Stacking Up with WPF

            March 14, 2024

        Stacking Up with WPF

            Let's continue looking at how to create simple Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) tools in PowerShell. This is a handy way to give users a graphical interface to run your scripts. WPF can be daunting as it is a complicated .NET developer topic. However, I have found that I can get by with a simple WPF form in many cases. It may not be the fanciest looking, but it is relatively easy to code. I want to show you how to create a stacked panel WPF form.

As I mentioned last time, WPF is based on the idea of layers. You need a base window to begin with.

$window = [System.Windows.Window]@{

    Title                 = 'WPF Window Demo'

    Height                = 350

    Width                 = 500

    WindowStartupLocation = 'CenterScreen'

}

Don't forget you need to load the required assemblies first.

if ($IsWindows -OR $PSEdition -eq 'desktop') {

    Try {

        Add-Type -AssemblyName PresentationFramework -ErrorAction Stop

        Add-Type -AssemblyName PresentationCore -ErrorAction Stop

    }

    Catch {

        #Failsafe error handling

        Throw $_

        Return

    }

} else {

    Write-Warning 'This requires Windows PowerShell or PowerShell Core on Windows.'

    #Bail out

    Return

}

Instead of adding controls to the window, we're going to add them to a stack panel.

$stack = New-Object System.Windows.Controls.StackPanel

Let's see how to use this stack panel to create a simple form we can display using PowerShell.

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Let's continue looking at how to create simple Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) tools in PowerShell. This is a handy way to give users a graphical interface to run your scripts. WPF can be daunting as it is a complicated .NET developer topic. However, I have found that I can get by with a simple WPF form in many cases. It may not be the fanciest looking, but it is relatively easy to code. I want to show you how to create a stacked panel WPF form.
As I mentioned last time, WPF is based on the idea of layers. You need a base window to begin with.
$window = [System.Windows.Window]@{
    Title                 = 'WPF Window Demo'
    Height                = 350
    Width                 = 500
    WindowStartupLocation = 'CenterScreen'
}

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Stacking Up with WPF