Back then you would access another computer or a mainframe from a computer terminal emulator that was a typical physical monitor with a keyboard plugged directly into a network. They were referred to as dumb terminals. This is because it does not keep information on a local hard drive but sends and receives signals without processing. This makes them inexpensive and secure to use.

In modern days a terminal emulator is software that enables host computers to access other computers through a command-line interface or graphical interface via protocols like SSH, Telnet, or LDAP. Both systems need to be up and running for the communication to take place. Terminal emulators allow both systems to share applications and files between the host computer and remote computers. The most common terminal emulator you might have come across is PUTTY. Others include; Alacritty, WezTerm, ConEmu, KiTTY, etc.

Wez’s Terminal Emulator

Wez’s Terminal emulator is a GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer allows you to multiplex local tabs and windows which will persist until they are closed. Wez’s is cross-platform and can be run in Linux, macOS, Windows 10, and FreeBSD. You can connect to a local multiplexer over Unix domain sockets and to a remote multiplexer using SSH or TLS over TCP/IP. Wez’s can be configured via a configuration file wezterm.lua that can be accessed at the same location where the executable file wezterm.exe is located.

Features

  • Dynamic color schemes with ligatures, font fallback, and color emoji.
  • Support for both implicit and explicit hyperlinks
  • Has Kitty and Sixel graphic support.
  • Panes can be split vertically and horizontally.
  • Searchable scrollback with a configurable maximum size limit.
  • Support render attributes including underline, double-underline, italic, bold, and strikethrough.
  • Supports multiple Windows.
  • Supports tabs.

This guide will show you how to install Wez’s Terminal Emulator (WezTerm) on Windows 11/10.

Install Wez’s Terminal Emulator (WezTerm) on Windows 11/10

There are different ways to install Wez’s on Windows.

1. Install from the Setup.exe

Download Wez’s executable file for Windows.

Click on the installer to start the installation. Select the Destination Location or leave it as default.

You can see the summary as shown below. Then click on Install.

The installation finishes then you can launch the application.

2. Install using winget

Winget is a Windows Package Manager client. If you do not have it, Install it from the Microsoft store.

Open PowerShell as an admin and install WezTerm using the following command.

winget install wez.wezterm

Agree to the source agreements to continue with the installation.

The `msstore` source requires that you view the following agreements before using.
Terms of Transaction: https://aka.ms/microsoft-store-terms-of-transaction
The source requires the current machine's 2-letter geographic region to be sent to the backend service to function properly (ex. "US").

Do you agree to all the source agreements terms?
[Y] Yes  [N] No: Y
Found WezTerm [wez.wezterm] Version 20220624-141144-bd1b7c5d
This application is licensed to you by its owner.
Microsoft is not responsible for, nor does it grant any licenses to, third-party packages.

To upgrade WezTerm, use the following command.

winget upgrade wez.wezterm

3. Install using Scoop

If you do not have Scoop, Open Powershell with Admin rights and install it using the following command.

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -scope CurrentUser
irm get.scoop.sh | iex

With Scoop installed, use the following command to Install WezTerm.

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install wezterm

4. Install Using Chocolatey

If you do not have Chocolatey installed on your system, Use the following command to install Chocolatey.

Set-ExecutionPolicy AllSigned 

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

The command finishes without an error to show successful installation. You can then install WezTerm with the following command.

> choco install wezterm -y
Chocolatey v1.1.0
Installing the following packages:
wezterm
By installing, you accept licenses for the packages.
Progress: Downloading wezterm.install 20220408.101518... 100%
Progress: Downloading wezterm 20220408.101518... 100%

wezterm.install v20220408.101518 [Approved]

Configure WezTerm on Windows 11/10

You can configure WezTerm using the main configuration file wezterm.lua which is written in Lua Scripting Language. Create a file on the home directory of the wezterm.exe. In this case, It is located in the Program files folder.

An empty configuration file looks like the one below.

return {
}

You should import the Wezterm module that exposes wezterm configuration and control to your config file. It is placed on top of the configuration file to enable it.

local wezterm = require 'wezterm';
return {
}

To change the font face, use the following command. You can specify some parameters to influence the font selection; for example, this selects a Bold, Italic font variant.

local wezterm = require 'wezterm';

return {
  font = wezterm.font("JetBrains Mono", {weight="Bold", italic=true})
}

To change the color scheme, use the following code.

return {
color_scheme = "Purple Rain",
}

You can also set for Wezterm to check for updates regularly. 

return {
  check_for_updates = true,
  check_for_updates_interval_seconds = 86400,
}

To automatically reload the configuration add the following setting. You may also use the CTRL+SHIFT+R keyboard shortcut to force the configuration to be reloaded.

return {
  automatically_reload_config = false,
}

Save the file and close it. My file is shown below.

The settings are applied on the terminal as shown.

You can find more configuration settings at Wezterm Configuration.

SSH & Multiplexing

wezterm also supports regular ad-hoc ssh connections. You can use the following command syntax to connect to a remote host.

$ wezterm ssh [email protected]

This kind of connection is non-persistent and all associated tabs will die if your network connection is interrupted. To help with this, wezterm introduced multiplexing which allows you to multiplex local tabs and windows which will persist until they are closed. The concept around this is called multiplexing domains. A domain is a distinct set of windows and tabs.

This kind of connection is known as the SSH domain. For this to work, you should have a compatible version of wezterm installed on your remote system. To configure an SSH domain. edit the configuration file with the following settings.

return {
  ssh_domains = {
    {
      -- This name identifies the domain
      name = "my.server",
      -- The hostname or address to connect to. Will be used to match settings
      -- from your ssh config file
      remote_address = "ip-address",
      -- The username to use on the remote host
      username = "technixleo",
    }
  }
}

Replace the fields with your server details.

If I was to connect to the above, I would use the following command.

$ wezterm connect my.server

This will launch an SSH session that connects to the specified address.

Conclusion

We have gone through an overview of what terminal emulators are and what they do. We have also installed Wez’s Terminal Emulator (WezTerm) on Windows 11/10. Wez is cross-platform and offers over-the-top capabilities that other Terminal emulators do not have.

More guides to check out:

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