Powershell - Make a menu out of text file - powershell

Question

In my adventure trying to learn Powershell, I am working on an extension on a script I have made. The idea is to make script there by adding ".iso" files into a folder. It will use that content in a menu so that I later can use it to select an iso file for a WM in Hyper-V
This is my version of how it will get the content in the first place
Get-ChildItem -Path C:\iso/*.iso -Name > C:\iso/nummer-temp.txt
Add-Content -Path C:\iso/nummer.txt ""
Get-Content -Path C:\iso/nummer-temp.txt | Add-Content -Path C:\iso/nummer.txt
When this code is run it will send an output like what i want. But my question is how do I use this output in a menu?

Answer 1

This is the best practice way to do so in powershell :
#lets say your .txt files gets this list after running get-content
$my_isos = $('win7.iso','win8.iso','win10.iso')
$user_choice = $my_isos | Out-GridView -Title 'Select the ISO File you want' -PassThru
#waiting till you choose the item you want from the grid view
Write-Host "$user_choice is going to be the VM"
I wouldn't try to make it with System.windows.forms utilities as i mentioned in my comment, unless you want to present the form more "good looking".

Answer 2

If you don't want to go for a graphical menu, but rather a console menu, you could use this function below:
function Show-Menu {
Param(
[Parameter(Position=0, Mandatory=$True)]
[string[]]$MenuItems,
[string] $Title
)
$header = $null
if (![string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($Title)) {
$len = [math]::Max(($MenuItems | Measure-Object -Maximum -Property Length).Maximum, $Title.Length)
$header = '{0}{1}{2}' -f $Title, [Environment]::NewLine, ('-' * $len)
}
# possible choices: digits 1 to 9, characters A to Z
$choices = (49..57) + (65..90) | ForEach-Object { [char]$_ }
$i = 0
$items = ($MenuItems | ForEach-Object { '{0} {1}' -f $choices[$i++], $_ }) -join [Environment]::NewLine
# display the menu and return the chosen option
while ($true) {
cls
if ($header) { Write-Host $header -ForegroundColor Yellow }
Write-Host $items
Write-Host
$answer = (Read-Host -Prompt 'Please make your choice').ToUpper()
$index = $choices.IndexOf($answer[0])
if ($index -ge 0 -and $index -lt $MenuItems.Count) {
return $MenuItems[$index]
}
else {
Write-Warning "Invalid choice.. Please try again."
Start-Sleep -Seconds 2
}
}
}
Having that in place, you call it like:
# get a list if iso files (file names for the menu and full path names for later handling)
$isoFiles = Get-ChildItem -Path 'D:\IsoFiles' -Filter '*.iso' -File | Select-Object Name, FullName
$selected = Show-Menu -MenuItems $isoFiles.Name -Title 'Please select the ISO file to use'
# get the full path name for the chosen file from the $isoFiles array
$isoToUse = ($isoFiles | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $selected }).FullName
Write-Host "`r`nYou have selected file '$isoToUse'"
Example:
Please select the ISO file to use
---------------------------------
1 Win10.iso
2 Win7.iso
3 Win8.iso
Please make your choice: 3
You have selected file 'D:\IsoFiles\Win8.iso'