PowerShellPlus 3.1 Beta Available!

Test drive PowerShellPlus 3.1 Beta Now!

We just released PowerShellPlus 3.1 Beta, and you can download and test drive this new version of our award-winning PowerShell environment now! All you need to do is leave your email address, and we'll provide you with the download link and a key that runs until the end of Jan 2010. Before you download, check out what the new release can do for you!

PowerShellPlus builds on top of PowerShell and offers you rich code-completion, a learning center with PowerShell V2 support, QuickClick solutions and tons of features that help you understand, leverage and discover the full potential of PowerShell. So if you want to learn PowerShell or create PowerShell solutions quickly, check out what PowerShellPlus can do for you!

Tip: Get PowerShell V2 First!

Microsoft has just released PowerShell V2 for all windows operating systems like Windows XP and up. Simply grab the correct update package here and install it! PowerShellPlus runs with both PowerShell V1 and V2 but of course PowerShell V2 has a lot more features including remoting (ability to run commands on other machines). When you upgrade to PowerShell V2, make sure you give PowerShellPlus a chance to pick up the changes by refreshing its cache. To do that, when you launch PowerShellPlus, hold SHIFT while the splash screen is visible. This brings you to the launch options. In this dialog, check Delete all cached data.

Interactive Console

PowerShellPlus is the only application with a true hybrid console. It embeds a true console inside a windows application and thus can offer you extensive code completion help. Simply enter a cmdlet name, and once you press "-", you get code completion. The same is true for parameters, so the automatic code completion generally triggers on "-". In addition, there is a lot more to discover, for example value code completion. Try this:

"Hello" | Out-File $home\test.txt -Encoding

Enter a space after the "Encoding" parameter and press TAB. This will get you a list of all values allowable for this parameter. Or, if you'd like to get a different console background color, try this:

$host.ui.rawui.BackgroundColor =

Again, press TAB to see your options.

Code completion works for .NET as well. To enter the .NET namespace, try this:

[System.

"." is another code completion trigger key and helps you find your way into .NET. Once you found an interesting class, again code completion helps:

[System.Net.DNS]::

Press TAB to see all static methods found in this class. To resolve a host, here is the complete line:

[System.Net.DNS]::GetHostByName("microsoft.com")

The same works for simple types:

"Hello".

(12.5).

There are more features:

• Code completion in the middle of a line will not discard the rest of the line
• CTRL+N copies the current line to the clip board
• Press ALT+SPACE to hide all tools and get a basic console
• Press ALT+M to enter the transparent minimode
• Press CTRL+T to see the variable monitor. When you click the black console icon in the variable monitor, you turn it into a pipeline monitor, showing you the resulting objects of your last command
• Press CTRL+H to see the history log. Right-click a history entry or select multiple ones to copy them right into the editor
• Press CTRL+I to open the QuickClick Library Panel with one-click solutions
• Press SHIFT+ENTER to run a command in the old cmd.exe. Try this: Dir SHIFT+ENTER
• Support for shortcuts. For example, enter fe TAB in the console to insert a foreach-object phrase, or enter wh TAB to get a where-object phrase. These shortcuts are fully configurable, and you can add as many as you need
• AutoWidth: Right-click into the console to open a context menu and choose Adjust width to make the console width match the visible width. If you have enabled QuickEdit, hold SHIFT while right-clicking
• CTRL+L will clear the console content

By the way, this is what the "minimode" style looks like (CTRL+M):

Learning Center

Our new learning center is a comprehensive one-stop source for all PowerShell related questions. You find a section about PowerShellPlus, you also get the entire e-book content "Mastering PowerShell" with 20 chapters and 600 pages, giving you a quick start into PowerShell. You can browse through reference sections like "Cmdlet Reference" and "Module Reference". All examples are clickable hyperlinks, and when you click on an example, it is automatically typed into the console for you. To see the table of contents, click on the "book" icon in the learning center icon bar.

Note that the learning center is highly dynamic and adjusts to your system. It shows all cmdlets, snapins and modules installed on your system, and it adapts to the language you are running. In the screen shot, you see help information for a cmdlet defined by a new PowerShell V2 module, and the language setting is "German".

Tip: One easy way of opening the learning center from your PowerShellPlus console is to enter a cmdlet name you are after, placing the cursor inside the command and pressing F1. This also works for operators and other stuff, so place your cursor over -gt to see which operators PowerShell supports.

Download Community Scripts

There have been plenty of enhancements to the editor (which you can open by double-clicking the console or by clicking on "Code Editor" beneath the console menu bar. To get going fast, search for existing script solutions by opening the download center. To do that, click the big red button on the upper left corner and then click Download Script.

Next, enter one or more keywords and select the public repositories you want to search. Once the search starts, you get a list of all community scripts tagged with your keyword. Select the ones you are interested in and click "Download". The download takes a second or two, and the scripts are automatically inserted as new tabs into the editor. Just make sure you close the modal Download dialog to get back to the editor.

The editor can also automatically correct many syntax errors. To enable this feature, choose "Options" in the lower right corner of the main editor menu (open it by clicking the big red button again). The options dialog opens. In the left section, click "Editor", then check "Automatically correct syntax editors".

Once enabled, the editor will autoinsert missing braces and other things. Note also that the editor has a really simple-to-use debugger. To debug a script, click the "bug" button. With the option Auto-Step and the slider beneath, you can make the debugger highlight each line as it is being executed. If you'd rather want to quickly jump to a breakpoint, insert breakpoints first (for example by pressing F9 or clicking in the left margin of a line), then uncheck "Auto-Step" and run your script. Finally, the editor supports multiple scripts so when you call a script from another one, the other script is automatically opened in the editor, and stepping continues to work in the second script as well.

Oh, and while we are at it, you can embed the interactive console right into the editor. Simply click the black console button with the green dot in the editor title bar. This way, you can script and view the results in one window.

QuickClick Solutions

To get going quickly, in the console simply press CTRL+I to open the QuickClick solutions. Double-click an entry to insert and execute the code. Hover over an item to see its source. Create your own quickclick libraries and share them (they are plain XML).

There are tons of other things to discover. PowerShellPlus is awesome, give it a try! We are eager to hear your feedback to make PowerShellPlus even better. Help us, and have fun learning PowerShell!

Cheers

Tobias