Allow `newTabMenu`'s `matchProfile` to work with regex

[carlos-zamora]

Description of the new feature

Currently, matchProfile has 3 ways to get a match:

• profile name
• profile source
• commandline

Today, a profile automatically gets picked up by the matcher if it matches one of the 3 fields above. But it has to be an exact match!

It'd be useful if we could allow for regexes to make it easier to get a match.

(Bonus, somewhat related idea) I think it's worth replacing the text box with a dropdown in the UI too. Just let the user directly select a source from the ones already registered.

Proposed technical implementation details

No response

[carlos-zamora]

Bonus: we should move ICU from TerminalCore into til and use that for the regexes

[VishnuSrivatsava]

Hi @carlos-zamora
I’m interested in working on this feature. I have experience with C++ and performance optimization. Could you provide some guidance on where in the codebase the matching logic is currently implemented? Also, do you have any specific preferences for integrating ICU regex into til?
Looking forward to your input!

[carlos-zamora]

Hi @VishnuSrivatsava! Thanks for expressing your interest. 😊 Here's some notes that might be helpful for you:

• Looks like this is the function where a match is determined:

  terminal/src/cascadia/TerminalSettingsModel/MatchProfilesEntry.cpp

  Lines 45 to 74 in 13e7c93

  	bool MatchProfilesEntry::MatchesProfile(const Model::Profile& profile)
  	{
  	// We use an optional here instead of a simple bool directly, since there is no
  	// sensible default value for the desired semantics: the first property we want
  	// to match on should always be applied (so one would set "true" as a default),
  	// but if none of the properties are set, the default return value should be false
  	// since this entry type is expected to behave like a positive match/whitelist.
  	//
  	// The easiest way to deal with this neatly is to use an optional, then for any
  	// property to match we consider a null value to be "true", and for the return
  	// value of the function we consider the null value to be "false".
  	auto isMatching = std::optional<bool>{};
  	if (!_Name.empty())
  	{
  	isMatching = { isMatching.value_or(true) && _Name == profile.Name() };
  	}
  	if (!_Source.empty())
  	{
  	isMatching = { isMatching.value_or(true) && _Source == profile.Source() };
  	}
  	if (!_Commandline.empty())
  	{
  	isMatching = { isMatching.value_or(true) && _Commandline == profile.Commandline() };
  	}
  	return isMatching.value_or(false);
  	}

• ICU notes:
  • Introduced in PR Use ICU for text search #15858
  • Looks like all the ICU code is stored here: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/blob/main/src/buffer/out/UTextAdapter.h
    • with some tests stored here: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/blob/main/src/buffer/out/ut_textbuffer/UTextAdapterTests.cpp
  • til is our namespace for a bunch of useful tools/classes/etc.
    • implementation code stored here: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/tree/main/src/inc/til
    • tests stored here: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/tree/main/src/til

The idea here is basically to move the ICU code into TIL so that we can use it throughout the codebase. Once that's done, it should be pretty easy to update MatchProfilesEntry::MatchesProfile with regex matching.

(Bonus, somewhat related idea) I think it's worth replacing the text box with a dropdown in the UI too. Just let the user directly select a source from the ones already registered.

If this is of interest to you, here's a quick walkthrough of what needs to be done:

• NewTabmenu.xaml:
  • Currently, we use 3 text boxes in the match profiles UI:

    terminal/src/cascadia/TerminalSettingsEditor/NewTabMenu.xaml

    Lines 452 to 457 in 13e7c93

    	<TextBox x:Uid="NewTabMenu_AddMatchProfiles_Name"
    	Text="{x:Bind ViewModel.ProfileMatcherName, Mode=TwoWay}" />
    	<TextBox x:Uid="NewTabMenu_AddMatchProfiles_Source"
    	Text="{x:Bind ViewModel.ProfileMatcherSource, Mode=TwoWay}" />
    	<TextBox x:Uid="NewTabMenu_AddMatchProfiles_Commandline"
    	Text="{x:Bind ViewModel.ProfileMatcherCommandline, Mode=TwoWay}" />

  • The idea is to replace the second one (the one for "Source") with a dropdown. The options there would be auto-generated from all the profile sources we have available.
    • Thinking through this, we need a way to query the settings model for all the known sources. I'm working on that change right now as I'm currently working on adding in an Extensions page, which already required a lot of similar changes to the settings model. So, this part with the dropdown might not make sense to do just yet.

Hope this helps!

[VishnuSrivatsava]

That was helpful, thanks! Would you like me to work on integrating regex matching into MatchesProfile using ICU now, or should I wait until the ICU refactor in til is complete? Also, is there anything specific you’d like me to focus on? I’d love to contribute, and I recently completed my Microsoft OA—hoping this could be a great way to get started!

[carlos-zamora]

No need to wait. 😊 I say go ahead and add the regex matching into MatchesProfiles now. If you can handle moving over the ICU to til, great. If not, it's fine. That'll just be a task to do in the future.

As for other ways to contribute, the Help-Wanted tag and good first issue tag are probably a good place to start. Pick whatever looks interesting to you. I've mainly been working on settings UI/model things and accessibility lately so that's personally what I'm focusing on, but I bounce around to other parts of the repo too.

[VishnuSrivatsava]

Thanks! I’ll focus on adding regex matching for now. If I get time later, I’ll look into moving ICU to til as well.