Terminal

Terminal Panel

The integrated terminal provides a command-line interface inside the IDE — 38 built-in HxTerminal commands, a full embedded PowerShell shell, .hxscript file execution, colored output, and a plugin API.

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Opening

Method	Action
Tools → Terminal	Open / focus
openpanel terminal	From another terminal command

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Architecture

flowchart TD
    subgraph Core["WpfHexEditor.Core.Terminal"]
        Reg["TerminalCommandRegistry\n38 built-in commands + tab completion"]
        Hist["CommandHistory\npersistent cross-session"]
        Script["HxScriptEngine\n.hxscript file execution"]
        ICtx["ITerminalContext\nCWD · output · dispatch"]
        IOut["ITerminalOutput\nWriteLine · WriteTable · Clear"]
    end

    subgraph WPF["WpfHexEditor.Terminal"]
        Panel["TerminalPanel.xaml\nRichTextBox output · input row · toolbar"]
        VM["TerminalPanelViewModel\nITerminalContext + ITerminalOutput"]
        Export["TerminalExportService\n6 export formats"]
        Mode["TerminalMode\nHxTerminal · PowerShell"]
        PS["PowerShell process\npwsh.exe / powershell.exe\nstdin/stdout/stderr piped"]
    end

    subgraph SDKLayer["WpfHexEditor.SDK"]
        ITS["ITerminalService\nplugin-facing contract"]
    end

    VM --> Reg
    VM --> Hist
    VM --> Script
    VM --> Export
    VM --> PS
    Panel --> VM
    ITS --> VM

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Shell Modes

The terminal has two independent shell modes selectable via the mode dropdown in the toolbar:

Mode	Label	Description
HxTerminal	HxTerminal	Built-in IDE command engine — 38 commands, .hxscript support, tab completion
PowerShell	PowerShell	Full embedded PowerShell process (pwsh.exe / powershell.exe) with stdin/stdout/stderr piping

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PowerShell Integration

How it works

When you select PowerShell in the mode dropdown the terminal:

1. Resolves pwsh.exe (PowerShell 7+) or falls back to powershell.exe (Windows PowerShell 5.x)
2. Starts the process with -NoLogo -NoExit and fully redirected stdin / stdout / stderr
3. Pipes your typed input directly to PowerShell's stdin — live interactive shell
4. Streams stdout (white) and stderr (red) asynchronously into the output view

[PowerShell started: C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\pwsh.exe]
PS C:\Users\you> Get-Item firmware.bin | Select-Object Length
PS C:\Users\you> [System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes("firmware.bin")[0..15]

Encoding

Select the output encoding via the UTF-8 / Windows-1252 / ASCII toolbar dropdown. Default is UTF-8 (BOM-free). Change before switching to PowerShell mode if your profile uses a different code page.

Mode switching

Action	Result
Dropdown → PowerShell	Starts PS process; shows [PowerShell started: ...]
Dropdown → HxTerminal	Sends exit to stdin, waits 300 ms, kills if needed; shows [Switched to HxTerminal]
PowerShell exits naturally	Auto-reverts to HxTerminal

Requirements

Requirement	Details
PowerShell 7+ (recommended)	winget install Microsoft.PowerShell
Windows PowerShell 5.x (fallback)	Built into Windows — no install needed

Editing .ps1 files

.ps1 / .psm1 / .psd1 files open in the Code Editor with syntax highlighting (PowerShell.whfmt + shell.whlang). Edit scripts in the IDE, run them from the PowerShell terminal tab:

PS C:\Scripts> .\analysis.ps1 -Target C:\Data\firmware.bin

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HxTerminal Commands (38)

Naming convention: Commands are lowercase, no spaces (e.g. closefile, openpanel). Exceptions using hyphens: plugin-list, read-hex, run-script, list-open, send-error, send-output.

Core

Command	Description
clear	Clear terminal output
echo <text>	Print text to the terminal
exit	Close the terminal panel session
help [cmd]	List all commands or show help for a specific command
history	Show command history
version	Show IDE and terminal version

File System

Command	Description
copyfile <src> <dst>	Copy a file from source to destination
deletefile <path>	Delete a file from disk
listfiles [--filter <pat>]	List files in a directory (default: working dir)
list-open	List all currently open files in the IDE
open <path>	Open a file in the active editor
openfolder <path>	Open a folder in Solution Explorer

Editor

Command	Description
closefile [name]	Close the active file or a named open file
read-hex <offset> [count]	Display hex bytes from the active HexEditor
savefile [name]	Save the active file (or a named open file)
saveas <path>	Save the active file under a new path
search <hex/text>	Search hex pattern or text in the active HexEditor
selectfile <name>	Select (highlight) a file in Solution Explorer
writehex <offset> <bytes>	Write hex bytes to a position in the active HexEditor

Project / Solution

Command	Description
closeproject <name>	Close a project by name
closesolution	Close the active solution
openproject <name>	Activate a project node in Solution Explorer
opensolution <path>	Open a solution file in the IDE
reloadsolution	Reload the active solution from disk

Panels

Command	Description
appendpanel <panel> <text>	Append text to an IDE panel (output, errors)
clearpanel <panel>	Clear the content of a named IDE panel
closepanel <uiId>	Close (hide) a dockable panel by its UI id
focuspanel <uiId>	Give keyboard focus to a dockable panel
openpanel <uiId>	Show a dockable panel by its UI id
togglepanel <uiId>	Toggle visibility of a dockable panel

Plugins

Command	Description
plugin-list	List all installed plugins and their state
runplugin <id>	Execute a terminal command contributed by a plugin

Scripts

Command	Description
run-script <path>	Execute a .hxscript file

Diagnostics

Command	Description
send-error <msg>	Send an error message to the Error panel
send-output <msg>	Send a message to the Output panel
showerrors [n]	Display the last N error panel entries (default: 20)
showlogs [n]	Display the last N output panel log lines (default: 20)
status	Show current IDE state (active document, working dir, etc.)

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Keyboard

Key	Action
Enter	Execute
↑ / ↓	History navigation
Tab	Auto-complete (HxTerminal mode only)
Ctrl+C	Copy selected
Ctrl+L	Clear (same as clear)
Escape	Clear input line

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HxScript Files

.hxscript files contain HxTerminal commands executed sequentially. Use run-script to run them.

run-script C:\Scripts\analysis.hxscript

Example .hxscript:

open C:\Data\firmware.bin
search DE AD BE EF
read-hex 0x1000 256
send-output Analysis complete

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Toolbar Options

Control	Description
Mode dropdown	Switch between HxTerminal and PowerShell
Encoding dropdown	Output encoding for PowerShell mode (UTF-8 / Windows-1252 / ASCII)
Word wrap toggle	Wrap long lines in output
Timestamps toggle	Prefix each output line with [HH:mm:ss]
Font size +/−	Increase or decrease output font size (8–28 pt)
Auto-scroll toggle	Keep output scrolled to the latest line
Pause button	Pause output streaming (buffered internally)
Export button	Export session to file

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Plugin API

ITerminalService terminal = context.Terminal;

// Execute a built-in HxTerminal command
terminal.Execute("listfiles --filter *.bin");

// Write with severity
terminal.WriteLine("File not found.", TerminalSeverity.Warning);

// Write a table
terminal.WriteTable(
    headers: new[] { "Offset", "Value", "Type" },
    rows:    fields.Select(f => new[] { f.Offset.ToString("X"), f.Value, f.Type }));

// Export session
terminal.ExportSession(@"C:\Logs\session.txt");

// Read history
var lines = terminal.HistoryLines;

Declare terminal capability in your plugin manifest:

{ "capabilities": ["Terminal"], "permissions": ["WriteOutput"] }

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Export Formats

Format	Extension	Colors
Plain Text	.txt	No
HTML	.html	CSS span
RTF / Word	.rtf	Color table
ANSI	.ansi	Escape codes
Markdown	.md	Table
SpreadsheetML	.xml	Excel/LibreOffice

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See Also

• Plugin System — ITerminalService registration
• Plugin Monitoring — resource diagnostics
• Getting Started — terminal quick start