7 basics elements of a user interface for Powershell.

Sometimes it’s better to prepare user interface for Powershell scripts. In the post ‘3 scenarios when you should add GUI to Powershell script‘ I wrote when you should think about this. In this post, I want to show you more technical knowledge about basics GUI elements in Powershell. If you have never programmed, you can learn from this article about many types of GUI elements, which are similar in other programming languages. All programming languages have a different way to prepare graphical user interface, but parts are comparable. If you understand this in Powershell, I’m sure that you will understand it in other programming languages too. Before I started list GUI elements, I have to tell you that I’m not frontend developer so if you find some mistakes please let me know in comments.

Poshgui.com

I don’t like reinventing the wheel. I want to show you a great tool which helps you create GUI faster, and you will save time. You can find out this tool at PoshGUI.com. It allows you to prepare the graphical user interface in the drag-and-drop model. As a result, you will receive the Powershell code with this GUI.

17 user interface elements

Textbox

A textbox element is a place where you can write some text. It can be used for reading value for script parameter.

Button

I think that it’s clear 🙂 It’s nothing else like button which you can use to invoke some Powershell script or function.

Label

The label is an element which you can use for the labeling some parts of your user interface.

Checkbox

You can use the checkbox element to list some script option and check it before Powershell script run.

ListBox

Listbox stores several text items.

RadioButton

Radiobutton is similar to checkbox but it operates as a group and user can choose only one of the available options.

DataGridView

DataGridView allows you to view tabular data.

DEMO

Below you can check all code generated by PoshGUI and see how it works after run in Powershell console.

<# This form was created using POSHGUI.com  a free online gui designer for PowerShell
.NAME
    Untitled
#>
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
[System.Windows.Forms.Application]::EnableVisualStyles()
$Form                            = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.Form
$Form.ClientSize                 = '575,541'
$Form.text                       = "Form"
$Form.TopMost                    = $false
$TextBox1                        = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.TextBox
$TextBox1.multiline              = $false
$TextBox1.width                  = 100
$TextBox1.height                 = 20
$TextBox1.location               = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(11,47)
$TextBox1.Font                   = 'Microsoft Sans Serif,10'
$Button1                         = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.Button
$Button1.text                    = "button"
$Button1.width                   = 60
$Button1.height                  = 30
$Button1.location                = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(145,40)
$Button1.Font                    = 'Microsoft Sans Serif,10'
$Label1                          = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.Label
$Label1.text                     = "label"
$Label1.AutoSize                 = $true
$Label1.width                    = 25
$Label1.height                   = 10
$Label1.location                 = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(19,20)
$Label1.Font                     = 'Microsoft Sans Serif,10'
$CheckBox1                       = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.CheckBox
$CheckBox1.text                  = "checkBox"
$CheckBox1.AutoSize              = $false
$CheckBox1.width                 = 95
$CheckBox1.height                = 20
$CheckBox1.location              = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(8,90)
$CheckBox1.Font                  = 'Microsoft Sans Serif,10'
$CheckBox2                       = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.CheckBox
$CheckBox2.text                  = "checkBox"
$CheckBox2.AutoSize              = $false
$CheckBox2.width                 = 95
$CheckBox2.height                = 20
$CheckBox2.location              = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(6,124)
$CheckBox2.Font                  = 'Microsoft Sans Serif,10'
$ListBox1                        = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.ListBox
$ListBox1.text                   = "listBox"
$ListBox1.width                  = 176
$ListBox1.height                 = 83
@('Item1','Item2','Item3') | ForEach-Object {[void] $ListBox1.Items.Add($_)}
$ListBox1.location               = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(12,157)
$RadioButton1                    = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.RadioButton
$RadioButton1.text               = "radioButton"
$RadioButton1.AutoSize           = $true
$RadioButton1.width              = 104
$RadioButton1.height             = 20
$RadioButton1.location           = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(223,150)
$RadioButton1.Font               = 'Microsoft Sans Serif,10'
$RadioButton2                    = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.RadioButton
$RadioButton2.text               = "radioButton"
$RadioButton2.AutoSize           = $true
$RadioButton2.width              = 104
$RadioButton2.height             = 20
$RadioButton2.location           = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(225,190)
$RadioButton2.Font               = 'Microsoft Sans Serif,10'
$DataGridView1                   = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.DataGridView
$DataGridView1.width             = 300
$DataGridView1.height            = 250
$DataGridView1.location          = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(26,264)
$Form.controls.AddRange(@($TextBox1,$Button1,$Label1,$CheckBox1,$CheckBox2,$ListBox1,$RadioButton1,$RadioButton2,$DataGridView1))

Conclusion

As you can see, when you want to build your first graphical user interface for a Powershell script, you have to learn about elements which you can use. Next step is to use them together, send data from user interface to your Powershell script and send back from Powershell script to GUI.

Do you know more GUI elements which are also important to know?