28 July 2013

Clink

I develop Windows software at work, so I often find myself within the Windows Command Prompt (cmd.exe that is), which is an utterly frustrating environment. Recently I found some relief with Clink, which makes the experience a lot more bearable for someone with a Unix leaning.

Clink doesn’t replace cmd.exe, it hooks itself into it. And it doesn’t do a great deal, but what it does do, I really dig:

  • Bash-like tab completion
  • Persistent command history, with Bash-like control
  • Readline shortcuts, such as Ctrl-a and Ctrl-e (go to start and end of line)
  • Automatically replaces slashes with backslashes

“It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell…”