Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• About The Project
• Built With
• Getting Started
• Usage and Examples
  • Text Formatting
  • Get-Lists
  • Get-Tree
• License
• Contact

About The Project

A good host is said to be hospitable. I like bad puns so this project which contains a set of PowerShell cmdlets (in the form of advanced functions) for printing stuff on terminal/console is perfectly named.

This project supports PowerShell 7+ and is compatible with Windows 10+, MacOS and Linux. Because most pretty outputs rely on virtual terminal sequences (based on VT-100), older versions of Windows are not supported.

Built With

• PowerShell, a great (and now interoperable!) scripting language
• Pester, a test framework for PowerShell

Getting Started

To get started, follow these steps:

• Install PowerShell

• In a PowerShell prompt, install the latest version from the PowerShell Gallery with:

  Install-Module Hospitable -Scope CurrentUser

• Or in any shell, get yourself a local development environment with:

  # Install build dependencies
  ./install-build-dependencies.ps1
  
  # Run tests
  ./build.ps1 Test
  
  # Import the local module in the current shell (so cmdlets can be called)
  ./build.ps1 Import

Usage and Examples

The following examples can be run in a PowerShell prompt.

Text Formatting

The following text formatting is supported:

# Bold, underline and negative formats
Get-Bold bold
Get-Underline underline
Get-Negative negative

# Strike through (available in PowerShell v7.2.0-preview.3 +)
# See https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/pull/14461
Get-StrikeThrough strikethrough

# They can be combined too (e.g. using pipes)
'hello there' | Get-Bold | Get-Underline

Get-Lists

Format a list (of lists).

# A 3-element list including a nested list
Get-Lists 'item 1', @('sub group item 1', 'sub group item 2'), 'item 3'

# With some formatting
Get-Lists ('item 1' | Get-Underline), ('item 2' | Get-Underline)

Get-Tree

Format a tree.

Get-Tree {
  Node 'Fruits' {
    Node '🥝 Kiwi'
    Node '🥭 Mango'
    Node '🍌 Banana'
  }

  Node 'Vegetables' {
    Node '🥕 Carrot'
    Node '🥔 Potato'
  }
}

A tree is specified using a simple domain-specific language (DSL) and it supports the following extra features:

1. A node may have multiple columns (that are displayed as space-separated strings)
2. Columns can be aligned (left, right and centered)
3. Nodes can have their column aligned together into "alignment groups", by default all nodes are part of the 0 alignment group

Here are few examples showcasing these features.

Get-Tree {
  Node 'Stock' {
    # Align the first column (0-indexed) of all children (recursively) to the right
    ChildrenColumnAlignment 0 'Right'
    Node (Get-Bold 'ITOT'), 'iShares Core S&P Total US Stock Market ETF', (Get-Negative '$89.93')
    Node (Get-Bold 'IXUS'), 'iShares Core MSCI Total International Stock ETF', (Get-Negative '$69.50')
  }

  Node 'Crypto' {
    Node 'Bitcoin' {
      Node (Get-Bold 'GBTC'), 'Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (Btc)', (Get-Negative '$44.54') {
        # Specifically align the first column to the left
        ColumnAlignment 0 'Right'
      }
    }
  }
}

Get-Tree {
  Node 'Show', 'Year'
  Node 'Episode', 'Title', 'Rating' {
    ColumnAlignment 0 'Right'

    # Specifically group this node in the alignment group 1 (instead of the default which is 0)
    AlignmentGroup 1
  }

  Node ("The Queen's Gambit" | Get-Bold), '2020' {
    Node 'Season 1' {
      # Group all children nodes in the alignment group 1
      ChildrenAlignmentGroup 1

      Node 'Ep1', 'Openings', '8.5/10'
      Node 'Ep2', 'Exchanges', '8.8/10'
      Node 'Ep3', 'Doubled Pawns', '8.5/10'
      Node 'Ep4', 'Middle Game', '8.5/10'
      Node 'Ep5', 'Fork', '8.3/10'
      Node 'Ep6', 'Adjournment', '8.5/10'
      Node 'Ep7', 'End Game', '9.3/10'
    }
  }

  Node ('Pushing Daisies' | Get-Bold), '2007–2009' {
    Node 'Season 1' {
      ChildrenAlignmentGroup 1

      Node 'Ep1', 'Pie-lette', '8.8/10'
      Node 'Ep2', 'Dummy', '8.2/10'
      Node 'Ep3', 'The Fun in Funeral', '8.3/10'
      Node 'Ep4', 'Pigeon', '8.4/10'
      Node 'Ep5', 'Girth', '8.3/10'
      Node 'Ep6', 'Bitches', '8.2/10'
      Node 'Ep7', 'Smell of Success', '8.3/10'
      Node 'Ep8', 'Bitter Sweets', '8.6/10'
      Node 'Ep9', 'Corpsicle', '8.6/10'
    }

    Node 'Season 2' {
      ChildrenAlignmentGroup 1

      Node 'Ep1', 'Bzzzzzzzzz!', '8.5/10'
      Node 'Ep2', 'Circus', '8.4/10'
      Node 'Ep3', 'Bad Habits', '8.4/10'
      Node 'Ep4', 'Frescorts', '8.5/10'
      Node 'Ep5', 'Dim Sum Lose Some', '8.6/10'
      Node 'Ep6', "Oh Oh Oh... It's Magic", '8.7/10'
      Node 'Ep7', 'Robbing Hood', '8.3/10'
      Node 'Ep8', 'Comfort Food', '9.0/10'
      Node 'Ep9', 'The Legend of Merle McQuoddy', '8.4/10'
      Node 'Ep10', 'The Norwegians', '8.8/10'
      Node 'Ep11', 'Window Dressed to Kill', '8.8/10'
      Node 'Ep12', 'Water & Power', '8.6/10'
      Node 'Ep13', 'Kerplunk', '8.9/10'
    }
  }
}

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

Contact

Project link