Console or Command Line Interface has been man’s best friend ever since computers and other devices evolved. Although GUIs are simpler to use, some tasks cannot be done on UI, and you have to rely on black terminal windows for that. If you are an avid console user, you might love this tool called CMDER. CMDER is a free, portable console emulator for Windows. By console emulator, we mean that I can wrap around CMD and provide many more features and an intuitive experience.
Console Emulator for Windows PC
The list of features built into CMDER goes on, and the developer states that this tool was created out of pure frustration over the absence of nice console emulators on Windows. If you primarily use CMD or PowerShell, then you might find this tool very useful with its extended features, keyboard shortcuts, and aliases.
There are two download options available, mini and full. The full variant comes included with Git for Windows. Which means you can readily use git commands and some Unix commands on your computer as well.
Since CMDER is an emulator, you can run any shell of your choice inside it. Moreover, it supports tabs that let you open multiple shell windows in the same program. To open a new tab, press Ctrl+T on your keyboard. Whenever you open a new tab, you can specify the shell you want to initialize. You can also specify the start-up directory and credentials if you are running that tab as another user.
On my machine, I can use CMDER to run CMD, PowerShell, and Git Bash simultaneously in different tabs. Another great feature that I use is console split. You can open more than one console by splitting the screen into even halves. This comes handy when you want to use more than one console without changing the tabs repeatedly.
CMDER is extensively customizable and offers a long list of settings that can be changed and customized. Changing color, positioning, and fonts can easily modify the look and feel. There is an option where you can select a background image for the terminal, and it looks very cool.
Apart from that, you can easily setup environment variables aliases from the settings itself. You can even import them if you have them already specified somewhere.
CMDER supports many keyboard shortcuts that can be customized. You can set up copy/paste from the console, which is quite difficult to do in other programs. The tool can also install keyboard hooks and seize keyboard keys. The list of important keyboard shortcuts is available on the CMDER website, or you can view most of them from Keys and Macro settings.
CMDER download
The tool is under 10 MB (mini variant) and is completely portable. You can carry it around or upload it to the cloud, and your settings and history will always be preserved. Click here to download CMDER.
CMDER is a great utility for developers, coders, or anyone who uses the console a lot. Again, this is not a shell but an emulator that can run any shell inside it. You can easily execute CMD, PowerShell, Git commands using CMDER. The tool has many features and can be customized to any level. Even if you don’t understand any complex terms mentioned in settings, you can Google them or safely skip them.
Leave a Reply