Shortcut

Simple Shortcuts with PowerShell

Shortcuts can be handy.

They let us launch things at the click of a button.

This can be extra handy for people who are allergic to terminals.

Shortcut is a simple module to create shortcuts with scripts.

It can create:

• Windows shortcuts (.lnk and .url files)
• Linux .desktop shortcuts
• HTML shortcuts <a>

Installing and Importing

You can install Shortcut from the PowerShell gallery

Install-Module Shortcut -Scope CurrentUser -Force

Once installed, you can import the module with:

Import-Module Shortcut -PassThru

You can also clone the repo and import the module locally:

git clone https://github.com/StartAutomating/Shortcut
cd ./Shortcut
Import-Module ./ -PassThru

Functions

Shortcut has 1 function

Get-Shortcut

Simple Shortcut

Simple Shortcuts with PowerShell

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
ShortcutFile	String	The name of the shortcut file.
Url	Uri	The shortcut url
PowerShell	PSObject	Any PowerShell to run. This must be either a ScriptBlock or a .ps1 path If it is a ScriptBlock, a file will be created in the same location as the link.
Content	Object[]	The content of a simple url shortcut. If only a -Url or a -Url and -Content and provided, will create an HTML shortcut <a href>
Description	String	A description of the shortcut. This is ignored for .url shortcut files.
TargetPath	String	The target path of the link.
HotKey	String	The hotkey. This is theoretically supported by the shortcut object but may be ignored by explorer.
IconLocation	String	The icon location The path containing an icon, followed by the index in that path.
WorkingDirectory	String	The working directory
WindowStyle	Int32	The window style.
Fullscreen	SwitchParameter	If set, will make a fullscreen shortcut. Ignored for url shortcuts This is equivalent to using -WindowStyle 3
Arguments	String[]	Any arguments to the application
ShowLogo	SwitchParameter	If set, will show the PowerShell logo This is ignored if -PowerShell is not passed
AutoExit	SwitchParameter	If set, will automatically exit upon completion This is ignored if -PowerShell is not passed.
DesktopEntry	IDictionary	Any Desktop Entry settings Settings provided by other parameters will be automatically mapped (where possible)

Examples

Example 1

Create a .url shortcut (Windows Only)

Shortcut ./psturtle.com.url "https://psturtle.com"

Example 2

Create a .lnk shortcut (Windows Only)

Shortcut ./pwsh.lnk -TargetPath pwsh

Example 3

Create a .lnk shortcut to PowerShell

Shortcut ./pwsh-fullscreen.lnk -TargetPath pwsh -Fullscreen

Example 4

Create a .lnk shortcut to a PowerShell script.

Shortcut ./pwsh-hello-world.lnk -PowerShell { "hello world" }

Example 5

Create a .desktop shortcut to a PowerShell script

Shortcut ./pwsh.desktop -TargetPath /usr/bin/pwsh