Enabling the debug tap with only one ALT key?

[vefatica]

I've read these instructions for enabling the debug tap.

Enable debug features by adding "debugFeatures": true, to the global settings
Hold both the left and right alt keys, and open a new tab. What you should see is a tab with two panes in it, and the second one will have the "debug tap", showing all the input and output sent to the Terminal.

Two questions:

I have an old keyboard and RALT is key-mapped (registry) to RWIN. So I don't have two Alt keys. Do you think SendInput() will work in an EXE?

Are the instructions suggesting (for example, profile 1) the chord LAlt + RAlt + Ctrl + Shift + 1? (Whew!)

Thanks!

[zadjii-msft]

I'm not sure it actually works at all with keybindings - the easier way is to just use the dropdown. Though, if you don't have two alt keys, then I dunno what to say. Temporarily remap it back to right alt? The debug tap isn't really a robust scenario.

[vefatica]

Heehee! I tried SendInput() ... LMENU down, RMENU down ... sleep a while while I do the dropdown ... RMENU up, LMENU up.

Not only did that not work, but it left the system thinking an Alt key was down. I had to log out/in to fix that. I wonder if the key-map (RALT -> RWIN) is triggered when I use SendInput().

[vefatica]

The debug tap isn't really a robust scenario.

I'll say! It works once in a while (I'd guess 1 in 8 tries). But it usually just crashes windowsterminal.exe, leaving openconsole.exe (but usually not the shell) stranded. Can I supply more than this?

Faulting application name: windowsterminal.exe, version: 1.11.2108.30001, time stamp: 0x612d15d9
Faulting module name: Microsoft.Terminal.Control.dll, version: 1.11.2108.30001, time stamp: 0x612d1456
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000000000107fe

[DHowett]

I suspect you're hitting #11282, which we also just found 😄

[vefatica]

Sure does. Sorry I missed that.

[j4james]

@vefatica One way you can trigger the debug tap without a second Alt key is by using the on-screen keyboard. If you click on the AltGr key on that keyboard, it will temporarily lock it down as if it were pressed, and then you can press the Alt key on your physical keyboard (which will mean both of them are now pressed) while using the mouse to click the menu item for the profile you wish to launch.

[vefatica]

Thanks, @j4james. That actually worked the first three times, and then windowsterminal crashed the next three times. I had gotten around the difficulty by mapping RAlt to CapsLock. That was easy since CapsLock was aleady in my keymap with no action (i.e., disabled).