Option to create desktop shortcuts to profiles

[tranzystorekk]

Description of the new feature/enhancement

As a user, I'd like to be able to easily create desktop shortcuts that open a specific profile. This could be done e.g. via right clicking a profile in the profile dropdown and selecting an action "Create desktop shortcut".

For context, I use a Powershell Core profile to do software updates and a WSL shell to do some dev work and I currently cannot find a way to quickly run one of those; I always start the default Powershell profile and then manually open WSL and close Powershell which seems cumbersome.

[zadjii-msft]

You could definitely work around this for now by creating a shortcut that runs wt -p "<the name of your profile>"

[tranzystorekk]

You could definitely work around this for now by creating a shortcut that runs wt -p "<the name of your profile>"

Sure, but it'd be also nice if Terminal could set the shortcut icon to something other than the default "blank sheet of paper" one, especially since I have Terminal pinned to task bar and it seems like you cannot make/copy a shotcut out of that

[skyline75489]

I think shortcut icon is very customizable since Windows 98. Shouldn't be a real problem.

[tranzystorekk]

@skyline75489 my point is, when you use the "Pin to taskbar" action on Windows Terminal (or any other application for that matter), the resulting object doesn't seem to be a shortcut (.lnk file), so it cannot be easily copied and modified, including its icon. Therefore the only option seems to be to manually create a new shortcut, which is far more unwieldy for that use case.

[DHowett]

Yanking triage -- this is a really good request. We should see if we can enable it. 😄

[tranzystorekk]

As an alternative, this PowerToys feature seems promissing microsoft/PowerToys#4194

[htcfreek]

Yanking triage -- this is a really good request. We should see if we can enable it. 😄

Maybe a feature like in edge. There is a menu to create a desktop shortcut for apps and pin apps to start.

You can a button in profile settings to apen a menu that allows the user to...

• ... pin profile to start.
• ... pin profile to taskbar.
• ... create a desktop shortcut.

[JamesDev21]

You could definitely work around this for now by creating a shortcut that runs wt -p "<the name of your profile>"

NICE! Is there any way to add predefined code to run such as "npm start" when shortcut is executed? thanks :D

[tranzystorekk]

I guess this is partially done since you can right click the WT icon in the taskbar and pick a profile

[Jaswir]

@tranzystorek-io @JamesDev21 @DHowett @htcfreek
Trying to get an understanding of what you really want.

This is an example of what a Powershell Core shortcut would be:

[tranzystorekk]

I guess this is partially done since you can right click the WT icon in the taskbar and pick a profile

@Jaswir considering this I no longer have a use for the shortcuts, I'll probably close this. Thank you for taking a look though!

[Jaswir]

@tranzystorek-io

You're welcome.
Thanks for the feedback, I'll see what I can do.

I guess if no one else is interested in this either I'll move on to another issue.

[zadjii-msft]

There's like, 29 other upvotes on this thread so I'd say that even if OP has found a viable workaround, there's probably still some demand for this feature 😉

My brief thoughts:

• make it a button in the Settings UI (Profiles_Base.*).
• I don't know how to necessarily make a shortcut on the desktop - I suppose it's just a file of some sort? Shockingly, I'm not that familiar with that part of the Win32 API.
• The icon should probably be the icon of the profile itself (though, that might not work for ms-appx icons)

[htcfreek]

@zadjii-msft , @Jaswir , @tranzystorek-io

I agree with @zadjii-msft. Maybe it is possible to show a dialogue where the user can choose on or more of the following link places: Desktop, Start menu, Taskbar

Not sure how the icon thing is solved for packaged apps. But isn't ms-appx only a reference to the app resource folder on the disk? 🤔

[Jaswir]

@htcfreek

"Maybe a feature like in edge. There is a menu to create a desktop shortcut for apps and pin apps to start."

Could you show me a GIF of this, please? You can use this: https://www.screentogif.com/

[htcfreek]

@htcfreek

"Maybe a feature like in edge. There is a menu to create a desktop shortcut for apps and pin apps to start."

Could you show me a GIF of this, please? You can use this: https://www.screentogif.com/

@Jaswir
I thought on having a menu like this: https://www.online-tech-tips.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/28-Taskbar-Shortcut.png

[zadjii-msft]

Also, I'd probably recommend starting small - first add a button to add a shortcut to the Desktop, then work from there.

Especially considering the changes between the Start Menu & Taskbar between Windows 10 and 11 - I wouldn't want to overindex on that aspect of the feature.

[htcfreek]

Especially considering the changes between the Start Menu & Taskbar between Windows 10 and 11 - I wouldn't want to overindex on that aspect of the feature.

Yeah. I missed this changes when doing the suggestion. 😅