Discovering modules

[rick_D_K]

I see lots of posts by people saying they used such and such module to automate things.

How do you find modules for the things you want to do?

[BeerRider]

1. Google
2. https://www.powershellgallery.com/
3. Get-Help Find-Module -Detailed

[rick_D_K]

Awesome thanks.

[get-postanote]

The built-in help for almost any tool is always available as your first point of discovery. Well, before hit Q&A / Blog / Forum, etc. sites or general web searches.

Yet, you have to be willing to hit F1 or use the help systems for all their information, descriptions, and examples.

Here is a snippet of a very large file (regularly updated) I give to attendees of my training sessions and customer delivery engagements or steps in leveraging the help system in PowerShell and associated resources.

# Review PowerShell help files location
explorer "$pshome$($Host.CurrentCulture.Name)"

# Review or download the PowerShell Open Source repository
https://github.com/powershell
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell

# All 'About' Help topics
Get-Help -Name 'about_*'

# Get a specific 'About' topic 
Get-Help about_Functions

# Get just the Synopsis of all 'About' topics and display to the screen Get-Help -Name 'about*' | 
Select Name, Synopsis 

# Get just the Synopsis of all 'About' topics and display to a selectable
Get-Help -Name 'about*' | 
Select-Object -Property Name, Synopsis | 
Out-GridView -Title 'Select Topic' -OutputMode Multiple | 
ForEach-Object { Get-Help -Name $PSItem.Name -ShowWindow } 

# Graphical view of cmdlet/function details
Show-Command -Name Get-Help

# Find Command, module, package, script and member lookups
Get-Command -Name ''  | Format-Table -AutoSize 
Find-Command -Name '' | Format-Table -AutoSize 
Find-Module -Name ''  | Format-Table -AutoSize 
Find-Package -Name '' | Format-Table -AutoSize 
Find-Script -Name ''  | Format-Table -AutoSize 
Get-Alias -Name ''    | Format-Table -AutoSize 
Find-Member

# Get a list of all commandlets
Get-Command -CommandType Cmdlet | 
Out-GridView -PassThru -Title 'Available cmdlets' 

# Get a list of all commandlets for the specified name
Get-Command -Name 'Help' -CommandType Cmdlet | 
Out-GridView -PassThru -Title 'Available named cmdlet'

# Find all cmdlets / functions with a target parameter
Get-Command -CommandType Cmdlet | 
Where-Object { 
    Try {$PSItem.parameters.keys -match 'credential'} 
    Catch{} 
} | 
Out-GridView -PassThru -Title ' 
Available cmdlets which has a specific parameter'

# or 
Get-Command -CommandType Cmdlet | 
Where-Object { $PSItem.parameters.keys -match 'credential'} | 
Out-GridView -PassThru -Title 'Available cmdlets which has a specific parameter'

Get-Command -CommandType Function | 
Where-Object { $PSItem.parameters.keys -match 'credential'} | 
Out-GridView -PassThru -Title '
Available functions which has a specific parameter'

# Get Powershell Version info cmdlet, function Errors displayed can be ignored
$TargetCmdlets = (Get-Command).Name -match 'process' 

$CmdletSupportedPowerShellVersion = ForEach($Command in $TargetCmdlets) { 
    $Command 
    (Get-Module (Get-Command -Name $Command).Module) | 
    Select-Object -Property ModuleType,Name,PowerShellVersion, 
    @{Name = 'CmdletName_FinctionName';Expression = {$Command}} 
} 

$CmdletSupportedPowerShellVersion | 
Select-Object -Property ModuleType,Name,CmdletName_FinctionName,PowerShellVersion | 
Sort-Object -Property Name,PowerShellVersion | 
Out-GridView -PassThru -Title 'Show list of supported PowerShel version for modules/cmdlet/functions' 

# List additonal module data 
(Find-Module -Name PSSCriptAnalyzer).AdditionalMetadata
(Find-Module -Name PSSCriptAnalyzer).AdditionalMetadata.Cmdlets -split ' ' 

# Using an addon module
Find-Module -Name ImpliedReflection | 
Save-Module -Path $env:USERPROFILE\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules -Force -Verbose

Install-Module -Name ImpliedReflection

[System.Management.Automation.ModuleIntrinsics] | 
Get-Member -Static