How to create a HTA like in Powershell

HTML Applications (HTA) are very useful to provide a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to your VBscript, to ease its use, avoid typing mistakes and provide better output.

Would it be possible to do similar thing in PowerShell?

Unfortunately, Powershell does not allow you to use HTA as you can do to provide a GUI for your VBscripts.

However, Powershell gives you access to .Net libraries which means that you can create a GUI using Windows Forms. Here is a example of what it looks like:

[void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Drawing")
[void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms")

$objForm = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Form
$objForm.Text = "My PowerShell Form"

$objLabel = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label
$objLabel.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(20,20)
$objLabel.Text = "Hello World!"
$objForm.Controls.Add($objLabel)

$ExitButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
$ExitButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(80,80)
$ExitButton.Text = "Exit"
$ExitButton.Add_Click({$objForm.Close()})
$objForm.Controls.Add($ExitButton)

$objForm.ShowDialog()


You can copy the code in file, save it as test.ps1 and execute the script with PowerShell; you'll see a GUI like this:

This is not an easy task as Windows Forms will require a lot more coding than HTA, but you can design really nice interfaces for your scripts.

In order to ease the delivery of forms, without having to type hundreds of lines of code, you can use a free tool from Sapien to create the code behind the GUI called PrimalForms. You'll be able to design the GUI and it will generate the code for you. Then, all you have to do is to merge the "GUI code" into your script and link the events.

To find PrimalForms Community Edition, you'll have to access the download section on Sapien website and create an account. I'm telling you: it's worth doing it, and it's free.

References:
System.Windows.Forms Namespace
Sapien - PrimalForms Community Edition