Terminal: Feature Request: More integration with Windows features.

[stereokai]

More integration with Windows features

Add commands to interact with standard Windows features. Metro Notifications, systray messages, Message boxes, and maybe even window actions. (close/minimize other windows)

Moved here from uservoice to @bitcrazed's request

[zadjii-msft]

This sounds kinda like a commandline ask, but not necessarily a Terminal ask.

I don't think it's a bad idea, but it's also not necessarily home on this repo. However, I'm not sure there is a better home for this. This set of asks kinda fits with colortool if you ask me - things that improve the commandline experience on Windows that we track as a part of this repo.

[driver1998]

This might be a good idea for powertoys, like new commandline tool / powershell module to show toast messages, manipulate windows or what not.

[stereokai]

This might be a good idea for powertoys, like new commandline tool / powershell module to show toast messages, manipulate windows or what not.

That kind of misses the point. The strength of this feature set is to allow CLI tool/library developers to provide a richer experience to their users by integrating with engaging OS features.

[driver1998]

That kind of misses the point. The strength of this feature set is to allow CLI tool/library developers to provide a richer experience to their users by integrating with engaging OS features.

Then I guess you can always call Windows APIs in said CLI tool/library, rundll32.exe can also be useful sometimes.
Although I know sometimes Windows APIs require you to have a Window, or worse, a UWP CoreWindow in order to work, that will be tricky in a CLI tool. It would be cool to remove these limitations for those APIs.
Or maybe a special VT sequence to define a toast/message box? Such thing can also be cross-platform.

[zadjii-msft]

So as much as a VT sequence _could_ work in this scenario, I think a separate standalone commandline application for sending a notification might be a better solution for at least the sending a notification bit here. That way, we wouldn't need to rely on the Windows Terminal handling that VT sequence - users using _any_ terminal on Windows could still send notifications from the commandline by calling that standalone exe. That's my 2c on the matter at least.

[widersky]

Would be nice if commands that are done in background (when other app is active and terminal works, e.g. on npm install) have notification like "npm command finished!".