About mintty-quake-console

This AutoHotKey script implements a hotkey for Quake™ console-like dropdown support for the mintty terminal emulator on Windows.

Requirements

• mintty (installed through Cygwin, MSYS or wsltty)

Usage

Download latest release and run mintty-quake-console.exe OR, if you have AutoHotkey installed, clone the repository and run the mintty-quake-console.ahk script directly.

Options: Right click the mintty-quake-console icon in system tray & select Options.

Press Ctrl ~ (or configured keybinding) to toggle mintty.

Note: after editing the ini file by hand, reload the script by right-clicking the tray icon and selecting Reload.

Screenshots

Note: the animation is much more fluid than shown here (the capture software didn't play nice with it).

Ini/Option Reference

mintty_path = path to mintty.exe

mintty_args = arguments to pass to mintty.exe

hotkey = key combination to show/hide console (AutoHotkey format & Keylist)

start_with_windows = add this script to Windows startup (1) or disable (0). Default: 0

start_hidden = show mintty.exe when script is started (0) or wait for hotkey (1). Default: 1

initial_height = height (in pixels) of the mintty console. Default: 380

initial_width = width (percentage of screen width) of the mintty console. Default: 100

initial_trans = transparency (range from 0 to 255) of the mintty console. Default: 235

autohide_by_default = set to 1 to automatically hide mintty when it loses focus. Default: 1

animation_step = number of pixels to shift each step of the slide animation. Default: 20

animation_timeout = how long (in ms) to wait between each animation_step. Default: 10

animation_mode_slide = set to 1 to use sliding animation (up/down). Default: 0

animation_mode_fade = set to 1 to use fading animation (in/out). Default: 1

window_borders = set to 1 to keep window borders & title bar on mintty. Default: 0

display_on_monitor = in multiple-monitor setups, the monitor that mintty will appear on. 0 will make mintty display on whichever monitor the mouse cursor currently resides on. 1 for primary display, 2 for secondary, etc. Default: 0

Tips

Local Configuration File

Support for mintty-quake-console.local.ini file (also in .gitignore), so you can have a custom config without dirtying the repository.

Edit Config Directly

Added a menu entry to directly edit the config file with notepad (or whatever is defined by %EDITOR% env var)

Additional Hotkeys

Ctrl+Alt+Numpad(+) increase console height

Ctrl+Alt+Numpad(-) decrease console height

Ctrl+Alt+] increase console width

Ctrl+Alt+[ decrease console width

Ctrl+Alt+Numpad(/) toggle window borders and titlebar

Ctrl+Alt+Numpad(*) saves height, width & window borders state

Ctrl+Alt+Numpad(.) toggle script

Use with wsltty

Essentially, copy the command line from the shortcut(s) created by wsltty and split the path and the arguments:

mintty_path=%LOCALAPPDATA%\wsltty\bin\mintty.exe
mintty_args=--WSL= --configdir="%APPDATA%\wsltty" -~

wsltty non-default shell

To run a different shell without changing WSL's default shell, append shell path to mintty_args:

mintty_args=--WSL= --configdir="%APPDATA%\wsltty" -~ /usr/bin/fish -li

Cygwin non-default shell

To use ZSH instead of BASH, set the following in mintty-quake-console.ini (zsh must be installed through cygwin):

mintty_args=/bin/zsh -li

Tabs

Use a terminal multiplexer, like tmux (recommended) or screen.