microsoft / microsoft/terminal

Peek behind Alternate Screen Buffer, like Flip Screen (Alt+F12) in mintty of Git Bash

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Area-TerminalControl Issue-Feature Product-Terminal
Dominant language
C++
Stars
105k
Forks
9.6k
Avg merge
3d 17h
Merged PRs (30d)
29

Description

Description of the new feature/enhancement

After a program has activated the alternate screen buffer, I want to view the primary screen buffer and its scrollback and copy some text from them to the clipboard.

For example, I run some other commands and then git commit, which starts the nano editor to edit the commit message. The editor activates the alternate screen buffer of the terminal. I then want to look at the output of the previous commands and copy parts of it to the commit message, but the last page of output is hidden behind the editor's screen.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

Add a command similar to Flip Screen (Alt+F12) in mintty of Git Bash, and let me bind that to a key combination. The command makes the primary screen buffer temporarily visible but keeps the alternate screen buffer active. It does not report this change to applications. I can then scroll back and forth, select text, and copy it to the clipboard. If I run the same command again or type something, then the alternate screen buffer becomes visible again. (If a program outputs something to the alternate screen buffer, I think the primary screen buffer should remain visible, but that is not very important.)

Implementing https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/3492 first might make this easier.

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First steps

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  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

No source files or tests are named. Review microsoft/terminal#3492 and the mintty Flip Screen (Alt+F12) behavior first; done means a bindable command can temporarily reveal the primary buffer and its scrollback while the alternate buffer remains active, with selection and clipboard copying supported.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
cli, operating-systems
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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