Better windows command line shells [closed]

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5724

  •  08-06-2019
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Question

Is there a better windows command line shell other than cmd which has better copy paste between Windows' windows and console windows?

Was it helpful?

Solution

Take Command does support Copy/Cut/Paste from the keyboard and the mouse. It's pretty handy if you do a lot of work from a command prompt. It also supports:

  • Command and folder history, with popup windows to select prior commands or folders.
  • Screen scroll back buffer
  • Enhanced batch commands
  • Built in FTP/HTTP file access
  • A toolbar with programmable buttons

Note: It's a paid tool, with price of $99.95.

OTHER TIPS

Enable QuickEdit mode, under the Options tab of your shortcut to the command shell. Mark with the mouse, right-click to copy, right-click again to paste.

While you're there, enable a hotkey (like CTRL + ALT + C) for lightning fast access to the shell.

And no, you can't have CTRL + C for COPY, because CTRL + C means BREAK.

On a related note, the Microsoftee who changed the default setting of QuickEdit mode between Windows Server 2000 and 2003 is an idiot and I heap curses upon him each workday.

Windows PowerShell is the obvious choice when it comes to "better windows command line shell other than cmd". Its clipboard handling isn't that much of an improvement - mark with the mouse, Enter to copy, or right mouse click to paste.

This probably is not exactly what you want, but you can take a look at Console2

I have it configured so that shift+select auto copies and middle click pastes, really handy, internally it uses same old cmd.exe so you are not really getting a different shell.

By the way, I guess Ctrl+C = copy is not the best idea in a command line context because it usually means interrupt running process.

Depending on what you're trying to do with the shell, rxvt in cygwin is good.

You'll get the nicety of auto copy on selection and middle click paste. The biggest downside is that some windows console apps don't play nice with cygwin.

PowerCmd is cheaper than TakeCommand and has a lot of powerful features - not the least of which is better handling of Cut/Copy/Paste. I've only been using it a short time but I'm really impressed so far:

Summary from the site:

PowerCmd enhances your command prompt with an easy-to-use Windows GUI-style interface and allows you to run multiple consoles within a single tabbed window. You can easily organize multiple consoles in vertical, horizontal, and grid forms. Auto-log, auto-completion, keywords highlight, configurable font and colors, customizable toolbar for frequently used commands or tools and minimizing to tray are easy solutions to daily needs. With PowerCmd, you can save and restore your sessions from last time.

Site: http://www.powercmd.com/

Features: http://www.powercmd.com/features.php

Not sure what specifically you mean by better copy/paste but try Take Command.

Take Command supports Shift+Ins for paste and Shift+Del for cut, but apparently nothing for copy, will dig some more.

There are two portion to cmd.exe. First there is the window that pops up for dealing with the text console. I would replace that with ConEmu. That program is actually meant as a wrapper for the Far File manager but works just fine without it. It is very similar to Console2 but also is much more stable and has better features.

Second there is the command line interpreter. I would replace that with Powershell if you actually need any of its features.

I currently run using ConEmu with a batch file to setup my preferred environment. This is kept in my Dropbox folder so it remains synchronized between my computers.

Have you thought through what behavior you want to replace the current Ctrl+C functionality?

@Chirs
I think you need to clarify shell vs host(emulator). To me it sounds like you need another interface to your existing shell that better supports copy and paste, not another shell that supports more/different features.

I second Pat's suggestion of Console2, it is a very good application and OSS to boot.

The Windows cmd shell, Cygwin Bash, and msysgit Bash shells can be run within Emacs. EmacsW32 provides all three separately. You just have to set the bin directory to use either of the Bash shells. EmacsW32 also provides limited interactions between the Windows clipboard and the top item of the kill ring.

MinTTY on MinGW/MSYS is nice—nicer than on Cygwin because MinGW/MSYS is faster. Also, if you need cmd.exe behaviour, you can run cmd.exe inside of mintty easily.

See http://code.google.com/p/mintty/.

I use the standard CMD.EXE shell but with a twist: an AutoHotKey script to support clipboard copy-paste as posted in: Keyboard shortcut to paste clipboard content into command prompt window (Win XP)

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