ConEmu (short for ''Console emulator'') is a free and open-source

tabbed In interface design, a tab is a graphical user interface object that allows multiple documents or panels to be contained within a single window, using tabs as a navigational widget for switching between sets of documents. It is an interfac ...

terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote term ...

for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

. ConEmu presents multiple consoles and simple

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

applications as one customizable GUI window with tabs and a

status bar A status bar is a graphical control element which poses an information area typically found at the window's bottom. It can be divided into sections to group information. Its job is primarily to display information about the current state of its ...

. It also provides emulation for

ANSI escape code ANSI escape sequences are a standard for in-band signaling to control cursor location, color, font styling, and other options on video text terminals and terminal emulators. Certain sequences of bytes, most starting with an ASCII escape char ...

s for color, bypassing the capabilities of the standard Windows Console Host to provide 256 and 24-bit color in Windows. The program has a large range of customization, including custom color palettes for the standard 16 colors, hotkeys, transparency, an auto-hideable mode (similar to the way Quake originally displayed its developer console). Initially, the program was created as a companion to

Far Manager Far Manager (short for ''File and ARchive Manager'') is an orthodox file manager for Microsoft Windows and is a clone of Norton Commander. Far Manager uses the Win32 console and has a keyboard-oriented user interface (although limited mouse o ...

, bringing some features common for graphical file managers to this console application (

thumbnail Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search engines and imag ...

s and tiles,

drag and drop In computer graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture in which the user selects a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, it can be used to ...

with other windows, true color

interface Interface or interfacing may refer to: Academic journals * ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society * '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics'' * '' Int ...

, and others). As of 2012, ConEmu could be used with any other

Win32 console Windows Console is the infrastructure for console applications in Microsoft Windows. An instance of a Windows Console has a screen buffer and an input buffer. It allows console apps to run inside a window or in hardware text mode (so as to oc ...

application or simple GUI tool (such as

Notepad A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking. History ...

, PuTTY or

DOSBox DOSBox is a free and open-source emulator which runs software for MS-DOS compatible disk operating systems—primarily video games. It was first released in 2002, when DOS technology was becoming obsolete. Its adoption for running DOS games i ...

). ConEmu doesn't provide any shell itself, but rather allows using any other shell. It does provide a limited macro language, to control the hosted applications startup.

References

External links

Official page
{{Terminal emulator Free terminal emulators Free emulation software Programming tools Compatibility layers System administration Windows-only free software Software using the BSD license Free software programmed in C++