Feature request: hot key drop down ala quake/guake/tilda

[NOFUNEVER]

The petty thing I miss most when I pop into Windows is having a separate hot key terminal for each of my three monitors. The closest i've ever been to believing in god was when I realized that was obtainable and if you could make that happen in Windows I just might have to kiss you.

[oising]

So you mean if you have three monitors (for example), you could hit a different hotkey to cause the terminal to slide down quake console style from whichever monitor you choose?

[NOFUNEVER]

So you mean if you have three monitors (for example), you could hit a different hotkey to cause the terminal to slide down quake console style from whichever monitor you choose?

Exactly, exactly. I know it seems a bit outlandish/unnecessary/gimmicky for what's meant to be a heavily used mainstream terminal but I promise you the productivity is what really makes hot key drop downs shine.

Ideally each monitor is has it's own terminal that can be kept open simultaneously with the others.
In nix using 3 instances of Tilda I have it set up so that f1 drops,closes,or select if open but not active the left monitor. F2 does my center screen and f3 does my right. I can use these hot key's to jump between these three terminals if they are open already as well. The end result makes moving between terminals and other background applications a workflow dream. It's also looks pretty dang cool if I do say so myself.

Guake another alternative I like is limited to only one window/instance at a time and it simply drops down on whatever monitor the mouse currently resides in at the time the hot key is pressed. This is also a very neat feature however not what I'm looking for. I wouldn't object to a choice in behavior but lines of code dont grow on trees so made to choose i'd prefer the tilda design.

We really are spoiled terminal wise on the nix side of things and that's what makes Microsoft endeavor to build a new more advanced feature rich terminal so exciting. It really feels like Microsoft is fighting for the time devs and future devs(student here) spend in their operating system and if you pair'd WSL2 with a drop down terminal I know for a fact i'd spend a lot less time booting back and forth between Mint and 10.

[kimbirkelund]

Quake mode would be a requirement for me to switch from ConEmu. However I'd much prefer for it to always open the same instance regardless of which monitor/virtual desktop is currently in focus.

Personally I use win+tilde to open ConEmu, but obviously the shortcut should be configurable.

[cyberhck]

Yes, one instance dropping down, it should drop down on the monitor where our mouse cursor is, and should focus, but it shouldn't show up when you're doing Alt + Tab, so it's feels like it's kinda baked into OS. Like guake.

[Jaykul]

@cyberhck are you sure it should be where the mouse is, and not where the currently focused window is?

[NOFUNEVER]

@Jaykul
Guake's default behavior is such that the hot key activates the terminal in what ever monitor the mouse currently resides as Cyberhck described. It also has the option to assign it a specific monitor if so desired. It's limited only in that only one instance can run at at time, something windows Terminal has no issue with. If Windows Terminal could be set up the way guake is with the choice between static or follow behavior all it would need is independent settings per instance to match the functionality of both guake(follow or static) and tilda(multiple instances).

[cyberhck]

Yes, we could have 3 way configuration, one on one specific monitor, one on whatever window is focused, and one where mouse is present, (also it's quite important to have an option to hide from list of application (alt + tab) if this mode is enabled, because I'd imagine users won't want to see that while switching between IDE and browser)

:)

@jakul, the reason I say where the mouse is present is because when you are browsing through something, mouse is always likely to be in front of your eyes, and if you're using short keys, it's really easy to switch your eyes rather than having to move your mouse all the way.

[sdistefano]

+1

[zadjii-msft]

Please don't reply to threads with a "+1" without providing useful additional feedback. Github has a perfectly good +1 that doesn't ping everyone on the thread's inbox right here:

[nofunatall]

So you mean if you have three monitors (for example), you could hit a different hotkey to cause the terminal to slide down quake console style from whichever monitor you choose?

The default behaviour on multi monitor for Guake is wherever the mouse is is where the terminal drops down.

You can however set it to drop down to whatever monitor you want via the settings if you don't want this behaviour.

[zakius]

Things I need with this are ability to disable animation and hiding the window completely (from taskbar, alt+tab, win+tab etc.)

Additional option to never show taskbar button would be desired by me too but might be out of scope for this issue

[zikhan]

I love the proposal, and it is the only thing that would keep from using it daily (once released). I love using the ctrl+` in ConEmu and don't even use VSCode integrated terminal because of it. However, I'm not sure if I care much about the key binding per monitor idea though.

Also, Would this proposal include starting an instance of the terminal if none were running, similar to other linux terms like xfce terminal dropdown with application shortcut? I wouldn't mind if it were Win+` as a system shortcut, similar to Win+<num> for taskbar shortcuts.

[zakius]

That would be doable with shortcut existing somewhere with global hotkey bound to it and that shortcut using CLI to call toggle if some instance is already running. Making it systemwide hotkey seems like a bad idea imo

[stanfieldr]

I would consider developing on windows more (currently 95% done on Linux) if I had a terminal that could drop down like guake.

[mournguard]

I mainly use cmder/conemu on windows as well and this is also the main reason I'm not switching yet, especially since I'm using two monitors and (usually) 3 desktops, without a global way to just call down the terminal I essentially have 6 places where the actual window could be, sounds silly, but it's annoying.

Also, many of you mention using a keyboard shortcut for this but you all should consider mapping it on a dedicated mouse button as well, and if possible, gesture. Thank me later.

[NOFUNEVER]

Glad to see other people are excited by the idea of a configurable drop down terminal. It's clear people have very distinct preferences on how these drop downs behave by default but believe most everyone's preference becomes possible so long as

1. Each instance can be configured for either mouse follow or binding to one monitor.
2. Each instance can have its own hot key.

Then it doesn't matter what you like its within the realm of configurable possibilities.

I personally use a combo of quake and tilda so that I have one terminal bound to each screen and one that follows the mouse.