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Extending TCC and TCC-RT with Plugins

Plugins are user-written DLL's that allow developers to create new (or replacement):

  • Internal commands
  • Internal variables
  • Variable functions
  • Keystroke monitors
  • Tab completion functions
  • UNKNOWN_CMD, PRE_INPUT, PRE_EXEC, and POST_EXEC aliases

TCC will automatically load plugins at startup, and they will override existing internal names, so you can extend and/or replace commands and variables.

Plugins can also access the Take Command IPC interface to communicate with the controlling Take Command instance. That interface allows the plugin to do things like activate tab windows, detach them, change the font, start new tabs, change the File Explorer directory, etc.

Keystroke Plugins

You can also write keystroke plugins that will be called for every keystroke entered at the command line. A keystroke plugin can perform actions when a specific key is entered, or even change the key before passing it back to the command processor. Keystroke plugins are called after key aliases, and before TCC looks for the default action for that key.


TCC Plugin SDK

Plugins can be written in any language that can create a Windows DLL. The Plugin SDK (updated for version 30) includes all the files you need to develop plugins in C / C++ or Delphi. Documentation is in the ZIP file.

The SDK is available on our web site at https://jpsoft.com/downloads/sdk/sdk.zip.


Third-Party Plugins

The following command prompt plugins are not written or supported by JP Software; please contact the developers directly if you have any questions. They are provided by JP Software strictly on an as-is basis, without warranty of any kind. The plugin authors can be reached on the Plugins forum. (Please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have created a plugin and want to list it on this page.)

  • 4AUTOTRAY: Minimizes TCC automatically to the taskbar's notification area; does not work with TCMD. (Also provides the AUTOTRAY command).
  • 4CONSOLE: Console utilities for TCC.
  • 4CONSOLE64: x64 version of 4CONSOLE.
  • 4UTILS: Command processor/batch related utilities, including regular expression search/replace.
  • 4UTILS64: x64 version of 4UTILS.
  • ConSearch - adds a new, modeless popup dialog to search for text in the console's scrollback buffer. Options for case-insensitive, case-sensitive, and regexp searches.
  • EVENTUTILS: Internal commands and variable functions to create, wait for or signal a Windows event.
  • EVERYTHING: Locate files and folders instantly using the Everything search engine.
  • FEDUTILS: A collection of calendar, conversion, encryption, system, and string functions.
  • HISTWORD:: Insert words or lines from the history list into the current command line.
  • ISO8601: Extends Take Command's date-handling functions with new date formats; a larger date range, and more validity checking of input dates. Re-implements most date-related variable functions and adds several new ones, plus a few internal variables and commands.
  • POPINFO: This plugin provides a quick way to check a file’s properties while composing a command line. When you press a hotkey, a popup message box will display the file’s size, attributes, date and time stamps, and a few other bits of information.
  • QCAL: A stripped-down version of the ISO8601 plugin, containing only the QCAL command and a (very) few functions. QCAL displays a quick-and-dirty calendar to the console or to standard output.
  • SAFECHARS: Functions for reading and writing text which may contain characters having special meaning to TCC.
  • SAY:This plugin provides a quick and intuitive interface to the Windows text-to-speech feature. The plugin adds a single command SAY, which speaks the text on the command line, a text file, or pipe.
  • SYSUTILS: System related utilities, including registry, process, and window functions.
  • SYSUTILS64: x64 version of SYSUTILS.