On Friday, January 20, 2017, I posted the following puzzle on Twitter and Facebook (and here!). It shows a Get-ChildItem command where the value of the Path parameter is $PSHome, the Windows PowerShell installation directory, and the value of the Include parameter is ‘*ps1xml.’ The command returns nothing — not a single file — even […]
Category: Windows PowerShell
Friday Puzzle: What does a Catch block catch?
On Friday, January 6, 2017, I posted the following puzzle on Twitter and Facebook (here, too!). It shows a Try block that encloses an expression with an intentional error and a Catch block that writes an error. But, when you run it, the error doesn’t appear as designed. The error is supposed to say ‘Cannot […]
SAPIEN Script Packager updates and new features.
The Script Packager in PrimalScript 2016 gets an update with the next service build (7.2.95). Since this service build changes the locations where your executable files are generated and some new options are available, we thought we’d let you know about these changes before they are actually released. Based on your feedback, the script engine […]
Setting up PowerShell on your Mac (Update!)
Now that PowerShell is available on the Mac, we thought it would be useful to show how easy it is to setup a Mac terminal session that automatically opens into PowerShell. Figure 1 shows what we mean. First you need to download the PowerShell macOS package from here (look for the Get PowerShell section in the README.md) and […]
HelpUri v. HelpInfoUri
Although the names are similar and often confused, these properties are different. If you confuse them, the help for your PowerShell commands and modules won’t work. The HelpUri property stores the URL (http or https) of online help for a command. It’s a property of commands (cmdlets, functions, workflows). When a user runs Get-Help -Online, […]
Writing Help for Dynamic Parameters
Because dynamic parameters can be added to a command from multiple sources, the command author (who writes the help) cannot predict the dynamic parameters that might be available at runtime. Therefore, Get-Help expects dynamic parameters to be documented in the help file for the code that adds the dynamic parameters; not the code that has […]
How Do Multi-Form Projects Work?
Applies to: PowerShell Studio 2016, Windows PowerShell 3.0+ I recently wrote an article with step-by-step instructions for creating a very simple multi-form PowerShell GUI application. In our sample app, we use PowerShell Studio features that make it very easy to open a child form from the main form and gets the text in the textbox […]
Write a Multi-Form PowerShell GUI App
Tested on: PowerShell 2.0+, PowerShell Studio 2016 This step-by-step example shows you how to create a very simple multi-form PowerShell GUI app. The app consists of a parent form that gets data from a child form and displays it. When you finish, you’ll know how to use the basic multi-form features of PowerShell Studio. For […]
Introducing the SAPIEN Information Center
Over the years, the articles in this blog have grown extensively. There’s a lot of valuable information in here, but it’s become hard to find because it’s mixed in with various tour announcements, special offers, conference recaps, and the like. So, we have decided to pull the important articles and place them—along with information relevant […]
PrimalScript 2016 service build adds CPU and memory performance graphs
The latest service build of PrimalScript 2016 (7.2.91) adds performance graphs for your scripts. To enable this feature you just need to make the “Performance” tab visible before you execute your script. Performance data can be collected on any script run from within PrimalScript as long as you enabled output redirection. That means this applies […]
