clink

Clink is a command-line editor that can replace Command Prompt. It basically adds extra editing features to the Windows console application from the GNU Readline library, which developed Bash, the Unix shell for MAC OS X and several Linux distributions.

Some highlight features supported by Clink include new keyboard shortcuts and scriptable completion (using the Lua intuitive language). History and settings are remembered between sessions. Also, it's no longer necessary to confirm batch job termination messages since this is done automatically by the utility. This can be disabled, however.

During installation, the tool offers to replace Command Prompt. Afterward, it can be launched from its own executable file or by running cmd.exe. The line editing commands are the same as in Bash.

When it comes to keyboard shortcuts, you can paste from the clipboard with Ctrl+V, perform incremental history searches with Ctrl+R and Ctrl+S, enable completion with TAB, undo actions with Ctrl+Z, and run automatic "cd.." with Ctrl+Alt+U, among others. All supported bindings can be listed in the console with Alt+H.

Settings can be configured using the "set" command (clink set --help). For example, you can set the Ctrl+D hotkey to exit the process when pressed on an empty link (ctrld_exits), ignore lines that begin with whitespace when adding lines to history (history_ignore_space), or use color to display matches (match_colour).

Clink's functionality can be extended by creating completion matches with Lua scripts. Full documentation on match generators, argument completion, linking parsers, match display filtering and prompt customization is available in the installed directory.

The program worked smoothly on Windows 10 in our tests. It executed commands quickly and had minimal impact on the computer's performance.

All aspects considered, Clink is a powerful console application that can replace Command Prompt, dedicated to users who prefer the Linux Bash shell editor. Besides the fact that it already brings additional functionality to the table, this can be extended.