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Solve : Console2: spectacular shell wrapper?

Answer» http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/files/

I really cannot praise this thing enough. Tabbed command prompts are simply awesome. Also, it's not limited to just using the built-in cmd.exe; I have it set up on my computer to have two tabs: one for command prompt, and one for power shell each with a custom background image; I'm going to add another one that starts the visual studio 2008 command prompt (cmd /k vcvars32.bat).



I am usually sceptical about Windows console replacements because I have tried a few and most of them seem to have at LEAST one ANNOYANCE compared to the default Windows one. Console2 seems better than most; the jerky refresh I can live with; I like the easy colour palette control, but what is really annoying me is the (apparent) default overtype mode. I can hit INSERT to toggle the mode, but I type a command & hit Enter and when the prompt is presented again, it's back to overtype! This makes using command history a pain in the *censored*. At least the Windows console remembers the mode from command to command.

Any ideas? Am I missing something?
QUOTE from: Salmon Trout on July 02, 2011, 02:32:24 AM
Am I missing something?

I was; since Console is just a screen scraper for cmd.exe, you can set insert mode by default in the underlying cmd window. So... what's so great about Console2? The tabs?
Quote from: Salmon Trout on July 02, 2011, 05:59:41 AM
So... what's so great about Console2? The tabs?
For me, The tabs are helpful, since I would often have 20 to 30 different command prompts open. Arguably, I ought to just close them when I'm finished, but once it get's to that many I no longer know which ones are still relevant for a task I am performing or plan to perform. Also, it allows the use of not just cmd, but also powershell, or cygwin's bash prompt.

That said though, I did notice something; even though it's pinned to my taskbar, I don't actually use it very often, mostly because the muscle memory to Windows Key+R cmd generally takes less thought and is usually faster. And, because Console2 isn't something that is available by default I'm a little wary to actually use it as an all-out replacement.

I also noticed that slightly off updating frequency after the Original Post. It's pretty much become just a novelty program that I don't actually use for serious purposes at this point.Quote from: BC_Programmer on July 02, 2011, 08:55:21 AM
I did notice something; even though it's pinned to my taskbar, I don't actually use it very often [...] It's pretty much become just a novelty program that I don't actually use for serious purposes at this point.

This has happened with every single "console replacement" I have ever tried. I suspect the latest, written in Python, PyCmd, is going to be the same. It has some interesting features - Ctrl-C Ctrl-X Ctrl-V copy/cut/paste, persistent command history, emacs support etc etc, but on the other hand (like so many) it's kind of unfinished.* Also it claims to helpfully abbreviate LONG paths to keep the (non-configurable) prompt short, but this kicks in with quite a short path string and can't be turned off.

* Author says...

Quote
4. Future plans
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- add some sort of a configuration mechanism (config file)
- custom TAB-completion for the arguments of common commands
- clean-up the mechanism that dispatches commands to cmd.exe (currently kind
of hacky)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pycmd/



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