#44 : Display Inputbox with Powershell

Hi All,

Powershell does not support InputBox itself. We might have to do some effort to achieve it. I did some research and found two methods can be used :

Below is the complete demonstration:



DEPLOYMENT STEPS

This method is extremely flexible and requires little more effort. If you COPY+PASTE, there is not much effort, but while developing I did some more effort.

Let's have look into the code.

I have created a function CustomInputBox which will create all the GUI interface and will return the user input.

function CustomInputBox([string] $title, [string] $message, [string] $defaultText) 
 {
    [void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Drawing")
    [void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms") 

    $userForm = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Form
    $userForm.Text = "$title"
    $userForm.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(290,150)
    $userForm.StartPosition = "CenterScreen"
        $userForm.AutoSize = $False
        $userForm.MinimizeBox = $False
        $userForm.MaximizeBox = $False
        $userForm.SizeGripStyle= "Hide"
        $userForm.WindowState = "Normal"
        $userForm.FormBorderStyle="Fixed3D"
     
    $OKButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
    $OKButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(115,80)
    $OKButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(75,23)
    $OKButton.Text = "OK"
    $OKButton.Add_Click({$value=$objTextBox.Text;$userForm.Close()})
    $userForm.Controls.Add($OKButton)

    $CancelButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
    $CancelButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(195,80)
    $CancelButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(75,23)
    $CancelButton.Text = "Cancel"
    $CancelButton.Add_Click({$userForm.Close()})
    $userForm.Controls.Add($CancelButton)

    $userLabel = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label
    $userLabel.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(10,20)
    $userLabel.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(280,20)
    $userLabel.Text = "$message"
    $userForm.Controls.Add($userLabel) 

    $objTextBox = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
    $objTextBox.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(10,40)
    $objTextBox.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(260,20)
    $objTextBox.Text="$defaultText"
    $userForm.Controls.Add($objTextBox) 

    $userForm.Topmost = $True
    $userForm.Opacity = 0.91
        $userForm.ShowIcon = $False

    $userForm.Add_Shown({$userForm.Activate()})
    [void] $userForm.ShowDialog()

    $value=$objTextBox.Text 

    return $value

 }


$userInput = CustomInputBox "User Name" "Please enter your name." ""
 if ( $userInput -ne $null ) 
 {
  echo "Input was [$userInput]"
 }
 else
 {
  echo "User cancelled the form!"
}

CONCLUSION

You may try any of the merthod described above. I would suggest Method#2 is more flexible and you have much more scope to improve. But again, if users are used to have the same inputbox which was famous in previous years, Method#1 is for you.
Happy scripting !

#28 : Display Messagebox with Powershell

Sometimes we need to display a messagebox to user. Especially when user interaction is required and we want to warn user or inform that a process has completed or so. Powershell leverages all .NET features available to any .NET language such as C# or VB.NET. This gives a lot of freedom to developers and there are not console world and GUI world when you are programming with Powershell. Let's take a look how we can do it.

Below video is the complete demonstation:



Generating a Messagebox -

1. Load the Assembly

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms")

Output-

GAC Version Location
--- ------- --------
True v2.0.50727 C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\System.Windows.Forms\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\System.Windows.Forms.dll

Note: If you don't want the output, you can simple redirect to Out-nul. This will skip displaying assembly loading statement.
You can also cast is with [void] such as below:
[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms")


2. Display a simple Messagebox
[System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("We are proceeding with next step.")

Now, the messagebox appears something like this -



If you see above message, you will find Title is missing. Let's add a title also by adding below piece of code -
[System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("We are proceeding with next step." , "Status")



So, this was all about showing message with title. This was just OK message so, there is nothing to decide for user except pressing OK button.
Types of Messageboxes :
We have 6 types of Messageboxes in Powershell -

0:	OK
1:	OK Cancel
2:	Abort Retry Ignore
3:	Yes No Cancel
4:	Yes No
5:	Retry Cancel

Note: The number mentioned in left is the third parameter of Messagebox.

If you want to show Yes No, just add 4 as third parameter -

[System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("We are proceeding with next step." , "Status" , 4)
Now, this will display a Messagebox like this -



How to get values from Messagebox?
As you know, when you press any button, you need to get the result and work upon the decision -
$OUTPUT= [System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("We are proceeding with next step." , "Status" , 4)
if ($OUTPUT -eq "YES" )
{
..do something

}
else
{
..do something else
}

The value of button pressed is stored in $OUTPUT variable. This variable can then be used for your programming logic.

I have given just a primer how to use Messagebox class. But, if you want to go indepth of System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox class, you may look for the link below -

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.messageboxbuttons.aspx