Pasted text copied from an interactive terminal should retain colors

[daviwil]

• VSCode Version: VS Code Insiders from 2/17/17
• OS Version: Windows 10

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Copy text from an integrated terminal window which has colored output
2. Paste it into Outlook
3. Observe that the text is pasted without colorization

Now that copied text from an editor pane retains syntax highlighting when pasted into a rich editor, is it possible that we could get the same behavior for copying text from the integrated terminal? I'll understand if this isn't easy to accomplish, but I know that former users of PowerShell ISE will expect it since that editor provides this capability.

/cc @rebornix @Tyriar

[Tyriar]

Opening this up for PRs. @rebornix any tips/links to help someone implement this would be useful.

[rebornix]

It's all about setting a text/html entry to the clipboard along with text/plain. In Monaco, we bind a copy/paste handler to the textarea while in integrated terminal, we are relying on xterm.js to handle the copy and paste.

https://github.com/sourcelair/xterm.js/blob/3a6368ba6c8d5029e1b432f0e32845442d2f26d9/src/handlers/Clipboard.ts#L48 Here is where you can start to tweak.

[Tyriar]

@rebornix vscode intercepts copy/paste so the xterm.js stuff is skipped. See https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/76787cdff259873e24f38ec6e195095908037a82/src/vs/workbench/parts/terminal/electron-browser/terminalInstance.ts#L292

[rebornix]

@Tyriar we intercepts the key shortcuts but after running document.execCommand('copy');, the handler xterm.js binds to the dom finally gets the clipboard event. Remove this line https://github.com/sourcelair/xterm.js/blob/master/src/handlers/Clipboard.ts#L57 and you can paste content with colors correctly. The only thing that I don't know right now is why xterm.js handles the text content itself instead of delegating to browser.

[Tyriar]

Supporting this now would need hooks from upstream due to canvas.

[Tyriar]

xtermjs/xterm.js#1883

[LinoBarreca]

Any news about this? (or a workaround?) it's pretty annoying when you have to forward terminal output with colored build logs and you can't..
is there an extension that can do this?

[Tyriar]

Added help wanted as this is blocked on contributions to xterm.js in xtermjs/xterm.js#1883