PowerCLI and VI // How-TO

jibbajabba

I know there are a lot of free Powershell editor out there, including Powershell Plus, but for some reason I still prefer VI every now and then.

I am not 100% where I initially found it first as it's been ages, but here is how you can use VI inside Powershell and execute scripts you are working on directly from inside VI

Tools needed
VI / VIM for Windows
VI / VIM Powershell Syntax Coloring

1. Install VI for Windows and note the path, for example

C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim\vim73\vim.exe

2. Check if you got a Powershell profile

PS C:\Users\xx> $profile
C:\Users\xx\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

The file doesn't necessarily exist just yet, simply open it up with

PS C:\Users\xx> notepad $profile

3. Add the VI executable

# Adding VI / VIM to profile

$VIPATH    = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim\vim73\vim.exe"

Set-Alias vi   $VIPATH
Set-Alias vim  $VIPATH

3a. For added "fun" - add two functions too, to make it easier to edit your VI and PS profiles

# for editing your PowerShell profile

Function Edit-Profile
{
    vim $profile
}

# for editing your Vim settings
Function Edit-Vimrc
{
    vim $home\_vimrc
}

4. Install the syntax coloring - simply copy the contents of the zip to

C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim\vimfiles

5. Edit your VI profile ; If you add the additional functions, simply hit

PowerCLI C:\Scripts> Edit-Vimrc

Add the following line to enable color syntaxing

syntax on

6. To run PS1 files from inside VI / VIM, add the following as well

set shell=powershell
set shellcmdflag=-command
command R !./%

Now from within VI - you can execute the current file with

:R

You can obviously change the syntax coloring, but here how it would look like without changing



So like mentioned, use :R to run the file



Which will simply run inside the VI session (you can see the icon in the top left corner)

undomiel

Thanks for the info! vim is definitely my preference for some quick PowerShell work.