PSGui

This PowerShell script creates a GUI for launching your custom PowerShell scripts. It was created through prompts given to ChatGPT-4.

Usage

Launch .\PSGui.ps1 from PowerShell, and it will load the configuration found in config.json.

This configuration file is used by the script to create the buttons for launching other pre-existing PowerShell scripts defined and created by the user.

Alternate configuration files can by loaded using the -jsonconfig parameter.

• For example: PSGui.ps1 -jsonconfig altconfig.json

A sample script file is included in the Scripts folder. This is included to show script launching functionality. The script simply lists the files found in C:\Windows\ using Get-ChildItem C:\Windows.

Configuration and Layout

Tabs, buttons, and settings are defined using a JSON file named config.json.

Each tab object contains its own array of button objects, and each button objects contains several key value pairs.

Current button settings used are:

• Content Label text displayed on the button
• ScriptPath Path to the PowerShell script to be executed
• ToolTip Tooltip text displayed when hovering over the button
• Group Group name the button belongs to, used to organize buttons within a tab

The organization of GUI elements is ordered by:

1. Tabs in the the order they're defined in the configuration file
2. Button Groups alphabetically by the Group values found within in each button
3. Buttons alphabetically by their Content values

If a button does not have a Group value assigned, it will default to a General Scripts group.

The script will also try to verify the path of each ScriptPath value for every button. If it cannot find the referenced file, the button will color will change to light red. If a red button is clicked, it will return a Windows message stating the file cannot be found along with the path is trying to verify.

config.json tree structure view

This is a tree view showing the general layout of the default configuration file.

This example has two tabs. The first tab contains three buttons organized into two groups. The second tab has buttons organized into two groups. Since Button 5 does not have a Group name value, it will automatically be placed into a group named General Scripts.

• Tabs
  • Tab 1 // Name of the tab in the GUI
    • Buttons
      • Button 1
        • Content: "Button 1" // Label text displayed on the button
        • ScriptPath: ".\Path\To\Your\Script1.ps1" // Path to the PowerShell script to be executed
        • ToolTip: "Description for Button 1" // Tooltip text displayed when hovering over the button
        • Group: "Group Name 1" // Group name the button belongs to, used to organize buttons within a tab
      • Button 2
        • Content: "Button 2"
        • ScriptPath: ".\Path\To\Your\Script2.ps1"
        • ToolTip: "Description for Button 2"
        • Group: "Group Name 1"
      • Button 3
        • Content: "Button 3"
        • ScriptPath: ".\Path\To\Your\Script3.ps1"
        • ToolTip: "Description for Button 3"
        • Group: "Group Name 2"
  • Tab 2
    • Buttons
      • Button 4
        • Content: "Button 4"
        • ScriptPath: ".\Path\To\Your\Script4.ps1"
        • ToolTip: "Description for Button 4"
        • Group: "Group Name 1"
      • Button 5
        • Content: "Button 5"
        • ScriptPath: ".\Path\To\Your\Script5.ps1"
        • ToolTip: "Description for Button 5"
        • Group: ""

Other Details

There previously were fields at the top of the window for "Username", "Password", and "Use Modern Auth". These did not do anything and were remnants from a much earlier version of the script. These variables for these have been commented out of the script and the XAML settings to create these buttons has been moved just below the XAML area and commented out. They are kept there in case someone wants to add those fields back to the GUI for customization.