Terminal: QOL: Paint terminal win32 host background so it looks like the launch profile?

[letmaik]

Environment

Windows build number: 10.0.18363.778
Windows Terminal version (if applicable): 0.11.1121.0

Steps to reproduce

Start Terminal and observe the short gray-to-default-profile-background-color flicker before the shell is loaded. Close Terminal and observe the same in reverse.

Expected behavior

There should be no flickering. When starting, the background of the "empty" shell area should be the same color as the default profile. When closing, the shell area should use the background color of the currently active profile/shell.

Actual behavior

The "empty" shell area is always gray, which means it transitions very quickly from gray to (typically) black when the default profile shell is displayed. Similarly when closing Terminal.

[WSLUser]

Probably related to this: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/pull/5277

[letmaik]

Really? Why do you think so?

[zadjii-msft]

Yea that merged literally 3 days ago, it hasn't actually been shipped to anyone yet

[zadjii-msft]

@letmaik do you mean a gray window like this?

[letmaik]

This is what the moment looks like when it starts/exits:

[WSLUser]

Oh, I thought it was part of the .11 release. So much for it being obvious.

[dreadnaut]

This happens for me as well, in the most recent release but also in previous ones. The terminal window appears initially with a white background:

then the correct theme background is applied. Both with standard decorations, or with tabs in the titlebar. The same when closing the window.

Switching the system's "default app mode" to dark _does not_ change the flash colour: it's still white. I don't use acrylic in Terminal, and transparencies are disabled at system level.

[DHowett]

Thanks for writing this all up!

I think it would be a nice quality of life improvement if we were to paint the window in a color closer to the one it'll eventually be filled with.

@dreadnaut your issue seems different, somehow... that titlebar doesn't look familiar to me (the standard Windows one is narrower, and the custom one we draw has different caption buttons ...)

[DHowett]

(name changed to encompass what I think would be best)

[dreadnaut]

@dreadnaut your issue seems different, somehow... that titlebar doesn't look familiar to me (the standard Windows one is narrower, and the custom one we draw has different caption buttons ...)

I use Terminal with acrylic disabled, and

    "alwaysShowTabs" : false,
    "showTabsInTitlebar" : false,

which means I only see the standard Windows titlebar until I open a second tab. If I switch to tabs-in-titlebar, the flash has the same colour. I'd say it's the same issue 🙂