ConEmu Review or why I stick with KDE Konsole

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Alexander

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Sep 10, 2015, 6:28:16 PM9/10/15
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well, firstly, I want to say thank you to that project developers, really the best Emu among i tried ~10-12 different emus.

my background: i am linux programmer/admin with 10+ year experience working in X11 environments, as you may know the most popular terminal there - KDE Konsole. and  I would like to see exactly the same functionality in ConEmu, but unfortunately i found many problems, yes the this emu cool and has huge functionality,  but some  issues i faced are critical for me and i couldnt use it for my work flow.

BTW, I got a feeling that ConEmu developers either didnt work in X11 KDE Konsole, or had very low experience dealing with it.

ok, lets start:

1. Transparency

this feature had been implemented into Emu very ugly, how it works in KDE:  when you enable transparency in KDE Konsole: you got transparency only for tab background.  Text, tabs, headers and window borders - are remain in foreground.

how it works in ConEmu: you enable transparency, and entire window with its text, tabs, headers, and borders are gone into transparency, what is the profit of that feature if it implemented that way?! try to set 50% transparency and try to read anything from terminal - unlikely you could do it.

2. text copy/past behavior

how it works in KDE: you highlight the text using left mouse button, and it automatically placed into buffer, click on middle mouse button and it is pasted into terminal(selected text remain highlighted until you click left mouse button again to make new selection)

how it works in ConEmu: you highlight the text using left mouse button, but to put it into buffer you need to click one more time to release selection, only after that you can paste text to terminal, I see 2 cons here: 1st - one useless action, 2nd - text highlighting reset and you dont see what you selected before.  Regarding 1st, I know that in settings there is possibility to set automatic selection release, but in this case you loose highlighted text - bad practice imho,

I dont understand why it is so difficult to put highlighted text into separate buffer/variable (all windows Emus have similar problem), as it is implemented in KDE.

3. double-triple click to copy word/line

double click doesnt copy word by default, you farce to click/push additional button - bad practice. of course you can enable always copy triangle to use that feature, but that is not good, 90% time I need to copy line by line, rather that use triangle. well, this is not a super critical issue, and believe could be fixed easily because as example ConsoleZ app have it working correctly by default.

4. no notifications about some action in non-active tab

how it works in KDE: as example i opened 2 tabs, in 1st tab i started some program and switched to 2nd tab, when my program outputs something in 1st tab, the header of that tab will be highlighted and i could immediately switch to it and check what's happened.

how it works in ConEmu: nothing happens, or at least i didnt find how to setup it.

5. some shell commands works bad in get Bash

on linux servers, as example top command breaks lines adding newline, not sure that it is ConEmu issue, looks like git Bash should be tuned to workaround escape sequences 

Resume

I stick with KDE Konsole because of the problems above, though had to run it from Linux VM. If the issues above will be addressed, i would like to switch to ConEmu and donate!

Maximus ConEmu

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Sep 11, 2015, 5:04:02 AM9/11/15
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Hi, Alexander

Project maintainance and improving takes a lot of time, and in fact,
developer's preferences and critical bugs has high priority.
Personally, I use console every day and ConEmu is essential part
in my workflow.
Therefore I do my best to make its defaults and features really handy.
But tastes differ... And if one is used to KDE, it does not mean that KDE is "the best" for everyone.

ConEmu is opensource, everyone may contribute.

1. There is no easy way.

2. Personally, I hate "persistent selection" and can't undertant people who like to see rubbish (marks) on screen.

3. Nothing restricts your from setting "Text selection" to "<Always>".

4. False. Tab flashing exists and working. Screenshot below.

5. ConEmu shows exactly what console applications asks. Cygwin problems? Read docs...

Regards



Alexander

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Sep 11, 2015, 1:12:16 PM9/11/15
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Hi, Maximus, 

thanks for your prompt comment.  regarding issues above:

1. is it related to some Windows OS limitations or just a lack of your development time/resources?  btw console2/consoleZ have the same problem.

2. it is not persistent, it lives until new selection (new left button click), the pros of that is that you see what you selected, that is useful imho. is it possible theoretically have text highlighted until new selection and have possibility to paste text?

3. yes, but in case of "<Always>", your selection will be always as triangle - bad practice, 90% of time I use line-by-line selection. check ConsoleZ how it works there, i dont think it is difficult to set same way in ConEmu

4. lol )) I didn't notice it because:  a) I used transparency and didnt notice that -> consequence from #1 issue as I said tabs header also goes into transparency and b) non-active tab flashes just for a short time ~5 seconds, is it possible to make it flashing indefinitely?

5. ye looks like it is git bash issue, needs fine tuning for escape sequences, so not your Emu problem. 

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