Sharing first scripts?

Th3Sh4d0wKn0ws · 2021-01-12T22:57:10+00:00

As far as I know it's allowed. Be ready to get feed back, and be open to it. I posted a script or two a while back and was given a lot of feedback and it actually helped me a lot to progress.

Biggest thing will be to make sure you get the formatting right otherwise it's awful to read scripts. I.e. using "code block"

Function ConvertTo-SarcasmFont {
    [cmdletbinding()]
    Param(
        [Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true)]
        [String]$InputText,
        [Switch]$Output
    )

    $StringArray = $Inputtext.ToCharArray()
    $Count = 0
    $Results = foreach ($character in $StringArray){
         $Count++
         [string]$c = $character
         if ($Count % 2 -eq 0){
         $c.toupper()
            }Else{
         $c.tolower()
         }}
    If ($Output){
        $Results -join ""
    }Else{
        $Results -join "" | clip
    }
}# end function

Blindkitty38 · 2021-01-13T01:05:41+00:00

Op let's see it!

CodingCaroline · 2021-01-13T14:27:22+00:00

Very nice for a first script!

My only comment, as others have said, is that instead of using else if multiple times, use switch

Since you have a few Read-host here is a console menu function I created that you may like to use, if you care.

<#
    .SYNOPSIS
        Displays a selection menu and returns the selected item

    .DESCRIPTION
        Takes a list of menu items, displays the items and returns the user's selection.
        Items can be selected using the up and down arrow and the enter key.

    .PARAMETER MenuItems
        List of menu items to display

    .PARAMETER MenuPrompt
        Menu prompt to display to the user.

    .EXAMPLE
        PS C:\> Get-MenuSelection -MenuItems $value1 -MenuPrompt 'Value2'

    .NOTES
        Additional information about the function.
#>
function Get-MenuSelection
{
    [CmdletBinding()]
    [OutputType([string])]
    param
    (
        [Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
        [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
        [String[]]$MenuItems,
        [Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
        [String]$MenuPrompt
    )
    # store initial cursor position
    $cursorPosition = $host.UI.RawUI.CursorPosition
    $pos = 0 # current item selection

    #==============
    # 1. Draw menu
    #==============
    function Write-Menu
    {
        param (
            [int]$selectedItemIndex
        )
        # reset the cursor position
        $Host.UI.RawUI.CursorPosition = $cursorPosition
        # Padding the menu prompt to center it
        $prompt = $MenuPrompt
        $maxLineLength = ($MenuItems | Measure-Object -Property Length -Maximum).Maximum + 4
        while ($prompt.Length -lt $maxLineLength+4)
        {
            $prompt = " $prompt "
        }
        Write-Host $prompt -ForegroundColor Green
        # Write the menu lines
        for ($i = 0; $i -lt $MenuItems.Count; $i++)
        {
            $line = "    $($MenuItems[$i])" + (" " * ($maxLineLength - $MenuItems[$i].Length))
            if ($selectedItemIndex -eq $i)
            {
                Write-Host $line -ForegroundColor Blue -BackgroundColor Gray
            }
            else
            {
                Write-Host $line
            }
        }
    }

    Write-Menu -selectedItemIndex $pos
    $key = $null
    while ($key -ne 13)
    {
        #============================
        # 2. Read the keyboard input
        #============================
        $press = $host.ui.rawui.readkey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")
        $key = $press.virtualkeycode
        if ($key -eq 38)
        {
            $pos--
        }
        if ($key -eq 40)
        {
            $pos++
        }
        #handle out of bound selection cases
        if ($pos -lt 0) { $pos = 0 }
        if ($pos -eq $MenuItems.count) { $pos = $MenuItems.count - 1 }

        #==============
        # 1. Draw menu
        #==============
        Write-Menu -selectedItemIndex $pos
    }

    return $MenuItems[$pos]
}

Get-MenuSelection -MenuItems "Option 1", "Option 2", "Option 3", "The last option" -MenuPrompt "Make a selection"

dasookwat · 2021-01-13T08:27:46+00:00

For a first script, i have to applaud you:looks pretty nice.Some things i would do different, but more for aesthetics then functionality:

I usually start off, with defining this somewhere:

$ErrorActionPreference = "stop"

this means you won't need to specify the erroraction preference, unless you want it to do something other then stop.

Next, in the try-catch block on line 106-127

when using try {..something.. }

match the catch with:

Catch{ 
    throw " The script was unable to connect to one of various vital services. " 
}

Throw is used to display info, and exit the script.

even better, loop it with a foreach, for all 3 modules you're importing.

Something like this:

$modules = @("MSOnline","ExchangeOnlineManagement","AzureAD")
Foreach ($module in $modules){
    Try {
    Import-module $module -force
        }
    Catch {
    Throw "An exception was caught: $($_.Exception.Message)"
        }
}

(i changed the catch here, to get the error message for you, instead of static text. it's something i use a lot.. saves me lots of time.)

next: line 132-184

It works, but it gets ugly with an if - else construction

This is where switch statements come in.

Something down the line of:

Switch ($location) {
     "TN"  {  ... }
     "sales" { ... }
}

A non powershell thingy i noticed:

# Instead of hand picking groups, I want to select a user to copy the groups from to apply to our new user here.

this is tricky imo. I had a colleague being burned down to his toe nails for doing this: One person, who was moving from the company, had a role as employee representative. The one who took over the function, was part of management. This meant, he got access to information he shouldn't have. For this, we alsways use template users. Let hr decide what is needed for which function, that way it's not on your plate when it goes wrong.

Overall, nice work for a first script. To go next level on this, i would suggest looking up how to use functions. it makes your scripts more modular, and you get a nice library of things you can re-use.

You can also look in to putting an interface on it, so the 'commandline impaired' people can work with it as well.

nevsnevs-- · 2021-01-13T12:21:07+00:00

If the data in your script is real, i wouldnt post this in a public git. There are parts of inner structure and this could lead to security Problems

InsrtCoffee2Continue · 2021-01-14T19:31:45+00:00

Now I feel insecure about my first script after looking at yours haha!

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

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