microsoft / microsoft/terminal

Feature request: wt.exe should display shortcut icon in taskbar

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Area-Settings Issue-Feature Priority-3 Product-Terminal
Dominant language
C++
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Description of the new feature/enhancement

With a shortcut I can assign a wt.exe configuration per shortcut. But when the shortcut is run the wt.exe icon is shown not the shortcut icon.

This makes it hard to choose configurations short of opening each wt.exe window.

cmd.exe is an example of doing this well, it displays the icon of the shortcut when it is run. And each shortcut gets their own icon set in the taskbar for all windows started with that shortcut.

This would make it easy to set up specialized configs of wt.exe and be able to navigate between them easily.

This is similar to:

  • #1871, but is not required to be dynamic.
  • #1868, but is not about changing any escape sequences

cmd.exe example

cmd.exe essentially has this feature. This should be able to be replicated by the Windows Terminal?

Create a shortcut1, target: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
Add it's own icon. (Icon1)

Create a shortcut2 target: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
Add it's own icon. (Icon2)

  1. Start shortcut1, Icon1 displays in the taskbar.
  2. Start shortcut2, Icon2 displays in the taskbar even though it is just a 2nd instance of cmd.exe.

Here is a screenshot:

CMD exe Icons

What you are looking at:
2 separate cmd.exe sessions on the left & 2 different bash.exe sessions on the right. Each with their own taskbar icon. Very easy to choose the right session from the taskbar.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the Windows Terminal taskbar behavior described in this issue and compare it with the provided cmd.exe shortcut example. Verify how separate shortcuts targeting wt.exe should display distinct icons and group windows, with the shortcut icon remaining visible for navigation; related issues #1871 and #1868 provide context.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
desktop
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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