What is Wish?

If you have spent any time working on a UNIX based system like Mac and Linux then you have probably had the opportunity to work with a full featured terminal. These terminals provide syntax highlighting, tabs, advanced tab completion and endless customization options. Of course, if you open good old cmd.exe on windows, you'll see this:

Not a particularly compelling user experience. It doesn't have to be this way, and it shouldn't.

Wish aims to not just to compete with the user experience of Mac and Unix terminals, but to exceed it. The features are simple, but powerful. Take a look at the following screenshots:

Syntax highlighting:

Wish will offer fully customizable syntax highlighting with several default themes included. Both directories and files are presented in unique colors based on their type.

Tab completion:

Wish's tab completion is unique. It displays matches in a small popup, allowing you to cycle through the results by tabbing, or filter the results further by continuing to type. You'll be amazed how quickly you can navigate to directories with long names.

Tabs/Panes:

Another simple, but powerful feature. Use git bash or a Windows command prompt in one pane, and powershell in another. Few use cases involve using a single directory. With Wish, you'll have a pane (or tab) open to each directory you are working with currently.

Support for multiple command "engines" (powershell, cmd, git bash and the visual studio command prompt):

Use Wish's right-click menu to switch between different command engines. Or, use the corresponding key bindings to quickly change engines without skipping a beat.

Wish's Search Popups:

Wish offers several different search popups. These allow you to easily switch to recently used directories, execute recent commands or insert an argument you have used recently (you know you don't want to type out that long path again!).

Search recent directories:

Search recent commands:

Searching of recent arguments:

The prototype shown in the video demonstrates some of this, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Wish aims to offer all these features in a Windows command line interface that is fully customizable. There will be support for custom prompts, color schemes, fonts and more. 

What will the money be used for?

The funding is primarily for developer time, but will also be used to acquire the software licenses I need to build the application (Visual Studio, ReSharper, etc..) and I'd like to enlist a designer to design icons and a launch site.

How much will it cost?

No final price has been determined, but I'd like to keep it extremely reasonable so that individual developers and users can afford it without issue. As such, I've included a license for the application with any pledge greater than $10 and would expect the final price to be similar.

How do I know you will be able to deliver?

I've tried to create a prototype that will demonstrate the concept to an extent that you'll be convinced I can finish the job. I have been working professionally as a .NET/WPF developer for 5 years; first with Intel and now with Logos Bible software.

What does the name mean?

Wish is a play on the name of many common shell's which end with "sh", such as bash, ksh and zsh. Wish is short for WIndows SHell.

What if you raise more than you are asking for?

I have a ton of stretch goals for the application. I would love to make Wish highly customizable, there is already rudimentary support for custom color schemes in the prototype and I'd like to extend this, spell checking and auto-correct are also high on my list (I'm a zsh user when not on Windows) and there seems to be no shortage of ways I'd like to extend and improve upon Wish. Any additional funds will be used to make it all the more polished as a product.