Seamless FluentTerminal Integration

Introduction

Fluent Terminal is a terminal emulator built with UWP – i.e. Universal Windows Platform – and xterm.js. It is GPU-accelerated and uses web-technologies.

A neat feature of UWP apps in general, is that they can leverage the acrylic effect of Microsoft's fluent design, which can produce awesome blurred-behind visuals.

Fluent Terminal can be used as an alternative to ConEmu in order to launch Cmder.

Here's a demo of the acrylic terminal effect:

The instructions to install Cmder on Fluent Terminal is simple and pretty easy to follow.

Instructions

To run Cmder under Fluent Terminal, follow these steps:

1. Download and install the latest release of Fluent Terminal: instructions here

2. Save the following file under Monokai.flutecolors on your Desktop:
   📦 Monokai.flutecolors
   ^{Tip: Make sure your filename doesn't end in .txt when you save it.}

3. Follow the instructions in this page to set-up the %CMDER_ROOT% environmental variable
   ^{Tip: If you already have a working environment variable, skip this step}

4. Open Fluent Terminal, then go to ⚙ Settings using Ctrl + , (Control-Comma) keyboard shortcut

5. Navigate to Themes → 🖌 Import, select Monokai.flutecolors from your Desktop,
   then click on ✓ Set Active

6. Navigate to Profiles → ➕ Create new, and enter the following into the fields:

   ^{Tip: This will install the default clink-based profile (i.e. "cmd").
   Under the Optional Profiles you can find other shells, e.g. bash and Powershell.}

   • Name: Cmder/Cmd
   • Shell executable location: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
   • Working directory: C:\Users\[Username]
     ^{Tip: Substitute [Username] with your username, e.g.: C:\Users\David.}
   • Arguments:

     /k title Cmder/Cmd & "%CMDER_ROOT%\vendor\init.bat"

   • Theme: Monokai
   • Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+c or whatever you prefer.
     ^{Tip: So you can launch more tabs.}

7. Click 💾 Save

8. Click ✓ Set Default

9. Download and install your choice from any of the fonts below, then enable it in
   the ⚙ Settings → Terminal tab → under the Font family section.

   • Hermit
   • FiraCode
   • Source Code Pro

   ^{Tip: This step will prevent the issue of extra spacing when the default font is used.
   Alternatively, you can simply customize the λ prompt and change it to $, or your prompt of choice. Click here to see how}

10. (Optional) In the Terminal tab, reduce the "Background opacity" to around 0.30 for a better acrylic effect

11. Close FluentTerminal, and re-open it.

    😄 You're done!

Optional Profiles

You can also add the following optional shells in addition to Cmder's default clink shell:

Cmder/Bash Profile

1. Navigate to Profiles → ➕ Create new, and enter the following into the fields:

   • Name: Cmder/Bash
   • Shell executable location: [CMDER_ROOT]\vendor\git-for-windows\bin\bash.exe
     ^{Tip: Environment variables will not work to specify the path to Cmder, replace [CMDER_ROOT] with the actual path!}
   • Working directory: C:\Users\[Username]
     ^{Tip: Substitute [Username] with your username, e.g.: C:\Users\David.}
   • Arguments:

     --login -i

   • Theme: Monokai
   • Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+b or whatever you prefer.
     ^{Tip: So you can launch more tabs.}

2. Click 💾 Save

Cmder/Powershell

1. Navigate to Profiles → ➕ Create new, and enter the following into the fields:

   • Name: Cmder/Powershell
   • Shell executable location: C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
   • Working directory: C:\Users\[Username]
     ^{Tip: Substitute [Username] with your username, e.g.: C:\Users\David.}
   • Arguments:

     -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoLogo -NoProfile -NoExit -Command "Invoke-Expression '. ''[CMDER_ROOT]\vendor\profile.ps1'''"

     ^{Tip: Environment variables will not work to specify the path to Cmder, replace [CMDER_ROOT] with the actual path!}
   • Theme: Monokai
   • Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+p or whatever you prefer.
     ^{Tip: So you can launch more tabs.}

2. Click 💾 Save

 

Spaces in path

⚠ CAUTION: The command line interpreter in Windows has some issues with spaces in the path, such as C:\Program Files (x86)\Cmder. We do not recommended to install Cmder in a path that contains spaces.

The instructions outlined above should work correctly, but in case you are having a problem, please read below.

To avoid any conflicts, it is recommended to install Cmder in a path that does not contain any spaces, such as: C:\apps\Cmder or C:\tools\Cmder.

You may also have to escape the parentheses ( and ) as well as spaces. Here's an example:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Cmder  →  "C:\\Program^ Files^ ^(x86^)\\Cmder"

For more information, please read this comment.

 

Need more help?

• Post a comment on the issue here and mention @DRSDavidSoft for help