How to make a textbox function in a form? - forms

Question

I have an application I am making with multiple text boxes and I am trying to clean it up by making a text box function. However the name parameter itself needs to return a variable name and I am just not quite sure how to do that. I tried giving the parameter the
[psvariable] type but that does not seem to be working.
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
[System.Windows.Forms.Application]::EnableVisualStyles()
$Form = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.Form
$Form.StartPosition = "CenterScreen"
$Form.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(415,838)
$Form.text = "Test Form"
$Form.TopMost = $false
$Form.MaximumSize = $Form.Size
$Form.MinimumSize = $Form.Size
function textBox {
[CmdletBinding()]
param (
[Parameter (Mandatory = $True)]
[psvariable]$name,
[Parameter (Mandatory = $True)]
[string]$ml,
[Parameter (Mandatory = $True)]
[int]$lx,
[Parameter (Mandatory = $True)]
[int]$ly,
[Parameter (Mandatory = $True)]
[string]$text
)
$name = New-Object system.Windows.Forms.TextBox
$name.multiline = $ml
$name.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(300,60)
$name.location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point($lx,$ly)
$name.Font = New-Object System.Drawing.Font('Microsoft Sans Serif',10)
$name.Text = $text
}
textBox -name '$source' -ml $True -lx 15 -ly 100 -text "test it"
$Form.controls.AddRange(#($source))
[void]$Form.ShowDialog()
exit

Answer 1

It's unclear why is the $name parameter there in your function to begin with, I don't see any use for it. The other problem is that your function is not returning anything and your function invocation is not capturing anything either.
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms, System.Drawing
[System.Windows.Forms.Application]::EnableVisualStyles()
# Form code here
function textBox {
[CmdletBinding()]
param (
[Parameter (Mandatory = $True)]
[bool] $ml,
[Parameter (Mandatory = $True)]
[int] $lx,
[Parameter (Mandatory = $True)]
[int] $ly,
[Parameter (Mandatory = $True)]
[string] $text
)
[Windows.Forms.TextBox]#{
Multiline = $ml
Size = [Drawing.Size]::new(300,60)
Location = [Drawing.Point]::new($lx, $ly)
Font = [Drawing.Font]::new('Microsoft Sans Serif', 10)
Text = $text
}
}
# Capture here
$txtBox = textBox -ml $True -lx 15 -ly 100 -text "test it"
$Form.Controls.AddRange(#($txtBox))
[void] $Form.ShowDialog()
To clarify further, the $Name Parameter was constraint to be a PSVariable:
[psvariable] $Name = $null
Hence when, in your function's body, you try to assign an instance different than a PSVariable:
$name = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
You would receive this error, which is basically telling you that PowerShell cannot convert an instance of TextBox to the constraint type:
Cannot convert the "System.Windows.Forms.TextBox, Text: " value of type "System.Windows.Forms.TextBox" to type "System.Management.Automation.PSVariable".