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Powershell ISE – Increase your productivity


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For some time now I have been thinking about extending ISE to increase my productivity. Those of you that do heavy “powershelling” are probably already living inside ISEsteriods which is a terrific and professional extension. For all others this might suit your needs or maybe you will find it lacking in some areas.




Why

On the top of my head? Why not. Microsoft has created a powerful environment for us which is free and lacking is some areas. Still with the update regime currently being the “defacto” standard there is no way they would satisfy the demanding needs you guys have. Secondly I was kind of curious if it could be done, and last but not least it was fun.


Disclaimer

Please bear in mind that this is a alpha version 0.1 release and I know there are some issues with it, however it works and demonstrates the capabilities you can implement with very little efforts. I have organized the extension as a module which is built by my build.ps1 script. If you clone the repro and want to make it available in your modulepath, you only need to copy the psm1 and psd1 files in to a folder.


How does it work?

All you have to do is import the AutocompleteISE module in Powershell ISE. When you import the module it will create 2 menu items in the Add-on menu and link those to two keyboard shortcuts:
  1. ALT+3 will toggle comment for the current selectin (multiline commenting/uncommenting)
  2. F2 – will toggle autocomplete events in the scriptpane for the active/current script. Currently you have to actively enable autocomplete for each script-tab. This might change and is not an limitation in ISE.
Please see the readme file on GIT for a listing of autocomplete features currently supported. The readme also include a link to a youtube video showing the features.


Where are the unit tests?

Currently they are in my head. As I have previously stated, I like coding and powershell. Time is a precious constraint and I have been unable to find the time to do them. 


Questions/issues

Look me up on twitter or file an issue on GIT and I will look into it. Also if you have suggestions or find a bug, be a good person and let me know.

Link to the repro: AutocompleteISE


Cheers

Tore

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