[danthe1st]

In the preferences, users can enter a shell command in Terminal > Local Terminal. This command is used by default when running a local terminal.

Currently, this option only allows entering full paths to the executables. This PR changes that to also resolve executables from the PATH variable if present. When clicking the Apply button, the shell command is set to the absolute path of the executable.

Screencast_20261019_192005.webm

This was suggested in #2932.

I also updated the Javadocs of PREF_LOCAL_TERMINAL_DEFAULT_SHELL_UNIX and PREF_LOCAL_TERMINAL_DEFAULT_SHELL_UNIX_ARGS according to #2932 (comment).

This PR also comes with another minor change compared to the current version: Previously, the Shell Command field in the preference editor was not updated with the normalized path (removing spaces, replacing slashes to backslashes on Windows, etc). Users would only see those changes after reopening the preference dialog (or navigating to another section and then going back). With this PR, the field now does this when clicking on the Apply button.

Note: I only tested this on Linux.

[github-actions]

Test Results

    54 files  ±0      54 suites  ±0   37m 2s ⏱️ +39s
 4 909 tests ±0   4 887 ✅ ±0   22 💤 ±0  0 ❌ ±0 
12 618 runs  ±0  12 464 ✅ ±0  154 💤 ±0  0 ❌ ±0 

Results for commit 13f4e85. ± Comparison against base commit 67f278c.

♻️ This comment has been updated with latest results.

[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

Command resolution can override empty-input fallback behavior and substitute executables for invalid explicit paths.

2 open issues

• Empty PATH entry incorrectly saves executable as the shell · New
• PATH lookup resolves unresolved explicit paths to different executables · New

What changed in this PR

Adds PATH-based shell command resolution to the local terminal preferences.

Changes:

• Resolves shell commands during validation and saving.
• Updates the command field with the resolved path on Apply.
• Clarifies that the shell preferences apply across operating systems.

File	Description
terminal/​bundles/​org.eclipse.terminal.view.ui/​src/​org/​eclipse/​terminal/​view/​ui/​IPreferenceKeys.java	Clarifies cross-platform preference documentation.
terminal/​bundles/​org.eclipse.terminal.view.ui/​src/​org/​eclipse/​terminal/​view/​ui/​internal/​preferences/​PreferencePage.java	Adds executable resolution and refreshes the saved command field.

_{Review effort: Balanced}

[danthe1st]

I addressed the copilot suggestions.

[danthe1st]

@merks Would you like to review this (the pushes were just rebasing)?

[merks]

I've been noticing these changes earlier. It seems like a good/convenient idea to resolve paths from the PATH. In general I wonder if we shouldn't be careful to use getCanonicalPath somewhere, especially on Windows, so that the case is exactly as it is in the file system. Maybe that should be the case even if a full path is specified; maybe that's the case, I haven't looked at the whole file.

[merks]

Looks fine.