Designing Interactive PowerShell Tools: Mastering GUI Development by Pearson

Course details

Still running your PowerShell scripts from the command line? A well-designed graphical interface makes your tools easier to use, for you and everyone you share them with. In this course, learn how to design and build graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for your PowerShell scripts. Explore your design options, then build real interfaces through hands-on projects. Create interactive menus, progress bars, and other visual elements that improve the user experience. Dig into advanced layouts, grouped controls, and tabs, then work with controls like TreeView, ListView, SplitContainer, and StatusStrip. Plus, get an introduction to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and XAML for building modern GUIs. By the end of this course, you'll be ready to build intuitive PowerShell tools, whether you're a sysadmin, developer, or IT pro.

Learning objectives
Choose between the various user interface options that PowerShell makes available.
Create GUI objects such as buttons, text boxes, and menus.
Build user interfaces that scale dynamically.
Develop full GUI applications.

Concepts

Introduction

PowerShell UI design - Introduction

User Interface Design Options

Learning objectives
The available choices
Why user interface design matters

Text-Based Interfaces

Learning objectives
Structured input and output
Creating interactive menus
Building progress bars
Basic formatting controls
Project Building a Software Installation Wizard

Introduction to Windows Forms

Learning objectives
Project A Simple Hello World Form
Objects and attributes
Form properties
Frequently used object properties

Basic Windows Forms Objects

Learning objectives
Labels and link labels
Text boxes and rich text boxes
Masked text boxes
Numeric up down controls
Listboxes
Combo boxes
DomainUpDown controls
Checkboxes
Radio buttons
Track bars
Data grid view
Message boxes
Picture boxes
Buttons
DateTimePicker controls
Tab index
Default buttons
Project - A simple calculator

Graphical User Interface (GUI) Layout Options

Learning objectives
Preventing dots per inch (DPI) scaling
Absolute vs. dynamic layouts
Grouping controls

Advanced GUI Layout Tools

Learning objectives
Progress bars
Tabs and subtabs
Creating menus
Project - Building a simple finance tracker

Mouse and Ink

Learning objectives
Building a simple graphical user interface (GUI)
Creating a basic drawing tool
Controlling the pen size
Adding menus
Adding color and Save As options
Adding undo capabilities
True inking and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

Other GUI Options

Learning objectives
TreeView and ListView
SplitContainer
StatusStrip
AfterSelect
ItemActivate
Project Building a File Explorer Alternative

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

Learning objectives
An introduction to XAML
Rows and columns
Basic WPF controls

Capstone Project - Building a Text Editor

Learning objectives
Creating a simple interface
Building the menus
Adding a shortcut menu
Creating a toolbar
Adding a zoom control
Working with documents and dialog boxes
Saving documents
Creating the About and Exit actions
Adding support for fonts
Changing font colors
Creating a highlighter
Changing font attributes
Building Find and Replace capabilities
Adding support for URLs

Conclusion

PowerShell UI design - Conclusion