Productize the WPF, UWP Terminal Controls

[zadjii-msft]

This scenario tracks the remaining work to productize the UWP and WPF versions of the Terminal Control. These will allow 3rd-party developers to embed terminal instances in their applications. That way, external developers won't need to write their own terminals, they can just re-use the one we build in this repo.

Currently, the Windows Terminal uses the UWP version of the control. Similarly, Visual Studio embeds the WPF version.

Pre-Requisites

These tasks aren't immediately related, but will need to get done first to unblock this work

• [x] #5000 / #1256: I'm planning on tearing up the TermControl as a part of the window/content process model refactor. Undoubtably, this will affect the API boundary that will be exposed
• [x] #381: Before we ask anyone else to use us, we should probably be a better terminal emulator. The Alt buffer is an important part of that story.
• [ ] Should we perhaps also finish the VT implementation for the TerminalCore as well? Currently the Terminal Core only implements the VT sequences that ConPTY will emit. Hypothetically, someone might be using this in a scenario where conpty isn't on the other end.

Tasks

## Tasks
- [x] Introduce abstraction layer between TermControl and TerminalCore (aka Interactivity) #6842
- [ ] Tear out the `SearchBoxControl` from the `TermControl`, so it can be its own control
- [ ] Remove the SharedShadow thing in SearchBoxControl, noted in #12913
- [ ] Finalize API boundary - Where is the real line between `TermControl` / `ControlInteractivity` / `ControlCore`?
- [ ] Re-base the WPF control on the shared `TerminalContent`.
- [ ] Package as a nuget
- [ ] Deploy to some nuget feed somewhere?
- [ ] #4572
- [x] #3337
- [ ] #13408
- [ ] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/15404
- [ ] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/6967
- [ ] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/6996
- [ ] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/5094
- [ ] Pasting is super wacky. The control shouldn't ask the app to paste to it.
- [ ] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/1304
- [ ] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/14407
- [ ] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/13681
- [ ] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/16404

related

• Scenario: TerminalControl Interactivity Improvements #6106
• starting Terminal with wt no longer returns the main window handle of the resulting window #7084
  • This is the "reparent the terminal to another HWND thread"

[minecraftchest1]

This is something that I would like to see, especially if it was done in such a way that it could be ported to other frameworks such as avaloniaui.

[OculiViridi]

This is something that I would like to see, especially if it was done in such a way that it could be ported to other frameworks such as avaloniaui.

And maybe also in Uno Platform UI too! 😉

[OculiViridi]

@zadjii-msft Any progress about those Tasks?

[zadjii-msft]

Unfortunately nope. I think we originally slated this for late 2023, but alas, other internal priorities came in and bumped this. I think we fully intend to do this sometime Soon^TM.

[OculiViridi]

Soon ™️.

Love it! 😆

Anyway, I'm thinking about moving (at least for Now ™️) to a web-based terminal emulator like xterm.js (or others) and embed it within a WebView control. Maybe you can give me suggestions about this approach? Thanks!