🚀 Cmder's next major release backlog

[DRSDavidSoft]

Upcoming plans for the next major release of Cmder

Currently, there are some areas of Cmder that could benefit from a smoother experience for the first-time user.

TL;DR: Remove old 32-bit support. Installing to Program Files or any other path with spaces and/or lack of permissions will be correctly handled. Improvements to the speed, look and feel of the project.

📌 Please vote for your preferred Terminal to be used with Cmder in #2864
New! Cmder now comes in two flavors, Cmder + ConEmu (the classic terminal) and Cmder + Windows Terminal.
You can also choose to download a very slim version of Cmder, which doesn't come with a bundled terminal and is a great choice for using as a shell profile in any terminal you like.

• Optimizations for improving speed #2825 Great optimizations for speed!
• Windows Terminal Support #2877 Support Windows-Terminal
• Support Windows 11 New Shell Context Menu
• Properly handle spaces in CMDER_ROOT path in all areas (shells, launcher, etc)
• Detect and deal with lack of permissions (e.g. handle Access Denied) (e.g. Failed to copy ConEmu.xml.default file at launch #2092)
  • Only the config directory should be writable by the user (Everyone:Write), all other directories must only work with Everyone:Read
  • Handle cases where Cmder is unable to create user config from default templates
• Better UI for the first time start
  • Use terminal colors to decorate the initial setup and indicate the result (success, failure)
  • Ability to run the git post-install in the background or new tab
  • Disable some of the initial setup checks and post installs when the /f parameter is used
• Provide installer (e.g. Improvements to shells and general fixes #2779) and config tweak utility to the user
  • Installer must have options: system, user, portable
  • Allow selection of either shared or per-profile config storage
  • Ability to apply common tweaks through the CLI or first install
    • e.g. set the CMDER_ROOT env var when the project is installed
    • e.g. ability to add Cmder profile to VS Code and/or Windows Terminal
• Provide an update mechanism to update Cmder core itself along the dependencies
  (Updating CMDer, not just conemu and showing version #2875)
• Unified config store (e.g. for prompt) (modifying [cmder_prompt_config.lua] this file cannot be changed "λ" #2716, How to store configuration #1695)
• Support core features for ARM64 (cmd.exe without Clink, PowerShell, bash), (probably in Windows Terminal instead of ConEmu) (Support for ARM64 (Windows 10/11) #2633)
• Update/improve documentation
  • Split and move README.md entries to either separate files, or Wiki when suitable
  • Refresh screenshots used in README.md and the Website
  • Refresh documentation regarding features, and remove outdated info

Additional Notes

Note 1: We're in the process of improving Cmder's initialization speed. In the next major release, the loading time is expected to be optimized significantly.

Note 2: Cmder is in the process of dropping 32-bit support of x86 edition when the upstream projects (such as Git-for-Windows) do so. In the next major releases of Cmder, the minimum Windows requirement will be bumped from Windows 7 SP1 to Windows 10, as well.

[daxgames]

• Properly handle spaces in CMDER_ROOT path in all areas (shells, launcher, etc

I was not aware this was a problem. I thought we handled spaces quite well

• Detect and deal with lack of permissions

Just default to putting the config folder in the users home folder when this happens. More secure this way anyway given the possible content of this folder. If cmder is not in the user home folder the config folder should be by default.

• Installer - WHY, ITS PORTABLE?

• Update mechanism - WHY, ITS PORTABLE?