Installing the command-line executable

Assuming you have Rust/Cargo installed, run this command in a terminal:

cargo install dcmd

It will make the dcmd command available in your PATH if you've allowed the PATH to be modified when installing Rust. cargo uninstall dcmd uninstalls.

Back to the crate overview.

Readme

dcmd

A Windows console & window management CLI. dcmd is a from-scratch Rust port of a long-standing Python utility of the same name: it resizes and repositions the console window, pins arbitrary windows always-on-top, hides/shows/minimizes/maximizes/restores windows by name or PID, changes the console font, and inspects/resizes the console screen buffer — all through direct Win32 API calls (no shelling out to mode.com or PowerShell).

Platform: Windows only. dcmd talks directly to user32.dll/kernel32.dll via the windows crate. The crate still builds on other platforms (handy for docs.rs and Linux/macOS contributors), but every command exits with an error there.

Install

From crates.io

cargo install dcmd

From a release binary

Grab the latest .zip for your architecture from the Releases page and put dcmd.exe somewhere on your PATH.

From source

git clone https://github.com/cumulus13/dcmd-rs
cd dcmd-rs
cargo build --release
# binary at target/release/dcmd.exe

Usage

dcmd [OPTIONS]

Sizing / positioning
  -W, --width <PIXELS>            Set console window width
  -H, --height <PIXELS>           Set console window height
  -x, --xpos <N|left|right|center> X position
  -y, --ypos <N|top|bottom|center> Y position
  -c, --center                    Center the window (overrides -x/-y)
      --get-current-size, -gs     Print this console window's size/position
      --get-screensize, -gS       Print the primary screen resolution

Screen buffer
      --get-buffer, -gb           Print current console screen buffer info
      --buffer-row, -br <N>       Set screen buffer rows
      --buffer-column, -bc <N>    Set screen buffer columns

Font
  -f, --font <NAME>               Console font name        [default: Consolas]
      --font-size, -fs <N>        Console font size          [default: 13]
      --font-bold, -fb <N>        Console font weight         [default: 400]

Window listing
  -l, --list-window               List named/titled windows
      --list-all-window, -la      List every top-level window
      --list-window-hide, -lh     List currently hidden windows

Always-on-top
  -t, --always-top <NAME>         Pin a window (by title) always-on-top
      --not-always-top, -nt <NAME> Unpin a window from always-on-top
  -T, --always-top-this           Pin *this* console window always-on-top
      --not-always-top-this, -nT  Unpin *this* console window

Bulk window actions (accept one or more NAME/PID tokens)
      --hide, -hd [NAME|PID ...]  Hide matching window(s)
  -s, --show, -sw [NAME|PID|all ...] Show matching window(s) ("all" = every hidden one)
  -M, --maximize [NAME|PID ...]   Maximize matching window(s)
  -m, --minimize [NAME|PID ...]   Minimize matching window(s)
  -r, --restore [NAME|PID ...]    Restore & focus matching window(s)

Misc
  -F, --find <NAME|PID>           Find a process by name or PID
      --wait <SECONDS>            Sleep before executing
  -d, --debug                     Verbose logging
  -h, --help                      Print help
  -V, --version                   Print version

About the two/three-letter short flags (-gb, -bc, -br, -fs, -fb, -lh, -la, -nt, -nT, -gS, -gs, -hd, -sw): these mirror the original Python argparse tool's flag set, but clap (the CLI parser dcmd uses) only supports single-character short flags — it has no native concept of a multi-letter, single-dash flag. dcmd restores them via a small pre-parse rewrite step (src/shortflags.rs) that expands each alias to its --long form before clap ever sees argv, so dcmd -bc 200 and dcmd --buffer-column 200 are exactly equivalent. -gS and -gs are deliberately case-sensitive and distinct, same as the original.

Examples

# Move this console to the top-right corner, 900x500
dcmd -W 900 -H 500 -x right -y top

# Center this console window
dcmd -c

# Pin Notepad always-on-top
dcmd -t notepad

# Hide every window whose title contains "Slack"
dcmd --hide slack

# Show every hidden window
dcmd -s all

# List all visible, titled windows
dcmd -l

# Bump the console font
dcmd -f "Cascadia Mono" --font-size 16

# Resize the screen buffer to 200 columns x 3000 rows
dcmd --buffer-column 200 --buffer-row 3000

When a name/PID filter matches more than one window, dcmd prints a numbered list and prompts for a selection (or all for bulk actions), same as the original Python tool.

Design notes

Backend: windows crate — the official, metadata-generated Win32 bindings (no hand-rolled FFI, no winapi).
Process enumeration: sysinfo, used only for falling back to a process name when a window has no title and for --find.
CLI parsing: clap (derive API).
Errors: typed via thiserror, surfaced through anyhow at the top level.
Modules:
- src/win/console.rs — screen buffer, console window rect, font (SetConsoleWindowInfo, SetConsoleScreenBufferSize, SetCurrentConsoleFontEx, GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo).
- src/win/window.rs — window enumeration & manipulation (EnumWindows, MoveWindow, SetWindowPos, ShowWindow).
- src/win/process.rs — process listing/filtering.
- src/win/manager.rs — CLI-to-Win32 orchestration (selection prompts, filter resolution).
- src/shortflags.rs — expands two/three-letter short aliases (-bc, -gs, ...) to their --long form before clap parses argv.

Development

cargo fmt
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
cargo test
cargo build --release

CI runs fmt, clippy, and a build+test matrix (x86_64/i686 MSVC) on every push/PR via .github/workflows/ci.yml.

Releasing

Pushing a tag matching v*.*.* (e.g. v0.1.0) triggers .github/workflows/release.yml, which:

Builds release binaries for x86_64, i686, and aarch64 Windows (MSVC).
Zips each binary with README.md/LICENSE and attaches it to a GitHub Release (auto-generated notes).
Publishes the crate to crates.io using the CARGO_REGISTRY_TOKEN repository secret.

Bump version in Cargo.toml to match the tag before tagging — the publish job fails fast if they disagree.

License

👤 Author

Hadi Cahyadi

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