Explore Windows Terminal 1.15 Preview: Keyboard Mark Mode & Scroll Marks Explained

Microsoft announced the Windows Terminal 1.15 preview, adding several new features for power users.

Keyboard Mark Mode

Users can now enter a mark mode with Ctrl + Shift + M . In this mode, arrow keys move the cursor, Shift plus arrows selects text, Esc exits, and Ctrl + A selects all buffer content.

Additional options include:

markMode : toggle mark mode.

toggleBlockSelection : create block selections using only the keyboard.

switchSelectionEndpoint : move focus to the opposite selection mark.

Scroll Marks

Users can add scroll marks to the buffer, which can be navigated later. To display them on the scrollbar, enable experimental.showMarksOnScrollbar in the settings.

"experimental.autoMarkPrompts": true,
"experimental.showMarksOnScrollbar": true

Marks can be added via the iTerm2 OSC 1337 SetMark sequence or the addMark operation. If a selection exists, the mark is placed there; otherwise it appears on the cursor line.

The addMark operation accepts an optional color parameter to set the mark’s color. Other scroll‑mark actions include:

addMark : add a scroll mark (optionally colored).

scrollToMark : jump to a mark in a given direction ( first, previous, next, last).

clearMark : remove the mark at the current cursor or selection.

clearAllMarks : remove all scroll marks from the buffer.

Other Updates

The preview also fixes a PowerShell black‑background issue, adds support for DECPS escape sequences, and updates color scheme names (e.g., “magenta” and “brightMagenta” replace “purple” and “brightPurple”). Keyboard shortcuts for shell extensions have been added: “T” opens in Terminal, “P” opens a preview, and “D” opens in a new window.

Windows Terminal 1.15 can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store or GitHub ( https://github.com/microsoft/terminal ). Users on the stable channel can update to version 1.14, which includes all these improvements.