Powershell GUI based on Forms + Panels - Flickers on Update - powershell

Question

Before we begin, let me aside: I am not THAT familiar with Powershell. I know more than a lot of people around me by virtue of experimentation in a VM environment and Googlefu, which is why this has landed on me.
Here's my problem. I've created a small Powershell GUI. I've built a form, and in that form I've embedded four panels. IndexPanel, ScreenSelectionPanel, OptionsPanel, and ThemePanel.
The form itself has an 'OK' and 'CANCEL' button.
Each Panel has either a NEXT, PREVIOUS or both buttons depending on placement.
ScreenSelect only has NEXT
Options has NEXT and PREVIOUS
Theme has PREVIOUS
Index floats off to the side in the same form, letting you jump around as there'll be more panels later.
I've gotten to the point where I can have the panels - all the same size - slide from one to the next via add_click call on the individually named buttons, with my panel function sending the argument called to all panels at once. If the argument is '1', for instance, SelectScreen calls method .show(), while the others call method .hide().
And for the first few clicks, it works great. My problem is that after three or four clicks back and forth, the app starts flickering. And then starts lagging. And then begins doing both. I suspect the problem is in the way paint is being handled, as all I'm calling is 'Refresh' or 'Update'.
Has anyone found a smooth way to swap from panel to panel in a single form in Powershell? Yes, I realize VB or even C would have been a better solution as I'm rather pushing what Powershell is supposed to handle, but neither of those are available to me via the nature of the project. It MUST be done in Powershell, with .NET support.
Example code, because my current is a mess of reminders and hashes for mistakes I've made in writing. I'll clean it all up once I jot down the roadblocks I've hit. I load all my variable at the top of the script so they're considered in scope for every function that calls them. It also helps me keep track of all the variables I've got, so don't be concerned by my lack of loading here. Also, I'm leaving out the definitions for the boxes, buttons, and so forth - I'll add it if it's important to the scope of the problem. Just to cut down on so much spam.
function GUIPanels {
function ScreenSelectPanel{
$objScreenSelectPanel.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(500,600)
$objScreenSelectPanel.BorderStyle = "FixedSingle"
$objScreenSelectPanel.AutoScroll = "True"
$objScreenSelectPanel.AutoSize = "True"
$objScreenSelectPanel.Width = 400
if ($Args[0] -eq 1) {$objScreenSelectPanel.Show()}
else {$objScreenSelectPanel.Hide()}
$SelectionPanelNEXTButton.Add_Click({
GUIPanels 2
$objMainForm.Update()
})
}
function OptionsPanel {
$objOptionsPanel.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(500,600)
$objOptionsPanel.BorderStyle = "FixedSingle"
$objOptionsPanel.AutoScroll = "True"
$objOptionsPanel.AutoSize = "True"
$objOptionsPanel.Width = 400
if ($Args[0] -eq 2) {$objOptionsPanel.Show()}
else {$objOptionsPanel.Hide()}
$OptionsPanelNEXTButton.Add_Click({
GUIPanels 3
$objMainForm.Update()
})
$OptionsPanelPREVIOUSButton.Add_Click({
GUIPanels 1
$objMainform.Update()
})
}
function ThemePanel {
$objThemePanel.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(500,600)
$objThemePanel.BorderStyle = "FixedSingle"
$objThemePanel.AutoScroll = "True"
$objThemePanel.AutoSize = "True"
$objThemePanel.Width = 400
if ($Args[0] -eq 3) {$objThemePanel.Show()}
else {$objThemePanel.Hide()}
$ThemePanelPREVIOUSButton.Add_Click({
GUIPanels 1
$objMainform.Update()
})
}
}
function GUIMainForm {
$objMainForm.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(680,700)
$objMainForm.AutoScroll = "True"
$objMainForm.KeyPreview = $True
#Location setups.
$objMainForm.StartPosition = "CenterScreen"
#Key captures. Adding in activity for button presses.
#Letting panels handle the ENTER Key for now.
#$objMainForm.Add_KeyDown({
# if ($_.KeyCode -eq "Enter") {
# $x=$objMainScreenBox.SelectedItem
# $objMainForm.Close()
# }
# })
$objMainForm.Add_KeyDown({
if ($_.KeyCode -eq "Escape") {
$objMainForm.Close()
}
})
#Button Locations.
$OKButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(175,620)
$CloseButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(320,620)
#Panel Locations.
$objScreenSelectPanel.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(220,10)
$objOptionsPanel.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(220,10)
$objThemePanel.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(220,10)
$objIndexPanel.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(10,10)
$objMainForm.Controls.add($objIndexPanel)
$objMainForm.Controls.add($objScreenSelectPanel)
$objMainForm.Controls.add($objThemePanel)
$objMainForm.Controls.add($objOptionsPanel)
$objMainForm.Controls.add($OKButton)
$objMainForm.Controls.add($CloseButton)
$objMainForm.Topmost = $True
#$objMainForm.DoubleBuffered = "True"
}
function GUISetup {
#1 - main screen, 2 - optionals, 3 - theme, 4 - Slipdata
#for ($i=1; $i -le 4; $i++) {Write-Host (4%$i)} -- Doesn't feed $i properly.
GUIBoxes
GUIButtons
GUILabels
GUIMainForm
GUIPanels $Args[0]
#$objMainForm.Add_Shown({$objMainForm.Activate()})
#[void] $objMainForm.ShowDialog()
#$objMainForm.hide()
#timeout 5 > $null
#$objMainForm.show()
#timeout 4 > $null
#$objMainForm.Update()
#$objMainForm.hide()
#$objMainForm.Refresh()
#$InitialFormWindowState = $objMainForm.WindowState
#Init the OnLoad event to correct the initial state of the form
#$objMainForm.add_Load($Form_StateCorrection_Load)
#Handling Refresh in the actual button press.
return $objMainForm.ShowDialog()
#$objMainForm.Dispose()
#$objApplicationClass.run($objMainForm)
}
#DEBUG
GUIsetup 1 | Out-Null
$x

Answer 1

I actually figured out what I did wrong. Namely, I'm calling every panel to create with every next or previous. So four panels, eight panels, twelve panels, sixteen panels (flicker), twenty panels (Flicker flicker slow down) and so forth. I was so focused on this being a problem with Powershell I didn't stop to think about the logic I was using.
So I'm going to call the .hide() and .show() in a separate function.