Allow dropdown menu customization in profiles.json

[JBanks]

We'll probably need a settings redesign that allows you to specify the contents of the menu instead of adding a new profile type.

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original content

Summary of the new feature/enhancement

Allow MenuFlyoutSeparator to be programmed in profiles.json

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

My thoughts are to have a flag that allows a "profile" in the profiles.json to be interpreted as a MenuFlyoutSeparator in App::_CreateNewTabFlyout()

[DHowett-MSFT]

We'll probably need a settings redesign that allows you to specify the contents of the menu instead of adding a new profile type.

I'm just gonna mark this as out of scope for 1.0. 😄

[zadjii-msft]

(directly including the request from #2330 here cause it's a great idea)

Right now I have 5 profiles I use. I just played a bit with adding a ssh-profile and it works fine. But when I want to add all the profiles I have in Putty in WT I need to add another 20+ ssh-profiles. This means the list is going to be really long.

So being able to make submenus and put my profiles in a multiple submenus would be much welcomed.

Initially the menu looks like this:

PowerShell
CMD
WSL
SSH-Group1 > 
SSH-Group2 > 

When a submenu is selected, something like this

PowerShell
CMD
WSL
SSH-Group1 >
SSH-Group2 > +--------+
             | Host 1 |
             | Host 2 |
             | Host 3 |
             +--------+

[thorsig]

I was just about to create a new ticket when I stumbled upon this one. I wish to add "mee too" on this - it's very important to a subgroup of the Terminal power-users - namely the administrators. Currently we are using MobaXTerm which does a wonderful job at storing 100s of distinct host entries (profiles) each with their own access and communication parameters. On MacOS we have a toolbar menu and on Linux simply a very large aliases file. In Terminal, I'd love to see this change:

Instead of doing like this:

"profiles":
    [
        {
            "guid": "{aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeee0}",
            "hidden": false,
            "name": "Company 1, Server X",
            "commandline": "ssh [email protected]",
        },
        {
            "guid": "{aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeee1}",
            "hidden": false,
            "name": "Company 1, Server Y",
            "commandline": "ssh [email protected]",
        },
        {
            "guid": "{aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeee2}",
            "hidden": false,
            "name": "Company 2, Server X",
            "commandline": "ssh [email protected]",
        },
        {
            "guid": "{aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeee3}",
            "hidden": false,
            "name": "Company 2, Server Y",
            "commandline": "ssh [email protected]",
        },
        {
            "guid": "{aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeee4}",
            "hidden": false,
            "name": "PowerShell 7 Preview",
            "source": "Windows.Terminal.PowershellCore"
        }
    ],

I would rather like to do (something like) this:

    "profiles":
    [
        {
            "folder": "Company 1",
            "items": [
                {
                    "guid": "{aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeee0}",
                    "hidden": false,
                    "name": "Server X",
                    "commandline": "ssh [email protected]",
                },
                {
                    "guid": "{aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeee1}",
                    "hidden": false,
                    "name": "Server Y",
                    "commandline": "ssh [email protected]",
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "folder": "Company 2",
            "items": [
                {
                    "guid": "{aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeee2}",
                    "hidden": false,
                    "name": "Server X",
                    "commandline": "ssh [email protected]",
                },
                {
                    "guid": "{aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeee3}",
                    "hidden": false,
                    "name": "Server Y",
                    "commandline": "ssh [email protected]",
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "guid": "{aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeee4}",
            "hidden": false,
            "name": "PowerShell 7 Preview",
            "source": "Windows.Terminal.PowershellCore"
        }
    ],

Which would help very much in organizing and accessing a configuration with tens or hundreds of defined servers and several companies/categories of servers.

[tiksn]

I would propose something like this

{
    "profiles": {
        "defaults": {},
        "list": [
            {
                "guid": "{61c54bbd-c2c6-5271-96e7-009a87ff44bf}",
                "name": "Windows PowerShell",
                "commandline": "powershell.exe",
                "hidden": false
            },
            {
                "guid": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101}",
                "name": "Command Prompt",
                "commandline": "cmd.exe",
                "hidden": false
            },
            {
                "guid": "{574e775e-4f2a-5b96-ac1e-a2962a402336}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "PowerShell",
                "source": "Windows.Terminal.PowershellCore"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{58ad8b0c-3ef8-5f4d-bc6f-13e4c00f2530}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Debian",
                "source": "Windows.Terminal.Wsl"
            },
            {
                "name": "Company Project 1",
                "hidden": false,
                "defaults": {
                    // Put settings here that you want to apply to all profiles in 'Company Project 1'.
                    // Proposal - inherit from parent "defaults"
                },
                "list": [
                    {
                        "guid": "{a3a2e83a-884a-5379-baa8-16f193a13b21}",
                        "hidden": false,
                        "name": "PowerShell 7 Preview",
                        "source": "Windows.Terminal.PowershellCore"
                    },
                    {
                        "commandline": "nu.exe",
                        "guid": "{2b372ca1-1ee2-403d-a839-6d63077ad871}",
                        "hidden": false,
                        "name": "Nu Shell",
                    },
                    {
                        "commandline": "elvish.exe",
                        "guid": "{6ddf0352-a8c2-46c3-9734-0034762b954c}",
                        "hidden": false,
                        "name": "Elvish"
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
}

By doing so each group/folder will pretty much be like "profiles" section containing defaults (which will be inherited hierarchically) and "list" of profiles.

We can have groups inside of groups.

[tiksn]

Forked repo, implementing it in my fork

[zadjii-msft]

@FWest98 I got chu. This was a copypasta error I make all the time:

diff --git a/src/cascadia/TerminalSettingsModel/Microsoft.Terminal.Settings.ModelLib.vcxproj b/src/cascadia/TerminalSettingsModel/Microsoft.Terminal.Settings.ModelLib.vcxproj
index 80e0cb0ec..83f331876 100644
--- a/src/cascadia/TerminalSettingsModel/Microsoft.Terminal.Settings.ModelLib.vcxproj
+++ b/src/cascadia/TerminalSettingsModel/Microsoft.Terminal.Settings.ModelLib.vcxproj
@@ -166,12 +166,12 @@
     <ClCompile Include="EnumMappings.cpp">
       <DependentUpon>EnumMappings.idl</DependentUpon>
     </ClCompile>
-    <ClInclude Include="NewTabMenuEntry.cpp">
+    <ClCompile Include="NewTabMenuEntry.cpp">
       <DependentUpon>NewTabMenuEntry.idl</DependentUpon>
-    </ClInclude>
-    <ClInclude Include="SeparatorEntry.cpp">
+    </ClCompile>
+    <ClCompile Include="SeparatorEntry.cpp">
       <DependentUpon>SeparatorEntry.idl</DependentUpon>
-    </ClInclude>
+    </ClCompile>
     <ClCompile Include="VsDevCmdGenerator.cpp" />
     <ClCompile Include="VsDevShellGenerator.cpp" />
     <ClCompile Include="VsSetupConfiguration.cpp" />

You had the c++'s marked as "Include" files, not "Compile" ones. I do that all the time when I'm hand-editing the vcxproj's (which I do exclusively).

That should get you unblocked 😉

[ghost]

🎉This issue was addressed in #13763, which has now been successfully released as Windows Terminal Preview v1.17.1023.:tada:

Handy links:

• Release Notes
• Store Download

[Jan1torEarl]

This is so incredibly awesome. Thanks for all the hard work!

[nclemons78]

Is there a good document on how to create these new folders and move profiles into them? I was looking at the spec, but it was somewhat confusing to me, especially given that it referenced multiple approaches that weren't pursued. Can anyone point me at how to set up what was actually implemented?

[zadjii-msft]

In lieu of me writing something longer, try starting here:

    "newTabMenu": [
        { "type": "remainingProfiles" },
        {
            "type": "folder",
            "name": "WSLs",
            "entries": [
                {
                    "source": "Windows.Terminal.Wsl",
                    "type": "matchProfiles"
                },
            ]
        },
        {
            "type": "folder",
            "name": "misc",
            "entries": [
                { "type": "profile", "profile": "Ubuntu-18.04" },
                { "type": "profile", "profile": "Ubuntu-22.04" },
                { "type": "profile", "profile": "AlmaLinux-8" }
            ]
        },
        {
            "type": "folder",
            "name": "VS",
            "entries": [
                {
                    "source": "Windows.Terminal.VisualStudio",
                    "type": "matchProfiles"
                },
                { "type": "profile", "profile": "VS 2019 (CMD)" },
            ]
        },
        {
            "type": "folder",
            "name": "Canonical",
            "entries": [
                {
                    "source": "CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu18.04onWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc",
                    "type": "matchProfiles"
                },
                {
                    "source": "CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu22.04LTS_79rhkp1fndgsc",
                    "type": "matchProfiles"
                },
                {
                    "source": "CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu_79rhkp1fndgsc",
                    "type": "matchProfiles"
                }
            ]
        },
    ],

Admittedly, you likely won't have all those profiles, but that should point you in the right direction