago
    I'm still figuring out some ideas but dude, make this thing open source. This will be really better.

airfoil 14y ago

Nice work! I played with it for a bit and one thing I noticed was that the "Home" key took me to the beginning of the line/prompt instead of the start of my input. Also if I backspace far enough it will start to kill my prompt. One thing that would make this awesome for me is emacs keybindings. Overall though, I think this has nice potential to be a super useful tool. Thanks for sharing!

tltjr 14y ago
Thanks for the feedback. The UI is a bit of a hack for the prototype and will be a more proper control for release. Emacs and vim keybindings are on my feature list. I think Ctrl+P and Ctrl+N work for command history in the prototype, but don't quote me on that.
- airfoil 14y ago
  Good to hear. Yours is the first kickstarter project I've ever backed. Thanks again for making this available.

kuida0r3 14y ago

When I work on windows, I just use cygwin with the mintty shell to get productive with a familiar look&feel. What am I missing with this setup that Wish fills?

tltjr 14y ago
A lot of Windows users (like myself) are somewhat committed to tools like Powershell in addition to Cygwin. I currently keep both Git Bash and Powershell open so I can switch back and forth as needed. Wish allows me to switch between these seemlessly with a common set of features across both.
- kuida0r3 14y ago
  Ah that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

skrebbel 14y ago

I want this, bad, but I'm afraid of depending on little one-developer tools. How much do I pledge to make you consider open sourcing it?

joelverhagen 14y ago

One of my biggest pet peeves about the original "cmd.exe" or PowerShell is that resizing the window is not pixel-precise. Thank you for making this a part of wish! The snapping to the left and right of my screen works really well. Although it seems it is not working well on Windows 8 x64, I am having a good experience on Windows 7 x64. A couple of suggestions: - Wish takes a while to become responsive after starting the program (3-4 seconds for me). I am not sure if this is just me, I just wanted to make you aware! - Add a keystroke for clearing the terminal. I am addicted to Ctrl + L in bash. - Perhaps consider adding select to copy. Keep up the good work, and I'll keep an eye on this project :).

tltjr 14y ago
All great suggestions, thanks! I'll take a look at all these.

bashzor 14y ago

Not so much "reimagined" as "an improvement for windows' command prompt" it seems.

mariusmg 14y ago

There is already a full featured (including autocompletion), stable windows CLI called ConeEmu (available at http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/ ). Also, cli in wpf ?! Come on....

tltjr 14y ago
I mention ConEmu in the Kickstarter post. It is an excellent alternative. As for using WPF for a CLI, I think it adds some useful features. At the end of the day, a tool either makes your life easier and you more productive, or it doesn't. I think this tool can add a lot of value.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

manuscreationis 14y ago

This looks interesting, the tabbed effect is a major draw for me personally, but I feel like hes got a bit of a price tier issue with the rewards on the kickstarter... His target price for the released product is hopefully $10 ( a good deal ) The $20 pledge gets you 2 licenses Cost Per License: $10 Additional Perk: Nothing The $50 pledge gets you 1 license Cost Per License: $50 Additional Perk: Beta Access The $100 pledge gets you 5 licenses Cost Per License: $20 Additional Perk: Immediate Access And that's just a small analysis of those 3 price points. The higher points also seem a little off to me as well. It just seems odd to have the Cost Per License to vary so wildly, in my unsolicited opinion, anyways. I understand trying to play to the draw of people wanting quicker access to use the tool, but his pricing model creates tiers that are counter-intuitive to people who want to contribute, but do not want to receive what could be perceived as a poor value for the cash they have available to contribute.

tltjr 14y ago
Great feedback and something I have been concerned about myself. I'm considering adjusting the higher tiers so the cost per license is more consistent.
- manuscreationis 14y ago
  Wow, thanks for responding! I hope it didn't come across as negative, it was just something I noticed and wondered if other people saw the same thing, or if I was just being nitpicky. I hope your project reaches funding, this looks like a really cool idea
  - tltjr 14y ago
    Kickstarter doesn't let you change your rewards after others have already pledged, but I am going to find a way to ensure that all reward levels will be offered enough licenses to average $10/license.
greenyoda 14y ago
If you want a tabbed Windows console, take a look at "Console": http://sourceforge.net/projects/console http://sourceforge.net/projects/console I've been using it for a while, and it works pretty well. From the project page: "Console is a Windows console window enhancement. Console features include: multiple tabs, text editor-like text selection, different background types, alpha and color-key transparency, configurable font, different window styles."

RyanMcGreal 14y ago

Quick note (Windows XP x86): every time I try to switch from Powershell to CMD, I get multiple "Keyboard History Utility has encountered a problem and needs to close" error dialogs followed by Wish crashing.

tltjr 14y ago
Thanks. I'll make a note to fix that.
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago
  Thank you! Tool looks promising but I wasn't really able to test it out without it crashing.

mixmax 14y ago

This might be slightly off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks that command line tools are archaic with some pretty serious drawbacks? I see and acknowledge the power they can wield in the right hands, but for mere mortals it's a terrible experience. Especially on a windows box. I've started learning Symfony2, and the default is to get it up and running using the dependancy manager composer, a commandline based tool. I've spent a week trying to finish the simple task of installing the framework. No success. Now, I don't make a living programming, so I'm definitely at the shallow end of the programming pool. But still. A week. There are several problems as I see it: - No discoverability. You are given no clues whatsoever as to what commands are available to you. You have to know exactly what you want to do. Yes, you can read manpages, forum posts, etc. but finding, learning and memorising a whole set of commands used in some program you might never use again seems like a terrible waste of productive time. Without the manual you're flying blind. - All sorts of opaque dependencies. Composer for instance apparently requires git installed for it to work. But it doesn't say that anywhere. You also need to define paths, etc. which isn't covered anywhere. - A million minor flaws and bugs. Until now I've run up against at least a few bugs, either in composer or in some other part of the chain of software. Only opaque general warnings are given, and finding out exactly what is wrong is next to impossible. - Terrible UI. Copying and pasting doesn't follow convention, copying from a commandline to a notepad inserts linebreaks that you have to clean up manually, there's no way to maximise the cmd.exe window. The list of basic usability flaws goes on. This isn't meant as trolling or ranting, although I must say I'm genuinely alienated by the commandline. I understand that text is great way for programs to talk to each other, I understand that the commandline is a great way to talk to a remote server, and I understand the power that piping, etc. gives you, so it's not like I'm denouncing the power that's inherent in the tool. The problem is that the learning curve is tremendously steep, and I just don't feel it's worth it. To do the simplest thing I need to learn how a whole ecosystem works. I also have to page the information I need together from a number of different sources that I first have to find. It's kind of like having to build a car just to ride down to the baker to get some bread. It's quicker to walk than assemble a car before you can drive.

drivebyacct2 14y ago
Most of your complaints sound like problems with documentation (it existing and/or you using it) or problems with a poorly defined tool (edit), lol, or is specific to the Windows shell. I can think of several GUI apps that have ALL of those problems but I also can't script them, alias them or fix them. I spent 75% of my day in the terminal because I'm proficient and fast with it. Most of programming has a learning curve, I don't see why people expect otherwise when it comes to an interface that is every bit as powerful as a GUI but with a specific interface. No offense but with the number of misconceptions in that post, maybe you need to spend more time with it before dismissing it out of hand. (edit) seriously, you don't know about Notepad.exe and line breaks. :/ Man... if you would spend a bit of time on tooling and learning your environment you probably wouldn't be spending half the time you are doing whatever it is you're doing. Jumping into something is fun, but for sufficiently complex things, you DO have to step back and read the manual. Knowing what Symphony does, I'm quite sure that learning the CLI tool would be a far better use of everyone's effort than a GUI tool. This is even a place where I think the CLI tool makes exceedingly more sense to use. edit: To be fair, if I had to use Windows default tools and a PHP generator tool all day long, my words would probably be more angry than yours.

dredmorbius 14y ago

http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/ http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/ Alternately: http://zshwiki.org/home/ http://zshwiki.org/home/ /thread

nsxwolf 14y ago

Is this a Windows port of wish (WIndowing SHell), or an all-new, confusingly named project (WIndows SHell)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_(Unix_shell) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_(Unix_shell)

tltjr 14y ago
Quite a few people have brought this to my attention, and it is unfortunately, a confusingly named project. I was unaware of the other project and will probably consider renaming my project if it gets funded. Thanks for pointing this out though.
Zuider 14y ago
No, not a port - it just has the same name. Tcl/Tk works on Windows too. I can see a name clash.

beatgammit 14y ago

I'm actually glad for the inefficiency of the Windows command-line. Every time I boot up into Windows to test something, I'm reminded of how much I hate it. Since moving to Linux, development is just easier in every way: * viM instead of Visual Studio has made me a better programmer * think more, guess less * I can keep customizations when I remote in and patch production code * Bash is much more productive than .bat files * Piping is amazing (cat file | sed | awk | ...) * Tons of documentation online If Windows had a decent command-line (with decent documentation of course), I might convince myself to put up with less malleable tools just to play games without rebooting. Don't get me wrong, Windows is fine, but it's not Unix. A better command-line app can't change that.

gizmo686 14y ago
>If Windows had a decent command-line (with decent documentation of course), I might convince myself to put up with less malleable tools just to play games without rebooting. Isn't the point of a commandline that it makes basic tools far more malleable? For example, I recently was working with an OCR tool that took as an input 1 image file path, and an output name, and extracted plaintext from the image. If this were a gui tool, I would be stuck manually running it on hundreds of images at once. As a command-ling tool, I can do: `find . | grep *.jpg | xargs -n 1 -I{} | tesseract '{}' '{}'`

SiVal 14y ago

For most of Microsoft's lifetime, I've wondered why MS didn't just build a unix-style command line into Windows, providing a major upgrade to the ridiculous DOS. As a Windows dev, I always downloaded unix utilities for DOS and the first thing I put on any new Windows box is Cygwin. After decades of the same ol' DOS, it's obvious that MS just doesn't care about the command line. One reason I switched to Mac for Web dev is the tightly integrated unix command line. I love it, but I don't think Apple does. I don't think the integrated unix CLI is any emblem of enlightenment on Apple's part; it's a historical accident. A company that believes that even granting users a "files and folders" view is giving them too much power (iOS) is no stalwart defender of the command line interface. As we make the Windows -> Metro, Mac -> iOS shift, the time may come when any command line access to a commercial OS is part of a "developer tools" package available only to "registered" developers who have "signed zee papers." I've only used Linux servers for years. I wonder if I'll end up a few short years from now with some sort of hackers' Android laptop, built with Apple-quality hardware/software integration by somebody like Samsung for the niche of people who want real computers instead of media purchasing appliances.

drblast 14y ago
Seriously, MS has been going toward easy scripting for years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell And Powershell ISE is like bash with Intellisense. You can access .Net from Powershell and pretty much do anything you want. You can easily write new commands in C#. Everything you want is already there. You just have to step slightly out of the Unix mindset to find the Windows equivalent. And I'd have to say that the powershell idea of passing objects around instead of text is exceptionally useful.
- gizmo686 14y ago
  Whats an object? Some type of file?
  - drblast 14y ago
    I can best explain via example. Let's say I want to iterate through a directory and do something to each file: ls C:\ | foreach{echo $_.Name} That will print out the file name. The $_ variable represents each file object that ls returns. Let's say I want the file creation times instead: ls C:\ | foreach{echo $_.CreationTime} Or just the day of the week the file was created: ls C:\ | foreach{echo $_.CreationTime.DayOfWeek} It's incredibly powerful. And the default is always a text representation of the object anyway, so it seems like text is getting piped, just like Unix. If you do this: ls C:\ | foreach{echo $_} You get a typical directory listing.

Locke1689 14y ago

I'm a fan of ConEmu[1]. I've only been using it for a month or so now but it's pretty good. [1] http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/

Osiris 14y ago

I've never supported a Kickstarter project before, but I pledged to this one. I use Mac at work but PC at home and I would LOVE to have a better unix-like command line on the PC.