Improving the PowerShell ISE Experience with ISESteroids 2

For a long time I’ve used the built-in to Windows, PowerShell ISE for my PowerShell scripting experience. Most people tend to have a particular favourite editor for their coding, usually after trialling out a few different ones. For pretty much everything else I’ve settled on Sublime Text, but for PowerShell I use the ISE since I really like the integration with the PowerShell console.

The ISE was introduced in PowerShell 2.0 and to be honest was pretty basic back then. It’s  improved significantly since then into version 4, but still has some areas where there could be improvement or features missing that you would like to see.

Earlier in the year I tried out ISESteroids 1.0 which started to plug a number of the gaps I found in the ISE. Recently I had chance to upgrade to ISESteroids 2 and it has improved even further.

For a quick preview of what is available check out the below video.

A few things in it I particularly like:

1) More distinct (yellow) highlighting of bracket matching or other sections

(single click on this double quoted string)

2) Block commenting (this was a real annoyance for me - there is a keyboard shortcut to do it in the standard ISE, but still fiddly)

Before:

After pressing the single button below:

 

3) ScriptMap which allows you to easily navigate your way through long scripts

 

4) Manage Version History

Clicking on Compare opens WinMerge and a view of what has changed between versions

5)  Autoselection. Click repeatedly to select various code segments

 

6) Enhanced Debugging

Best explained in the following video

For a more in-depth look at some of the features, check out the below video with ISESteroids creator Dr Tobias Weltner and fellow PowerShell MVP Jeff Wouters.