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Thursday, May 21, 2009

[Windows] TCC/LE—an alternative to Command Prompt

TCC LE

I'm trying out a free cmd.exe alternative called TCC/LE. It's basically the same thing as cmd.exe, with some nifty extras:

  • Highlight text using Shift with the arrow keys/Ctrl/Home/End. Double-click to highlight a word. Typing will replace the highlighted text.
  • Ctrl-Y copies highlighted text to the clipboard; Ctrl-V pastes.
  • PgUp shows a popup window with your command history. To do a partial search, enter a few characters before pressing PgUp. You can also press ↑ to cycle through previous commands (partial-search works here too).
  • If you're in the middle of typing something, but need to run another command first, Ctrl-K saves what you've typed so far to your command history. Run the other command, then press ↑ twice to retrieve the first command.
  • F1 shows help for the first word (Ctrl-F1 for the current word)
  • To scroll the window, use Alt with ↑/↓/PgUp/PgDn/Home/End/
  • Ctrl-Tab shows a popup window for filename completion. Use Tab/Shift-Tab (or F9/F8) to cycle back and forth through filename completion. F12 repeats the completed filename; F10 adds the next completed filename.
  • F3 copies the previous command, starting at the current cursor position
  • Commands can be aliased to function keys (e.g., you can assign Shift-F5 to dir /w)
  • F6 (or Ctrl-PgUp) shows the Directory History window (see screenshot above).
  • You can assign colors to file extensions shown by the dir command. Type option to access this and other preferences.
  • tee sends standard input to both standard output and a file
  • y sends standard input and a file to standard output
  • log stores your commands in a file
  • memory shows memory statistics
  • tasklist shows a list of running tasks
  • dirs displays the current directory stack. Useful in conjunction with Scott Hanselman's pushd/popd-prompt.
  • Ctrl-0Ctrl-1Ctrl-2, …, Ctrl-9 will copy the nth item from the previous command line
  • beep plays a beep. Try: beep asteriskbeep exclamationbeep handbeep questionbeep okbeep 440 4  600 2  1040 6
Also see CodingHorror's article on Windows Command Prompt customization.

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