Windows Terminal Preview 1.16 uses new text rendering engine by default

Microsoft has released Windows Terminal Preview 1.16. The preview of the next version of the terminal will speed up text rendering and bring color matching themes and changed default colors. Windows Terminal can handle various command-line tools and shells, such as Command Prompt, PowerShell, and WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

First introduced as an experimental part with Windows Terminal Preview 1.13, the new text rendering engine is now becoming the standard. It is supposed to ensure faster text rendering and in the new release can handle additional pixel shaders, including the retro effect, as well as bold text and underlined (underlined), overlined (overlined) and hyperlink lines.

Customizable color appearance

The preview version introduces the global property themes to provide more options for customizing the color theme. themes can be a variety of themes-Objects included. Themes can only be edited in the .json file and then appear in the settings under Depiction in the drop down menu design. The announcement post shows an example of such a file:

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

The development team has also revised the standard colors of the Windows terminal for a more uniform display and set the dark theme as the new standard. Previously, the default followed the system settings.

Targeted choice of words

Other innovations include a revised color schemespage in the settings as well as the new action expandSelectionToWord. This extends the beginning and end of a text selection to encompass the selected word.

Simultaneously with the release of the preview version on Windows Terminal 1.16, version 1.15 is now considered stable after around two months. It contains the functions known from the preview. Windows Terminal and Windows Terminal Preview are available in the Microsoft Store, as well as on GitHub or via Windows Package Manager (WinGet).