Simple InputBox function

Question

I'm aware of a simple pop-up function for PowerShell, e.g.:

function popUp($text,$title) {
    $a = new-object -comobject wscript.shell
    $b = $a.popup($text,0,$title,0)
}

popUp "Enter your demographics" "Demographics"

But I am unable to find an equivalent for getting a pop-up to ask for input.

Sure, there is Read-Line, but it prompts from the console.

And then there is this complex function, which seems overkill for a script that will ask for input once or twice:

function getValues($formTitle, $textTitle){
    [void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Drawing") 
    [void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms") 

    $objForm = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Form
    $objForm.Text = $formTitle
    $objForm.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(300,200)
    $objForm.StartPosition = "CenterScreen"

    $objForm.KeyPreview = $True
    $objForm.Add_KeyDown({if ($_.KeyCode -eq "Enter") {$x=$objTextBox.Text;$objForm.Close()}})
    $objForm.Add_KeyDown({if ($_.KeyCode -eq "Escape") {$objForm.Close()}})

    $OKButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
    $OKButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(75,120)
    $OKButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(75,23)
    $OKButton.Text = "OK"
    $OKButton.Add_Click({$Script:userInput=$objTextBox.Text;$objForm.Close()})
    $objForm.Controls.Add($OKButton)

    $CANCELButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
    $CANCELButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(150,120)
    $CANCELButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(75,23)
    $CANCELButton.Text = "CANCEL"
    $CANCELButton.Add_Click({$objForm.Close()})
    $objForm.Controls.Add($CANCELButton)

    $objLabel = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label
    $objLabel.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(10,20)
    $objLabel.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(280,30)
    $objLabel.Text = $textTitle
    $objForm.Controls.Add($objLabel)

    $objTextBox = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
    $objTextBox.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(10,50)
    $objTextBox.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(260,20)
    $objForm.Controls.Add($objTextBox)

    $objForm.Topmost = $True

    $objForm.Add_Shown({$objForm.Activate()})

    [void] $objForm.ShowDialog()

    return $userInput
}

$schema = getValues "Database Schema" "Enter database schema"

Felicitasfelicitate

Answer 1

Probably the simplest way is to use the InputBox method of the Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction class:

[void][Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('Microsoft.VisualBasic')

$title = 'Demographics'
$msg   = 'Enter your demographics:'

$text = [Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction]::InputBox($msg, $title)

Starrstarred

I don't agree with the above as being a good method - using VB with ISE especially causes hangs. – Falstaffian

It works fine (even in ISE) by loading the assembly in the modern way; just replace the first line with Add-Type -AssemblyName Microsoft.VisualBasic – Miki

Thanks, this is nifty! You can also pass a third argument which is the default value to populate the textbox with. – Strage

Answer 2

The simplest way to get an input box is with the Read-Host cmdlet and -AsSecureString parameter.

$us = Read-Host 'Enter Your User Name:' -AsSecureString
$pw = Read-Host 'Enter Your Password:' -AsSecureString

This is especially useful if you are gathering login info like my example above. If you prefer to keep the variables obfuscated as SecureString objects you can convert the variables on the fly like this:

[Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringAuto([Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($us))
[Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringAuto([Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($pw))

If the info does not need to be secure at all you can convert it to plain text:

$user = [Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringAuto([Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($us))

Read-Host and -AsSecureString appear to have been included in all PowerShell versions (1-6) but I do not have PowerShell 1 or 2 to ensure the commands work identically. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.utility/read-host?view=powershell-3.0

Styptic

Interesting, but you can't see your own input, which makes it hard on UX. – Oberhausen

Read-Host 'Message' -AsSecureString doesn't produce a message box in PowerShell 7. – Nevertheless

Answer 3

It would be something like this

function CustomInputBox([string] $title, [string] $message, [string] $defaultText) 
{
$inputObject = new-object -comobject MSScriptControl.ScriptControl
$inputObject.language = "vbscript" 
$inputObject.addcode("function getInput() getInput = inputbox(`"$message`",`"$title`" , `"$defaultText`") end function" ) 
$_userInput = $inputObject.eval("getInput") 

return $_userInput
}

Then you can call the function similar to this.

$userInput = CustomInputBox "User Name" "Please enter your name." ""
if ( $userInput -ne $null ) 
{
 echo "Input was [$userInput]"
}
else
{
 echo "User cancelled the form!"
}

This is the most simple way to do this that I can think of.

Bumf

doesn't work out of the box on Windows 10 Pro: new-object : Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {0E59F1D5-1FBE-11D0-8FF2-00A0D10038BC} failed due to the following error: 80040154 Class not registered (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040154 (REGDB_E_CLASSNOTREG)). – Miki