### Installing EZOut You can install EZOut from the PowerShell Gallery. Simply: ~~~PowerShell Install-Module EZOut -Scope CurrentUser ~~~ ### Using EZOut as a GitHub Action: You can use EZOut as a GitHub Action to automatically build your formatting and types files on every checkin. ~~~yaml - name: Build Formatting and Types uses: StartAutomating/EZOut@master id: BuildEZOut ~~~ ### Understanding PowerShell Formatting Unlike many languages, PowerShell has a formatting engine built into the box. You can define one or more "Views" that will change how PowerShell will display an object. These views are stored in a .format.ps1xml file, and loaded in a module manifest with the setting 'FormatsToProcess:' This is an example of a minimal module with just a format file: ~~~PowerShell @{ ModuleVersion = 0.1 FormatsToProcess = 'My.Format.ps1xml' } ~~~ PowerShell formatting primarily supports three different types of views for any typename: * A Table View * A List View * A Custom View Table and List Views are fairly straightforward: You select some properties to display, and you get a table. Custom Views, as the name implies, are anything you'd like them to be. Custom views can also be defined as a control, which can be referenced in other custom views. You most likely see complex custom controls everyday: The most complex formatter built into PowerShell is the formatter for Help. Objects in PowerShell are formatted according to their .pstypenames property. If you're creating a normal .NET object, this property will be the inheritance hierarchy of the class. For instance: ~~~PowerShell # This will have three typenames: # System.Management.Automation.CmdletInfo, System.Management.Automation.CommandInfo, and System.Object # When you see the output of Get-Command, you're seeing the formatter for System.Management.CommandInfo Get-Command Get-Command | Select-Object -ExpandProperty PSTypenames ~~~ You can switch out the typenames of any given object by manipulating the typenames property ~~~PowerShell $helpCommand = Get-Command Get-Help # Get the command Get-Help $helpCommand.pstypenames.clear() # Clear it's typenames $helpCommand # When we echo it now, it will be unformatted. $helpCommand.pstypenames.add('System.Management.Automation.CommandInfo') # This adds the formatting back ~~~ You can also define a single typename when creating an object from a hashtable. As the typename in this example implies, you can have a valid typename in PowerShell that could never exist as a real type in .NET. ~~~PowerShell [PSCustomObject]@{PSTypeName='http://My/TypeName/IsNot/A/Valid/.NET#Typename';N=1} ~~~ ### Using EZOut #### Using EZOut to build your formatting: Switch to your module directory, then run: ~~~PowerShell Write-EZFormatFile | Set-Content .\MyModule.EzFormat.ps1 -Encoding UTF8 # Replace MyModule with the name of your module ~~~ This file will contain the scaffolding to write your formatters. Whenever you run this file, MyModule.format.ps1xml and MyModule.types.ps1xml will be regenerated. For a working example of this, check out EZOut's own [.ezformat.ps1](/EZOut.ezformat.ps1) file. We can declare formatters directly in the .ezformat.ps1 file, or within a /Formatting or /Views directory, in a file named .(format|view).(ps1|xml) In the examples below, we will be piping to Out-FormatData (to combine all of the formatting) and Add-FormatData (to register it in a temporary module). ##### Writing Table Views Table views are the most commonly used view in PowerShell, and the default of Write-FormatView ~~~PowerShell Write-FormatView -TypeName APerson -Property FirstName, LastName, Age | Out-FormatData | Add-FormatData [PSCustomObject]@{PSTypeName='APerson';FirstName='James';LastName='Brundage';Age=41} ~~~ We can specify a -Width for each column. Using a negative number will make the column right-aligned: ~~~PowerShell Write-FormatView -TypeName APerson -Property FirstName, LastName, Age -Width -20, 30, 5 | Out-FormatData | Add-FormatData [PSCustomObject]@{PSTypeName='APerson';FirstName='James';LastName='Brundage';Age=41} ~~~ We can also specify alignment using -AlignProperty, or use -FormatProperty to determine how a property is displayed, and even -HideHeader. ~~~PowerShell Write-FormatView -TypeName MenuItem -Property Name, Price -AlignProperty @{Name='Center';Price='Center'} -FormatProperty @{ Price = '{0:c}' } -Width 40, 40 -HideHeader | Out-FormatData | Add-FormatData [PSCustomObject]@{PSTypeName='MenuItem';Name='Coffee';Price=2.99} ~~~ We can define a -VirtualProperty, which will display as a column but does not really exist. Also, in most hosts, we can conditionally -ColorProperty or -ColorRow: ~~~PowerShell Write-FormatView -Property Number, IsEven, IsOdd -AutoSize -ColorRow { if ($_.N % 2) { "#ff0000"} else {"#0f0"} } -VirtualProperty @{ IsEven = { -not ($_.N % 2)} IsOdd = { ($_.N % 2) -as [bool] } } -AliasProperty @{ Number = 'N' } -TypeName N | Out-FormatData| Add-FormatData 1..5 | Foreach-Object { [PSCustomObject]@{PSTypeName='N';N=$_} } ~~~ #### Using EZOut Interactively As shown in the examples above, we can use EZOut to add formatting interactively, by piping to Add-FormatData. ~~~PowerShell Import-Module EZOut Write-FormatView -TypeName 'System.TimeZoneInfo' -Property Id, DisplayName -AlignProperty @{ ID = 'Right' DisplayName = 'Left' } -AutoSize | Out-FormatData | Push-FormatData Get-TimeZone ~~~ ### Creating Types with EZOut EZOut can also create types files. You can use [Write-TypeView](Write-TypeView.md) to write a segment of a types.ps1xml directly. You can also use [Import-TypeView](Import-TypeView.md) to import an entire directory tree into a types.ps1xml file. #### Advanced EZOut examples Due to EZOut being a build tool, we want to impact your runspace as little as possible. Therefore, advanced EZOut formatting examples have been moved into a new module: [Posh](https://github.com/StartAutomating/Posh)