

Clink: Bash-style command line editing for cmd.exe - luu
http://mridgers.github.io/clink/

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ethomson
I spent a long time bemoaning the sad state of shells on Windows. cmd.exe is
pried out of amber for each release of Windows, so intent on remaining
compatible with DOS and NTs gone by that it can't fix its brokenness, let
alone innovate, for "fear of breaking backcompat."

PowerShell is a fine scripting language but using it as an interactive shell
is sort of baffling to me, even compared to the already wonky cmd.exe. Maybe
this is the new hotness and I'm just a crufty old Unix neckbeard but I just
want this off my lawn.

Cygwin and friends always impress me that they work at all, but they're slow
and weird. I could probably put up with the speed of I never had to remember
that sometimes I'm going to need to type `/cygdrive/c` for Cygwin-type apps
and sometimes I'm going to need to type `c:/` for everything else.

Clink, for me, is the best I've found. Yes, cmd.exe is still a trainwreck of
bad ideas from the 90's, but at least entering command doesn't suck anymore.
My emacs keys work, tab completion isn't an abomination and command history
works (up arrow goes to the last command typed, `!history` works!)

------
guiambros
Whenever I use Windows, Clink is usually one of the first things I install.

And this is my favorite inputrc. Search backward/forward history when using
the arrow keys.

    
    
        # c:\users\username\AppData\Local\Clink\clink_inputrc
        "\e`H": history-search-backward
        "\e`P": history-search-forward
        "\t": clink-menu-completion-shim

