Allow custom back- and foreground colors for terminal-using shortcuts

[UnitedMarsupials]

When editing an existing terminal-using shortcut on Windows, one can specify certain cosmetic parameters -- including fore- and background colors (in RGB notation) of the terminal window:

It'd be nice to be able to do the same programmatically, when using pyshortcuts. On X11 desktops the same RGB values can be passed to xterm (or its replacements) too.

For example, I'm automating the creation of shortcuts for the ssh-sessions into the few hundred remote hosts I have access to. I want each session to use a specific color combination -- to make it easier to use the multitude of simultaneously-opened windows. (The color-pairs are created automatically, based on the hostname.)

Previously, when using XFCE4-desktop, I put the generated RGB-combinations on the xterm-command-lines for each host. Now I'm forced to use Windows 11 -- and would like to reproduce the functionality I've grown accustomed to...

It may be useful to allow specifying other attributes -- such as the cursor shape and color, the font name and size -- of the terminal window as well...

[newville]

@UnitedMarsupials Hm, also interesting, but I'm not sure how to do that uniformly... The MacOS and Linux shortcuts do not specify which kind of terminal is used.

[UnitedMarsupials]

@UnitedMarsupials Hm, also interesting, but I'm not sure how to do that uniformly...

While I enthusiastically share your desire for as much uniformity as possible, I'm afraid, it is inevitable, that some features will only work on some platforms... The inability to implement a feature for all should not prevent its implementation for some...

The MacOS and Linux shortcuts do not specify which kind of terminal is used.

I don't know, how MacOS goes about it, but on the X11-desktops used by various Unixes you're, probably, generating the .desktop files, right? In there you can specify, that the desired program shall run inside a TTY -- Terminal=YES -- and then let the desktop implementation choose the TTY-emulator based on whatever (user-preference, actually installed software, whatever).

One way to "hack" colors into it would be to set Terminal=No and prepend the specified command with xterm -bg BGCOLOR -fg FGCOLOR -e .

Or just leave the feature as Windows-only...

[newville]

@UnitedMarsupials

@UnitedMarsupials Hm, also interesting, but I'm not sure how to do that uniformly...

While I enthusiastically share your desire for as much uniformity as possible, I'm afraid, it is inevitable, that some features will > only work on some platforms... The inability to implement a feature for all should not prevent its implementation for some...

Yes, I agree. OTOH, the ability to implement a feature for some use cases does not mean that we want to support that feature. We need to be able to support that feature, and be willing to support that feature.

The MacOS and Linux shortcuts do not specify which kind of terminal is used.

I don't know, how MacOS goes about it, but on the X11-desktops used by various Unixes you're, probably, generating the
.desktop files, right? In there you can specify, that the desired program shall run inside a TTY -- Terminal=YES -- and then let
the desktop implementation choose the TTY-emulator based on whatever (user-preference, actually installed software,
whatever).

Yup. And on Mac the shortcut "tells Terminal" to open (so with the user-selected defaults for the Terminal).

And, yes, if one wants to run in xterm, they could do that. There are multiple "terminal windows" on POSIX. We cannot name them all, let alone support them.

I don't know that the situation is "obvious" on Windows. Would we also have to support running in Powershell?

One way to "hack" colors into it would be to set Terminal=No and prepend the specified command with xterm -bg BGCOLOR -fg FGCOLOR -e .

Are there Windows commands for that -- can the shortcut options for color be set programmatically? I don't know.

I'm not saying "no", but this seems like it could be some real work. If it were easy to add some arguments for some cases for Windows, that could be acceptable, but it also suggests that we are going to support those options... and solve problems when they arise. And if color, then surely font size, right, and font family.... and run as an administrator, etc?

And, of course, a working example would go a very long way to showing how feasible this would be.

[UnitedMarsupials]

And, of course, a working example would go a very long way to showing how feasible this would be.

Sigh... The .desktop files -- being well-documented readable text -- are easy, and I was generating them myself before (unaware of your project's existence).

The Windows shortcuts are binaries, and I'm a Unix bigot thrown into this world (hopefully) temporarily... I don't know, how you generate them for Windows at all -- much less, how to augment this generation... Are you writing them anew? Are you invoking a PowerShell-function?.. Whatever the method is, is it documented somewhere, or was hacking/reverse-engineering involved?

Anyway, I, obviously, am not demanding anything -- and appreciate, what this project is already offering... Thank you!

[newville]

@UnitedMarsupials Windows shortcuts are created using code here

pyshortcuts/pyshortcuts/windows.py

Line 148 in c317014

_WSHELL = win32com.client.Dispatch("Wscript.Shell")

which uses the Wscript.Shell.CreateShortcut code (see, for example, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/admin-development/create-desktop-shortcut-with-wsh). The documentation is sort of scant. ;)

I don't see an obvious way to use that Shortcut object to set properties of the Shell, such as background color. It seems that there are a few (or "many") properties that can be set from the Properties dialog after the Shortcut is created that are not clearly exposed when creating them programmatically. If there is a sane way to set these properties when creating the shortcut, we could consider adding the option.

I am pretty sure that the Linux .desktop file does not support setting the color of the terminal either. It does support starting a terminal with command-line options, but that is not the same thing as running an app within a terminal. The "Terminal" option is only described as "run in a terminal"; there are no options to pass to that terminal. When the Windowing system sees that the Desktop file was selected, it decides (then) what the SHELL and TERM are (and attaches the application stdin, stdout, stderr to these). I think there is no way to know which of those will be used when a shortcut is created, and the Linux user might change those and expect the shortcuts to continue to work. Again, if those options are available (or for Darwin: a way for the Automator to tell the Terminal what colors to use), we could consider adding the option.

[UnitedMarsupials]

This is, what the AI just told me:

What IWshShortcut can do

• Read/write:
  • FullName
  • TargetPath
  • Arguments
  • Description
  • Hotkey
  • IconLocation
  • WindowStyle (1=normal, 3=maximized, 7=minimized)
  • WorkingDirectory
  • RelativePath (not always present)
• Save the shortcut via sc.Save

What it cannot do

• It does not expose console properties like font, screen buffer size, window size, foreground/background colors, QuickEdit, etc.
• Those are stored in the .lnk “console data block” (NT_CONSOLE_PROPS / NT_FE_CONSOLE_PROPS), which is only accessible through lower-level Shell COM interfaces (IShellLink/IShellLinkDataList) and custom binary structures—not via VBScript’s IWshShortcut.

If you're willing to switch to those "lower-level" interfaces, it may still be possible to fulfill my request...

[newville]

@UnitedMarsupials As at #62, it seems fairly likely that I am not understanding you.

I don't understand any part of "what AI told me". That is most likely because you deliberately decided to not say what you asked of it. Is that meant to be useful? You want us to change to a different COM interface? What interface, and how would we use that?

If I have to continually ask for clarification and not understand you, I am going to lose interest. I am losing interest, and I think you kind of need to show actual Python code that shows what you would want to see.

If it was clear how to control the color of consoles/terminals used in a shortcut, and that was easy to support, I'd say fine. It sounds to me like it is not, and I don't have high confidence that you are going to provide a working solution. Controlling the color is a low priority for me. If it is not easy to implement (hint: make a PR), then this is unlikely to happen.

[UnitedMarsupials]

That is most likely because you deliberately decided to not say what you asked of it. Is that meant to be useful?

I was continuing -- or trying to continue -- the conversation. You indicated, that the documentation for the short-creation is scarce, so I went on to ask the AI:

The original thing I wanted to do was to obtain the FULL LIST OF PROPERTIES of a shortcut. For example, if the specified command is to run in a terminal window, how would I set that window's font or back- and foreground colors?

And it told me, it is not possible using the IWshShortcut object... It then continued:

If you want the COM route from Python, here’s the shape of the solution (outline, not full code):

• Define GUIDs and interfaces with comtypes
• Create shell link, set Path/Args/WorkingDir
• Construct NT_CONSOLE_PROPS struct (ctypes) with desired attributes
• Add data block and save

Key identifiers you’ll need:

• CLSID_ShellLink: 00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046
• IID_IShellLinkW: 000214F9-0000-0000-C000-000000000046
• IID_IPersistFile: 0000010B-0000-0000-C000-000000000046
• IID_IShellLinkDataList: 45E2B4AE-B1C3-11D0-B92F-00A0C90312E1
• NT_CONSOLE_PROPS signature: 0xA0000002 (UTF-16 variant: 0xA0000004)

If you already knew this -- or don't really care, I'll shut up :-)

If it is not easy to implement (hint: make a PR), then this is unlikely to happen.

Unlikely to happen.

[newville]

@UnitedMarsupials

If you already knew this -- or don't really care, I'll shut up :-)

It's more like "I didn't already know this" and also sort of "I still don't really know this", because I truly do not understand what it is saying and how that could actually be applied to our case here of wanting to use Python to make desktop shortcuts.

It is exactly and only a practical question. I am unable to magically change the result of some web search or AI bot answer into code. If you know how to interpret that answer to do that, please consider making a PR.

It is not that I am unwilling to "switch to a lower-level interface", it is that I have no idea what that would be or how to do it.

[UnitedMarsupials]

It is not that I am unwilling to "switch to a lower-level interface", it is that I have no idea what that would be or how to do it.

Oh... With some of that COM (or is it Visual Basic or Powershell?) code already in there, I assumed, you have the expertise to do it -- because I certainly don't...

I guess, my request stays until someone offers the actual implementation...

That said, the existing COM-interface allows specifying the WorkingDirectory -- something you may want to add as a Windows-only feature.

[newville]

@UnitedMarsupials Yeah, I guess adding a WorkingDirectory is a reasonable thing to do. Again, PR welcome.
But, to be clear: I am not an expert on anything to do with Windows.