Windows Terminal Preview 1.16 now supports colored themes, as well as a new text rendering engine

Microsoft has released Windows Terminal Preview 1.16, and the new version has many changes such as a new text rendering engine and default colors. However, the really interesting improvements focus on the ability to customize things. For example, Microsoft has added a whole new Themes feature and a redesigned Color Schemes page.

Microsoft added full theming support to its Windows Terminal this week. Customization support allows Windows Terminal users to change the appearance of the Terminal interface tabs, window, and even background images. Microsoft has also changed Windows Terminal to always use a dark theme, rather than following the Windows system theme.

However, creating themes for Windows Terminal is not a simple process unless you are a developer. Themes are only editable using a JSON file, and they will appear in the drop-down list of themes in the settings section of Windows Terminal. Microsoft has provided JSON samples to help people get started, and you’re free to be as creative as you want with any combination of colors and background images.

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"themes": 
[
    
        "name": "Grace Kelly",
        "tab": 
        
            "background": "#00515EFF",
            "showCloseButton": "always",
            "unfocusedBackground": null
        ,
        "tabRow": 
        
            "background": "#061612FF",
            "unfocusedBackground": "#061612FF"
        ,
        "window": 
        
            "applicationTheme": "dark"
        
    
]

Microsoft is also changing the default colors in Windows Terminal "for a more consistent look," according to Microsoft program manager Kayla Cinnamon. Windows Terminal also has a new text rendering engine underneath, which supports bold text and underlines, overlines, or hyperlinks.

Sent by Microsoft

Tab

You can change the settings applied to the tab with the tab object inside a themes object. The object tab supports properties background, unfocusedBackground et showCloseButton. background will set the background color of the tab when the tab is active and will always show full opacity colors. unfocusedBackground sets the color when the tab is inactive and showCloseButton toggles the appearance of the close button on the tab.

Range of tabs

You can change the settings applied to the row of tabs with the object tabRow inside an object themes. The object tabRow supports properties background et unfocusedBackground. background will set the background color of the row of tabs when the window is focused. unfocusedBackground will set the color of the tab row background when not in focus.

window

You can change the settings applied to the window with the object window inside an object themes. The object window supports applicationTheme. applicationTheme will apply the colors of the selected application theme to the terminal window, unless other colors are specified.

New text rendering engine

In version 1.13, we released the new experimental text rendering engine under an experimental feature that you can enable for a profile (experimental.useAtlasEngine). In this release, we are making this new renderer the default text renderer for all profiles. The new rendering engine is more powerful and now supports additional pixel shaders (including retro effect), bold text and underlines/overlines/hyperlinks. If your machine doesn't have a GPU, or if you remotely access a virtual machine that doesn't have a GPU, it will revert to a higher performance mode that doesn't require hardware support.

Set where new tabs appear

You can now define where new tabs open with the new newTabPosition global parameter. This setting also appears on the Appearance page in the Settings UI. You can set new tabs to open either at the end of all your tabs or following the currently selected tab.

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"newTabPosition": "atTheEnd",
"newTabPosition": "followingCurrentTab"

Rethink Color Schemes Page

We found that our color schemes page wasn't the most intuitive and might use a design refresh. We've updated the Settings UI Color Models page to improve its style and user flow. We've also added a "Make Default" button, which will apply a color scheme as the default color scheme on all profiles. Profiles that specify a color scheme will use their specified scheme instead of the default.

Microsoft originally released Windows Terminal for Windows 10 in 2019, following a surprise announcement that delighted developers at Microsoft's annual Build conference. It's now set as the default command-line experience in Windows 11 this year, replacing the existing Windows Console Host.

Source : Microsoft

And you?

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