Work with terminals

Each project has its own terminal workspace in the centre of the window. Terminals are real shells, so anything you run in your usual terminal runs here too.

Open a terminal

• Click + in the tab bar, or press Ctrl+Shift+T, to open your default shell in the project folder.
• Click the arrow next to + to choose a different shell, an AI tool, an app folder (Open in folder), or your External terminal.

Dockmaster finds the shells installed on your system:

System	Shells
Windows	PowerShell 7, Windows PowerShell, Command Prompt, Git Bash, WSL (when a distribution is installed)
macOS, Linux	Your login shell, zsh, bash, fish

Pick the one new terminals use in Settings → Terminal → Default shell.

Manage tabs

• Drag a tab to reorder it. Double-click a tab to rename it.
• A tab shows your name for it, otherwise the title the program sets (Claude Code shows its current task), otherwise the shell name.
• A spinner means a program is working. A dot means new output, or that a program needs your attention.
• Close a tab with its ×, a middle-click or Ctrl+Shift+W. If a program is still running in the shell, Dockmaster asks before closing it.
• Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab move between tabs.

When a shell exits, its pane shows the exit code and a Restart button.

Split a tab

Press Ctrl+Shift+D, or click the split button in the tab bar, to open a second terminal beside the current one. It uses the same shell and folder. A tab holds up to four side-by-side panes.

• Drag a divider to resize the panes. Double-click it to make them equal.
• Alt+← and Alt+→ move between panes while a tab is split.

Find, copy and paste

• Ctrl+Shift+F opens Find. Enter jumps to the next match, Shift+Enter to the previous one, Escape closes it.
• On Windows and Linux, Ctrl+C copies when text is selected and otherwise interrupts the running program. Ctrl+Shift+C always copies.
• Ctrl+V pastes. Ctrl+Shift+V pastes text only. On macOS, use Cmd+C and Cmd+V.
• Right-click a terminal for Copy, Paste, Select all, Find, Clear, Split terminal and Close terminal.
• Drop files onto a terminal to type their paths. Ctrl+click (Cmd+click on macOS) opens a link in your browser.

After a restart

With Reopen terminal tabs turned on in Settings → Terminal (the default), Dockmaster saves your tabs when you quit. That includes splits, names, shells and folders, plus the recent output of each shell.

The next time you open the project, each shell starts fresh in the same folder, with its previous output shown above a Restored from the previous session line. Programs that were running don’t come back, so restart them yourself. Command tabs come back with a Run button.