Windows Terminal Preview 1.17 navigates to Profiles via drop down menu

With Preview 1.17, the first release of the Windows Terminal of the Year has appeared. Changes include the ability to create profiles in the drop-down menu, dynamic backgrounds thanks to mica material, and accessibility updates. A significant problem that could previously lead to crashes when using screen reading is now said to have been fixed. In addition, the internal management window for screen readers no longer appears as a blank page.

Profile change via dropdown menu

Anyone who has missed the option to switch between profiles in the drop-down menu will find what they are looking for in the new preview version. In Preview 1.17, not only can profiles be added to the drop-down menu, they can also be separated by separators and grouped in folders. The desired adjustments can be made in the settings.json file. The first time you save a change, the menu appears in the new format from now on.

A Microsoft blog entry shows an examplehow to insert four profiles – Windows PowerShell, Command Prompt, Developer Command Prompt for Visual Studio 2022 and Developer PowerShell for Visual Studio 2022 – along with the desired separator and folder.

The following changes were made in the JSON file:

    "profiles": 
    {
        "list": 
        [
            {
                "guid": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Command Prompt"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{61c54bbd-c2c6-5271-96e7-009a87ff44bf}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Windows PowerShell"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{b16adc35-bf43-5693-b902-a45c96cb4735}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Developer Command Prompt for VS 2022",
                "source": "Windows.Terminal.VisualStudio"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{3f518484-8030-5878-852d-8c9f0c8dd93e}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Developer PowerShell for VS 2022",
                "source": "Windows.Terminal.VisualStudio"
            }
        ]
    },

    "newTabMenu": [
        { "type":"profile", "profile": "Command Prompt" },
        { "type":"profile", "profile": "Windows PowerShell" },
    { "type":"separator"},
        {
            "type":"folder",
            "name": "My VS Profiles",
            "icon": "",
            "entries":[
                { "type":"profile", "profile": "Developer Command Prompt for VS 2022" },
                { "type":"profile", "profile": "Developer PowerShell for VS 2022" }
            ]
        },
    ]

This results in the corresponding drop-down menu:

Custom background design

In Windows Terminal Preview 1.17 can be mica material use as background. Mica creates an opaque and dynamic background for applications and settings, based on the theme and desktop background used. Designed for performance, Mica only records the desktop background once in order to derive visualizations from it. Mica support can also be configured in the settings.json file.

For comparison, Microsoft shows a view of Windows Terminal without Mica:

And with the changes made by Mica picking up the background colors:

Windows Terminal Preview 1.17 can be from the Microsoft Store, from GitHub or obtain winget with the Windows Package Manager. Meanwhile applies Version 1.16 now stable. Among other things, it ensures accelerated text rendering.

All new features in Windows Terminal Preview 1.17 describes an entry on Microsoft’s developer blog.

(May)