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PoshUI v1.5.0 — Ship Your Script as an App

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@Kanders-II Kanders-II released this 15 Oct 22:15
· 7 commits to main since this release
1.5.0
9027738

Two things in this release: PoshUI.exe can now be your app's launcher, so users start a PoshUI app from an
icon instead of a .ps1; and light/dark switching is live, which fixes cards that ignored a theme toggle
(#7).

Nothing breaks. Existing scripts run as they are. Without an app settings file, PoshUI.exe behaves
exactly as before.

🖱️ Double-Click to Start: the App Launcher

Until now, starting a PoshUI app meant running a .ps1 file. Double-clicking one opens Notepad, so authors
wrapped it in a .cmd file that flashed a console and showed the batch-file icon.

Now one command makes the app its own exe:

New-PoshUIApp -Config .\MyApp.app.json -Destination D:\Out\MyApp
MyApp\
  MyApp.exe          PoshUI.exe, copied byte for byte (still signed)
  MyApp.exe.config
  MyApp.app.json     which script, icon, admin, shortcuts
  MyApp.ps1

The settings file is all there is to configure:

{
  "Name": "My App",
  "Script": "MyApp.ps1",
  "RequireAdmin": true,
  "Icon": "assets\\myapp.ico",
  "LogDirectory": "logs",
  "Shortcuts": [
    { "Location": "Desktop",   "Name": "My App" },
    { "Location": "StartMenu", "Name": "My App", "Folder": "My Company" }
  ]
}

What the user gets when they double-click MyApp.exe or its shortcut:

  • One process. The script runs inside PoshUI, so there's no powershell.exe and no console window.
    Show-PoshUICanvas opens the window in the same process and returns results as before.
  • Your icon on the window, the taskbar and the shortcuts. A .ico or a square .png both work.
  • A UAC prompt only if needed. With "RequireAdmin": true the launcher relaunches itself elevated, and
    cancelling just exits.
  • Arguments pass through. MyApp.exe -Live runs MyApp.ps1 -Live.
  • Failures are visible. Script output goes to the app's log. If the script fails before its window
    appears, the user sees that output in a message box instead of nothing happening. The script's exit N
    becomes the exe's exit code, which installers and task schedulers can check.

Shortcuts

MyApp.exe --create-shortcuts               per-user Desktop and Start menu, as listed in the settings
MyApp.exe --create-shortcuts --all-users   for every user (run elevated, e.g. from an Intune or ConfigMgr install)
MyApp.exe --remove-shortcuts               remove them again

No re-signing per app

A signature covers a file's contents, not its name. New-PoshUIApp copies the signed PoshUI.exe unchanged,
so MyApp.exe is signed too, and building an app never needs a code-signing certificate.

If you want the icon inside the exe file itself (as Explorer shows it), -StampIcon writes it in, together
with the UAC shield for admin apps. That changes the exe, so pair it with -Sign.

Paths in the settings must stay inside the app folder. Rooted paths, UNC paths and .. are refused, because
the settings decide which script runs with the launcher's rights.

Guide: Staging & Delivery → Launching

🌗 Live Light / Dark Switching

The title-bar theme button, and the new Set-UICanvasTheme, now switch the whole app in place. Nothing
restarts, nothing typed is lost, and it's safe while work is running.

Set-UICanvasTheme Toggle      # or Light / Dark
Get-UICanvasTheme             # 'Light' or 'Dark'

For an app written in one palette, Set-UITheme -ColorMap gives each of its own colours a counterpart in the
other theme. Glows and gradients are included, and you don't need a second copy of the UI:

Set-UITheme -ColorMap @{ '#0A0E14' = '#8E939E'; '#22D3EE' = '#22356A' } -ColorMapMode Light

Glows are hidden in the mapped theme unless you add -KeepGlow.

🔧 Fixed

  • Cards didn't follow a theme toggle (#7). After you
    toggled light/dark from the title bar, Add-UICanvasCard kept its old background until you moved to another
    page and back. The card read the theme colour once, when the page was built. Every themed colour is now live:
    cards, text and inputs change at once on the open page, and pages built later use the current theme. The
    issue's own script was used to verify it. It uses Set-UITheme -Light @{ CardBackground = '#FFFFFF' } -Dark @{ CardBackground = '#2D2D30' }, and the card now alternates between exactly those colours on every toggle.
  • Themed tabs. Add-UICanvasTabs used to draw the stock light Windows tab control. Tabs now follow
    Set-UITheme.
  • Buttons inside a modal window run. A -Modal window shown with Show-UICanvasWindow blocked its own
    buttons, Close-UICanvasWindow included. They work now.
  • Leftover diagnostics config. PoshUI.exe.config no longer carries an unused trace-listener block from the
    old PoshWizard name.

📦 Versions

Component Version
PoshUI engine (PoshUI.exe) 1.5.0
PoshUI.Canvas 1.5.0 (requires engine 1.5.0 or later for the launcher and live theming)
PoshUI.Wizard / Dashboard / Workflow 1.3.1 (unchanged)

PoshUI.exe is Authenticode-signed. Check it with Get-AuthenticodeSignature .\bin\PoshUI.exe. App exes
made by New-PoshUIApp carry the same signature.

📋 Requirements

Requirement Version
Operating System Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
PowerShell Windows PowerShell 5.1
.NET Framework 4.8 (included with Windows 10/11)
Permissions User-level (admin only for apps that set RequireAdmin, or for --all-users shortcuts)

📖 Documentation

Full documentation: https://kanders-ii.github.io/PoshUI/

Made with ❤️ for the PowerShell Community

Documentation • GitHub • Report Issue

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