xonsh/docs/windows.rst

==========================
Windows Guide
==========================

Installation
================

The easy way
----------------

The easiest way to install xonsh on windows is through the `Anaconda Python
Distribution <https://www.anaconda.com/download/>`__ and the conda package manager.

.. note::

    Xonsh is not supported on legacy Python (2.7).

Install xonsh with the following command:

.. code-block:: bat

   > conda config --add channels conda-forge
   > conda install xonsh

This will install xonsh and all the recommended dependencies. Next, run xonsh:

.. code-block:: bat

   > xonsh
   snail@home ~ $


Install from source
-------------------

To install xonsh from source on Windows, first install `Python v3.4+`_ from
http://python.org. Remember to select "Add python to PATH" during installation.

Next, install the prompt_toolkit dependency via ``pip``:

.. code-block:: bat

   > pip install prompt-toolkit

Download the latest `xonsh-master.zip`_ from github and unzip it
to ``xonsh-master``.

Now install xonsh:

.. code-block:: bat

   > cd xonsh-master
   > python setup.py install

Next, run xonsh:

.. code-block:: bat

  > xonsh
  snail@home ~ $

.. _Python v3.4+: https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/
.. _xonsh-master.zip: https://github.com/xonsh/xonsh/archive/master.zip
.. _cmder: http://cmder.net/
.. _conemu: https://conemu.github.io/


Usage
================

Color style
--------------------------------

The dark red and blue colors are completely unreadable in Windows' default
terminal.

.. image:: _static/intensify-colors-on-win-false.png
   :width: 396 px
   :alt: intensify-colors-win-false
   :align: center

There are ways to configure the colors (see below), but to give new users the
best experience Xonsh has some tricks to fix colors. This is controlled by the
:ref:`$INTENSIFY_COLORS_ON_WIN <intensify_colors_on_win>`
environment variable which is ``True`` by default. 

**On Windows 10**

Windows 10 supports true color in the terminal, so on Win 10 Xonsh will use
a style with hard coded colors instead of the terminal colors.

.. image:: _static/better_colors_windows.png
   :width: 600 px
   :alt: better_colors_windows
   :align: center
   
**On older Windows** 

On older windows installations Xonsh takes an other
approach and replaces some of the unreadable dark colors with more readable
alternatives (e.g. blue becomes cyan).

**Configure the terminal colors**

It is possible to configure the Windows console with readable default colors,
but it is tedious to do manually. The Microsoft console team has made a `handy tool
to configure colors`_ in the terminal

* `Download Colortool`_ from from GitHub

With better colors configured, ``$INTENSIFY_COLORS_ON_WIN`` should be set to 
``False`` to allow the console to control the colors.
You can do this by adding the following to the xonsh run control file ``.xonshrc``: 

.. code-block:: xonshcon

    $INTENSIFY_COLORS_ON_WIN = False


.. _handy tool to configure colors: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/08/11/introducing-the-windows-console-colortool/
.. _Download Colortool: https://github.com/Microsoft/console/tree/master/tools/ColorTool

Avoid locking the working directory
-----------------------------------

Python (like other processes on Windows) locks the current working directory so
it can't be deleted or renamed. ``cmd.exe`` has this behaviour as well, but it
is quite annoying for a shell. 

The :ref:`free_cwd <free_cwd>` xontrib (add-on) for xonsh solves some of this problem. It
works by hooking the prompt to reset the current working directory to the root
drive folder whenever the shell is idle. It only works with the prompt-toolkit
back-end. To enable that behaviour run the following: 

Add this line to your ``~/.xonshrc`` file to have it always enabled. 

.. code-block:: xonshcon

   >>> xontrib load free_cwd


Name space conflicts
--------------------

Due to ambiguity with the Python ``dir`` builtin, to list the current directory
via the ``cmd.exe`` builtin you must explicitly request the ``.``, like this:

.. code-block:: xonshcon

   >>> dir .
    Volume in drive C is Windows
    Volume Serial Number is 30E8-8B86

    Directory of C:\Users\snail\xonsh

   2015-05-12  03:04    <DIR>          .
   2015-05-12  03:04    <DIR>          ..
   2015-05-01  01:31    <DIR>          xonsh
                  0 File(s)              0 bytes
                  3 Dir(s)  11,008,000,000 bytes free



Many people create a ``d`` alias for the ``dir`` command to save
typing and avoid the ambiguity altogether:

.. code-block:: xonshcon

   >>> aliases['d'] = ['cmd', '/c', 'dir']

You can add aliases to your ``~/.xonshrc`` to have it always
available when xonsh starts.



Unicode support for Windows
----------------------------

Python's utf-8 unicode is not compatible with the default shell 'cmd.exe' on Windows. The package ``win_unicode_console`` fixes this. Xonsh will use ``win_unicode_console`` if it is installed. This can be disabled/enabled with the :ref:`$WIN_UNICODE_CONSOLE <win_unicode_console>` environment variable.

.. note:: Even with unicode support enabled the symbols available will depend on the font used in cmd.exe.

The packages ``win_unicode_console`` can be installed along with xonsh by using the package name ``xonsh[win]`` or separately using pip or conda.

.. code-block:: bat

  > pip install win_unicode_console


.. code-block:: bat

  > conda install --channel xonsh win_unicode_console