Assign keyboard shortcuts to buttons in Powershell script

Question

What I would like to do is to assign a button to a shortcut key, for example $TurnOnButton as key "Q", and $TurnOffButton as key "W" on my keyboard.

So basically, in my example below. When the script is running and the form is present, I would be able to push button "Q" on my keyboard to run calculator, and press button "W" to terminate it.

Is this possible with PowerShell?

Code example:

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms

function Return-TurnOff
{
    $x = Stop-Process -ProcessName calc
    $x
}

function Return-TurnOn
{
    $x = Start-Process calc
    $x
}

$form = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Form 
$form.Text = "Title of the form"
$form.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(300,200) 
$form.minimumSize = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(300,200) 
$form.maximumSize = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(300,200) 
$form.StartPosition = "CenterScreen"

$TurnOffButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
$TurnOffButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,125)
$TurnOffButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(55,25)
$TurnOffButton.Text = "Turn Off"
$TurnOffButton.Add_Click({Return-TurnOff})
$form.AcceptButton = $TurnOffButton
$form.Controls.Add($TurnOffButton)

$TurnOnButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
$TurnOnButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,65)
$TurnOnButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(55,25)
$TurnOnButton.Text = "Turn On"
$TurnOnButton.Add_Click({Return-TurnOn})
$form.AcceptButton = $TurnOnButton
$form.Controls.Add($TurnOnButton)

$CancelButton = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
$CancelButton.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(215,125)
$CancelButton.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(55,25)
$CancelButton.Text = "Cancel"
$CancelButton.DialogResult = [System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult]::Cancel
$form.CancelButton = $CancelButton
$form.Controls.Add($CancelButton)

$label = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label
$label.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,15) 
$label.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(280,20) 
$label.Text = "Label for textbox:"
$form.Controls.Add($label) 

$textBox = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox 
$textBox.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(10,35) 
$textBox.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(260,20) 
$form.Controls.Add($textBox) 

$form.Topmost = $True

$form.Add_Shown({$textBox.Select()})
$result = $form.ShowDialog()

Χpẘ · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-08 05:36:25Z

2

If you don't mind having the label on the button contain the letter that corresponds to the button AND pressing the Alt key, then it's very easy, just put an '&' before the letter in the button text you want to be the accelerator:

$TurnOnButton.Text = "Turn O&n"
$TurnOffButton.Text = "Turn O&ff"

would make Alt-N perform Turn On and Alt-F perform Turn Off.

A more complicated solution is to register for keyboard presses, but it will let you handle any keystroke whether or not Alt is pressed. $form|gm -MemberType event key* will show you the events whose name starts with "Key". You can then google for how to handle events from Powershell with WinForms.

answered Dec 8, 2015 at 5:36

Χpẘ

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1 Comment

luoxiansheng Over a year ago

Thanks user2460798! I honestly didn't even think of adding an Alt-shortcut to the buttons. I will explore that other option later as it is more what I am looking for however, but I will stick to your Alt-solution for now. Thanks a lot. :)

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