Creating shortcut to console application in NSIS with particular font - nsis

Question

I have an NSIS script which can create a shortcut to an application with CreateShortCut.
The application that the shortcut points to is a console application, but one which works much better if there is something other than the default font chosen. Of course, the user can be told to follow instructions like https://www.isunshare.com/windows-10/change-font-and-font-size-in-windows-10-command-prompt.html to change to a different font on the shortcut, but my quetsion is whether that can be automated in NSIS? That is, check if a particular font is available and then have the shortcut start a console with that font.
If that is impossible in NSIS for a particular shortcut, is there a way to give users the option to have a system-wide change to the font used in all terminals?

Answer 1

The CreateShortcut instruction only supports basic shortcut properties, it does not support console properties set by IShellLinkDataList.
Setting the NT_CONSOLE_PROPS data has two issues:
It is all or nothing, you have to set the size, color and edit options in addition to the font.
Ideally you should provide the "index of the font in the system's console font table" but that index is not really documented and I don't know how to map from a font name to the index.
If you still want to do it then you must use the System plug-in:
!include LogicLib.nsh
!include Win\COM.nsh ; NSIS v3
!define /ifndef LF_FACESIZE 32
!define /ifndef NT_CONSOLE_PROPS_SIG 0xA0000002
Section
StrCpy $R1 "$Desktop\MyApp.lnk" ; .Lnk path
StrCpy $R3 "Consolas" ; Font name
StrCpy $R5 i0x36 ; tmPitchAndFamily?
StrCpy $R6 400 ; "The weight can range from 100 to 1000, in multiples of 100. For example, the normal weight is 400, while 700 is bold"
StrCpy $R7 0xc0000 ; dwFontSize packed COORD
StrCpy $R8 0x200060 ; dwWindowSize packed COORD
System::Call '*(&l4,i${NT_CONSOLE_PROPS_SIG}, i0xf50007,i0x3e70050,i$R8,i0x0,i0x0,i0x0,i$R7,i$R5,i$R6, &w${LF_FACESIZE}"$R3", i0x19,i0x0,i0x1,i0x1,i0x1,i0x32,i0x4,i0x1,i0x0,i0x800000,i0x8000,i0x808000,i0x80,i0x800080,i0x8080,i0xc0c0c0,i0x808080,i0xff0000,i0xff00,i0xffff00,i0xff,i0xff00ff,i0xffff,i0xffffff)p.R2'
!insertmacro ComHlpr_CreateInProcInstance ${CLSID_ShellLink} ${IID_IShellLink} r0 ""
${If} $0 P<> 0
${IShellLink::SetPath} $0 '("%COMSPEC%").r1'
${IShellLink::SetArguments} $0 '("/k echo HelloWorld").r2'
${If} $1 = 0
${AndIf} $2 = 0
${IUnknown::QueryInterface} $0 '("${IID_IShellLinkDataList}",.r1)'
${If} $1 P<> 0
${IShellLinkDataList::AddDataBlock} $1 '(pR2).r2'
${IUnknown::Release} $1 ""
${EndIf}
${IUnknown::QueryInterface} $0 '("${IID_IPersistFile}",.r1)'
${If} $1 P<> 0
${IPersistFile::Save} $1 '("$R1",1).r2'
${IUnknown::Release} $1 ""
${EndIf}
${EndIf}
${IUnknown::Release} $0 ""
${EndIf}
System::Free $R2 ; Free NT_CONSOLE_PROPS
SectionEnd