{"id":11392,"date":"2016-03-21T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sapien.com\/blog\/?p=11392"},"modified":"2016-12-19T12:44:57","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T20:44:57","slug":"open-a-sapien-forum-from-powershell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.sapien.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/21\/open-a-sapien-forum-from-powershell\/","title":{"rendered":"Open a SAPIEN Forum from PowerShell"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE:\u00a0 Added a -Search parameter that searches all SAPIEN forums for the term that you specify and then opens the page with the results. Thanks to\u00a0Prasoon V. Karunan<\/a> for the contribution. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I love helping people learn Windows PowerShell and SAPIEN products. I answer questions on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit (love the \/r\/powershell<\/a> subreddit), Google+, Slack, email, in the line at Starbucks, etc.<\/p>\n

But, I’m also a scripter, and I know the value of automation and efficiency. So, rather than answer one question for one person, I’d rather answer each question for many people. And, to get the best answer, I’d like to gather answers from many people.<\/p>\n

That’s kind of efficiency requires a QA forum. SAPIEN hosts 19 different forums, including one for the trial version of our products, one for each product, and forums for different programming and scripting languages, including Windows PowerShell, VBScript, and “other languages.” They’re really handy. I often search the forums to find answers to my own questions.<\/p>\n

Start-SAPIENForum.ps1<\/h1>\n

I open the forums frequently enough that I wrote a little PowerShell script, Start-SAPIENForum.ps1<\/a>, that opens the specified forum in your default internet browser.<\/p>\n

\"clip_image002\"<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you don’t specify a value for the Name<\/b> parameter, you use the ListOnly<\/b> parameter, or the Name<\/b> parameter value is ambiguous, the script returns custom objects that represent the matching forums. The objects include the name, URL, and description of the forums.<\/p>\n

If you want to see the forum object, for example, to read the descriptions, use the ListOnly<\/strong> parameter.<\/p>\n

\"clip_image004\"<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Forum Hints<\/h1>\n

The forums are really valuable, but be sure to make the most of them.<\/p>\n