EZOut | Write a Format View

Write a Format View

Creates a format XML that will be used to display a type. Format XML is used by Windows PowerShell to determine how objects are displayed. Most items in PowerShell that come from built-in cmdlets make use of formatters in some way or another. Write-FormatView simplifies the creation of formatting for a type.

You can format information in three major ways in PowerShell:

- As a table 
- As a list 
- As a custom action

Write-FormatView supports displaying information in any of these ways. This display will be applied to any information that would be displayed to the user (or piped into an Out- cmdlet) that has the typename you specify. A typename can be anything you like, and it can be set in a short piece of PowerShell script:

$object.psObject.Typenames.Clear() 
$null = $object.psObject.TypeNames.Add("MyTypeName").

Since it is so simple to change the type names, it's equally simple to make your own way to display data, and to write functions that leverage the formatting system in PowerShell to help you write the information. This can streamline your use of PowerShell, and open up many new possibilities.

Type Name
One or more type names.

Property
One or more properties to include in the default type view.

Group By Property
If this is set, then the view will be grouped by a property

Wrap
If wrap is set, then items in the table can span multiple lines

Group Label
If this is set, then the view will be labeled with the value of this parameter. If this is not present and -GroupView is not present, the result of the script or property name will be used for the label

Group By Script
If this is set, then the view will be grouped by the result of a script block

Is Selection Set
If set, it will treat the type name as a selection set (a set of predefined types)

Auto Size
If set, the table will be autosized.

As List
If set, then the content will be rendered as a list

Indent
The indentation depth of the custom control

Action
The script block used to fill in the contents of a custom control. The script block can either be an arbitrary script, which will be run, or it can include a number of speicalized commands that will translate into parts of the formatter.