Creating WPF Powershell GUI

Creating a powershell GUI is really simple but it can be hard to find the right information. I started off using PoshGUI.com to create the GUI using winforms but that tool turned into a monthly paid subscription so I had to find an alternative. Also, the experience of using PoshGUI was good but not the best. The following code provides a template you can use to get started and then create your own GUI using WPF app in Visual Studio.

Step 1: Create powershell script for GUI

Create a powershell script file. Call it helloworld.gui.ps1 and add the following code snippet

Add-Type -AssemblyName PresentationFramework

[xml]$xaml = @"
<Window
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        Title="Hello GUI" Height="609.41" Width="394.383">

        <Grid Margin="0,0,4,-8">
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="49*"/>
            <RowDefinition/>
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <Label Content="Your name:" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="10,10,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top"/>
            <TextBox x:Name="txtYourName" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="23" Margin="130,14,0,0" Text="Bruce Willis" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="234"/>

            <Button x:Name="btnRun" Content="Cast Away" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="291,543,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="63" />
        </Grid>
</Window>
"@

#############################
# Map Controls
#############################

$reader=(New-Object System.Xml.XmlNodeReader $xaml)
$Window=[Windows.Markup.XamlReader]::Load( $reader )

$txtYourName = $Window.FindName("txtYourName")
$btnRun = $Window.FindName("btnRun")

#############################
# Hook Events
#############################
$btnRun.Add_Click({ RunCode })

##########################
# Functions
##########################
function RunCode()
{
    $powershellScriptPath = "`"" + $PSScriptRoot + "\helloworld.ps1`""

    $name = "`"" + $txtYourName.Text + "`""
    $argList = "-file $powershellScriptPath `
                -name $name `
                "

    Start-Process powershell -argumentlist $argList
}

##########################
## Display the UI
##########################

$Window.ShowDialog() | Out-Null

Step 2: Create .bat file to launch the powershell script with double click

Create a new file and call it helloWorld.gui.bat (make sure that this file name matches the previous file apart from the .bat extension)

@ECHO OFF
PowerShell.exe -NoProfile -Command "& {Start-Process PowerShell.exe -ArgumentList '-NoProfile -WindowStyle Hidden -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File ""%~dpn0.ps1""' -Verb RunAs}"

Step 3: Create a new powershell file which the gui will call to execute code

This is optional but sometimes you want the GUI to just collect information and call another powershell script to do some powerfull stuff. Name this file helloworld.ps1 and add the following code

param ( $name )

Write-Host "Hello $name"

PAUSE

Step 4: Test

Click the .bat file to boot up the GUI and have a play.

Step 4: Celebrate

This is just a template code and the possibilities are endless. You dont have to create step 3. You could just execute all the logic in the gui.ps1 file. However sometimes you may want to just execute poweshell script to do the final leg work and let the user see/handle the errors.