Open a new Terminal tab from command line (instead of a new console window)

[awaescher]

The Windows Terminal now has brilliant support for command line arguments like:

• wt.exe -d . Open a new wt instance in the current working directory
• wt.exe -p <profile name> Create a wt instance running the given profile, to unblock
• wt.exe ; new-tab ; split-pane -V Launch the terminal with multiple tabs, splits, to unblock

What's missing for me is, that every time I run wt.exe with arguments, a new console window appears which - of course - only hosts one single tab. I use tabs to manage multiple sessions in one single console window, so it would be huge, if wt.exe command lines could be written to reuse existing windows by "just" adding (and focusing) a new tab.

To avoid misunderstandings: There's an argument new-tab but as far as I know, this can be used to force a new console window to open one or more further new tab(s). This is not what I want: I meant to reuse an existing console window (if available) and open a new tab in there.

I posted this idea on Twitter here. Please read the thread for more information.

In gif below, I use a tool git tool called RepoZ to jump to the directory of a chosen git repository.

However, for each "Open In Windows Terminall", a new window is opened where a tab would have been more convenient.

Proposed technical implementation details

I have no implementation idea how this works in the Windows Terminal process itself.

However, on the command line side, this could be the new default behavior for wt.exe-commands in my opinion. To keep things downwards compatible, we could add a new argument option like wt.exe -d . reuse-window to make sure that Windows Terminal should try to use an existing process if available. If not, I'd suggest that a new Window appears which can be used by subsequent calls with the optiom reuse-window.

[DHowett-MSFT]

Thanks for the request! This is actually captured in /dup #4472.

[ghost]

Hi! We've identified this issue as a duplicate of another one that already exists on this Issue Tracker. This specific instance is being closed in favor of tracking the concern over on the referenced thread. Thanks for your report!