PowerShell History Out-ConsoleGridView F7

Get a GUI for your commandline history in Powershell when pressing F7 or Shift + F7

Last updated on Sep 13, 2024 2 min read PowerShell

Intro

Did you know that you can use F7 and Shift F7 to get a list of all your commanline history? But now with the new Out-ConsoleGridView you can even get it in a nice GUI format where you can select you command from the history list.

How-To Step by Step

You start WindowsTerminal or PowerShell prompt, then on the prompt you type:

code $profile

For the Visual Studio Code or

code-insiders $profile

for the Visual Studio Code Insiders version.

This will open Visual Studio Code when you have installed this on your device. Else I recommend to install it right a way by going to download it from here.

Add the following code to you PowerShell profile file that you just opened in the previous step.

function ocgv_history {
    $line = $null
    $cursor = $null
    [Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::GetBufferState([ref]$line, [ref]$cursor)
    $selection = $history | Out-ConsoleGridView -Title "Select CommandLine from History" -OutputMode Single -Filter $line
    if ($selection) {
        [Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::DeleteLine()
        [Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::Insert($selection)
        if ($selection.StartsWith($line)) {
            [Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::SetCursorPosition($cursor)
        }
        else {
            [Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::SetCursorPosition($selection.Lenght)
        }
    }
}

$parameters = @{
    Key = 'F7'
    BriefDescription = 'ShowMatchingHistoryOcgv'
    LongDescription = 'Show Matching History using Out-ConsoleGridView'
    ScriptBlock = {
        param($key, $arg)  # The arguments are Ignored in the example

        $history = Get-History | Sort-Object -Descending -Property Id -Unique | Select-Object CommandLine -ExpandProperty CommandLine
        $history | ocgv_history
    }
}
Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler @parameters

$parameters = @{
    Key = 'Shift-F7'
    BriefDescription = 'ShowMatchingGlobalHistoryOcgv'
    LongDescription = "Show Matching History for all PowerShell instances using Out-ConsoleGridView"
    ScriptBlock = {
        param($key, $arg)   # The arguments are ignored in the example
        $history = [Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::GetHistoryItems().CommandLine
        # reverse the items to most recent is on top
        [array]::Reverse($history)
        $history | Select-Object -Unique | ocgv_history
    }
}
Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler @parameters

And save it, the close you Windows Terminal or PowerShell commandline and open it again, when you then press on F7 of Shift + F7 you will get GUI for you commandline history.

Conclusion

I like it very much, and it’s very handy to use. I also put the code on my github

PowerShell GUI Out-Gridview Out-ConsoleGridView