Posts Tagged ‘.NET sample’
Using Quest cmdlets from .NET. The complete walkthrough. Part 2
A pair of weeks ago I published a jocular application called ‘QAD in GUI’. Today I’m going to add a bit more controls to that app so as not to feel that I did something useless.
First of all, what does the end user expect? Not surprisingly, that something alike output in a command line console, but represented graphically. This is the first requirement saying that our output should be the same as from command line, but represented in the GUI. As output is usually an array of objects or strings, there might be used a list box, a combo box, a list view and similar controls providing textual information line by line.
Second, the detail view is necessary. The best control doing that is a property grid. Since we could have several results, it’s a good idea to store them in the memory and fill the property grid with a portion of data the user wants.
Of course, scripts in the file system should be supported as well as typed code. WinForms are also to be supported.
Moving to the end of requirements list, what’s about objects? Many of them have hierarchy below and this is also a matter of our interest. There are several controls that might help us, let’s a tree view to be our choice.
The code sample provided below is a typical example of using Windows.Forms so that it’s no need to explain more than done in the comments (however, you may ask for additional info if you need).
Imports System.Management.Automation Imports System.Management.Automation.Runspaces Public Partial Class MainForm Public Sub New() ' The Me.InitializeComponent call is required for Windows Forms designer support. Me.InitializeComponent() ' ' TODO : Add constructor code after InitializeComponents ' End Sub Sub Button1Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) runCommand End Sub Sub runCommand 'Our commandto run Dim strCode As String 'strCode = Me.textBox1.Text strCode = Me.richTextBox_Input.Text Me.statusStrip_Info.Text = "Running" 'Create runspace condiguration to add QAD snapin Dim conf As RunspaceConfiguration = RunspaceConfiguration.Create() Dim warning As PSSnapInException = Nothing Dim info As PSSnapInInfo info = conf.AddPSSnapIn("Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement", warning) 'A new runspace object Dim runspace As Runspace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(conf) runspace.Open 'A pipeline Dim pipeline As Pipeline = runspace.CreatePipeline(strCode) 'Collection for results Dim results As System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection(Of PSObject) ' Try 'Clean-Up Me.comboBox_Output.Items.Clear() Me.listBox_Output.Items.Clear() Me.listView_Output.Items.Clear() If (Me.listView_Output.Columns.Count = 0) Then Me.listView_Output.Columns.Add("Results") End If Me.treeView_Output.Nodes.Clear() Dim node As TreeNode = Me.treeView_Output.Nodes.Add("Results") Me.propertyGrid_Output.SelectedObject = Nothing 'Run pipeline results = pipeline.Invoke() 'If results are available 'obtain them and put to the combo box, the list box, 'the tree view, and the list view If (results.Count > 0) Then For Each psObj In results 'Add to the combo box Me.comboBox_Output.Items.Add(psObj) 'Add to the list box Me.listBox_Output.Items.Add(psObj) 'Add to the list view Dim newItem As ListViewItem = _ Me.listView_Output.Items.Add(psObj.ToString()) newItem.Tag = psObj 'Add to the tree view Dim newNode As TreeNode = _ Me.treeView_Output.Nodes(0).Nodes.Add(psObj.ToString()) newNode.Tag = psObj 'Add hierarchy if available For Each member In psObj.Members newNode.Nodes.Add(member.ToString()) Next Next End If Me.listView_Output.AutoResizeColumns(System.Windows.Forms.ColumnHeaderAutoResizeStyle.HeaderSize) node.Expand() 'Set the first item as text in the combo box If (Me.comboBox_Output.Items.Count > 0) Then Me.comboBox_Output.SelectedIndex = 0 End If 'Indicate that processing of results is finished Me.statusStrip_Info.Text = "Ready" Catch excp as Exception MessageBox.Show("Error:" & excp.Message) End Try End Sub Sub MainFormPaint(sender As Object, e As PaintEventArgs) Me.splitContainer_GUI.Height = Me.Height - 2 - Me.statusStrip_Info.Height Me.richTextBox_Input.Width = Me.Width - 100 End Sub Sub ComboBox_OutputSelectedIndexChanged(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Me.propertyGrid_Output.SelectedObject = Me.comboBox_Output.SelectedItem End Sub Sub ListBox_OutputSelectedIndexChanged(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Me.propertyGrid_Output.SelectedObject = Me.listBox_Output.SelectedItem End Sub Sub TreeView_OutputAfterSelect(sender As Object, e As TreeViewEventArgs) Me.propertyGrid_Output.SelectedObject = Me.treeView_Output.SelectedNode.Tag End Sub Sub ListView_OutputSelectedIndexChanged(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Try Me.propertyGrid_Output.SelectedObject = Me.listView_Output.SelectedItems(0).Tag Catch End Try End Sub End Class This sample is also available in the 'My Shared Files' box as 'QADinGUI'.
Using Quest cmdlets from .NET. The complete walkthrough
A question had been raised on the possibility of using cmdlet in the VB.NET GUI application. The example below demonstrates how to use cmdlets as .NET classes.
First of all, go to the page http://www.quest.com/powershell/activeroles-server.aspx and download the latest QAD cmdlets.
In case you don’t have an IDE where you are planning to test this example, go to the page http://icsharpcode.com/OpenSource/SD/Download/and download SharpDevelop 2 or 3. Alternatively, you might use Visual Studio Express available here http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/ or any professional edition.
Next, install all the downloaded. I’ll be demonstrating on the Windows 2003 SP2.
On opening an IDE, I’ll be using SharpDevelop 3.2 for this purpose, as do I do almost always, you need to create a solution.
Now, we need discover which libraries do we need to register. The following snippet of code, being run in, for example, PowerGUI ScriptEditor, helps us:
cls [System.Reflection.Assembly[]]$asmArray = [System.AppDomain]::CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies(); foreach($assembly in $asmArray) { if ($assembly.Location.Length -gt 0 -and ` $assembly.Location.Contains('Quest')) { Write-Host $assembly.Location } } The output recommends us to use the following libraries:C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Management Shell for AD\Quest.ActiveRoles.ArsPowerShellSnapIn.dll C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Management Shell for AD\Quest.ActiveRoles.ArsPowerShellSnapIn.DirectoryAccess.dll C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Management Shell for AD\Quest.ActiveRolesServer.Common.dllAlso we must add System.Management.Automation.Note: it's not common to use commandlets directly from their assemblies, so that for the purpose of simplicity we'll be using System.Management.Automation only. However, you might find it useful to browse these assemblies in the Object Browser in an IDE of your choice.After that, we need to add the two following using, I beg your pardon, Imports, statements:Imports System.Management.AutomationImports System.Management.Automation.RunspacesNext, let's add controls to our form: a textbox, a button and a propertygrid:Add to the Click event the following code:Sub Button1Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs)runCommandEnd SubAnd create the subroutine:Sub runCommand'Our commandto runDim strCode As StringstrCode = Me.textBox1.Text'Create runspace condiguration to add QAD snapinDim conf As RunspaceConfiguration =RunspaceConfiguration.Create()Dim warning As PSSnapInException = NothingDim info As PSSnapInInfoinfo = conf.AddPSSnapIn("Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement", warning)'A new runspace objectDim runspace As Runspace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(conf)runspace.Open'A pipelineDim pipeline As Pipeline = runspace.CreatePipeline(strCode)'Collection for resultsDim results As System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection(Of PSObject) 'Tryresults = pipeline.Invoke()Me.propertyGrid1.SelectedObject = results(0)Catch excp as ExceptionMessageBox.Show("Error:" & excp.Message)End TryEnd SubAt last, let's run the solution, type Powershell code and enjoy seeing results in the property grid control:Source code can be found here:and in My Shared Files at right (QADinGUI.zip). NB: This post is partly based on the guide: http://p2p.wrox.com/book-professional-windows-powershell-programming-isbn-978-0-470-17393-0-386/