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Occasionally people ask us about our resolutions... not the New Year's kind, but rather, the video kind. As you probably know, SAPIEN has produced several PowerShell training videos. These videos come in two formats: on DVD and as a download. The DVD videos are not "true" DVDs, i.e. if you pop them into your DVD player they will not play like a movie. Rather, these videos are packaged as .MOV files for viewing on your computer  using Apple QuickTime. These .MOV files have a vertical resolution of 720 pixels (HD quality.) They play great on computers and other devices that…   More »

You have created the mother of all PowerShell scripts and spent endless hours honing its performance and catching error conditions. Now that you are rolling out this gem of a script to your users, you find out that they don't take to the command prompt as you do. You have also found out that some others even go and edit your skillfully crafted script and are now blaming you for errors. You can avoid all of that by converting your command line script to a Windows Forms application with PrimalForms 2011. Create a GUI version of your PowerShell script to make the…   More »

iPowerShell, that MUST HAVE little iPhone/iPad PowerShell reference is going pro with the release of iPowerShell Pro today. The pro app includes a great many infrastructure changes and feature additions which set it up for major future enhancements as well. Here are just some of the changes/additions to iPowerShell Pro: Initial data can be downloaded from SAPIEN servers Ability to add your own PowerShell Help XML files Ability to add your own aliases PowerShell Twitter feed Swipe cmdlet description screen with 2 fingers to get the next/previous cmdlets alphabetically Lync cmdlets added Sharepoint cmdlets added Dynamic header buttons take you…   More »

You really need to make PowerShell your top New Year’s Resolution because 2012 is *the* year of PowerShell.  Microsoft is putting it front and center in its Windows Management Framework 3.0 which is due sometime in 2012.  And you need to be ready for it.  Sure, you need to put exercise and a good diet at the top of your priorities, too, but you need to feed and exercise your brain as well.  Keeping your brain in shape will lead to job security, a fat wallet, and incessant praise from your colleagues and your end users.  Well, maybe not…   More »

Wow! Has another year gone buy already? It seems as if it was only yesterday that I wrote a Welcome 2011 blog post. 2011 saw quite a bit of activity from SAPIEN. New versions of all of our software products were released. Digital download versions of our videos became available. We continued and improved our support for iOS. So what is in store for 2012? Well I can tell you but then I would have to send the SAPIEN minions to do terrible things to you! Just kidding! About the minions... Seriously though, I would not want to ruin any…   More »

If you package your script with PrimalScript's or PrimalForm's packager you have the option of including a manifest. This manifest can be used to make your executable file prompt for elevation when executed. It's easy to spot the difference between an application that will prompt for elevation and one that does not by looking at the icon: Now, imagine the surprise if you get a shield on your icon and an elevation prompt when you run a file you packaged without a manifest. As you can see from the image below it's all in the name: I simply took the…   More »

The “Spotlight on Controls” series focuses on a single WinForms control in PrimalForms 2011 , details the important Properties, Methods, and Events of the control and demonstrates how to utilize the control. Most of the information about the controls is still applicable to previous versions of PrimalForms. Last time we took a look at the TreeView . This time we will look at the ContextMenuStrip control: ContextMenuStrip [System.Windows.Forms.ContextMenuStrip] Represents a shortcut menu. Default Event: Opening Why use a ContextMenuStrip control? Use the ContextMenuStrip when you want to display a menu of commands when the user right clicks on a specific…   More »

When you create a new file in PrimalScript you have several options: 1. Click on the File New button in the toolbar 2. Click the little arrow next to it to create a specific type of file 3. Select File – New… and choose a specific type form the menu 4. Press Ctrl+N to create a new empty file Number 1 and 4 usually pop up the following dialog when used the first time: If you click yes you can select a default template. Now, we all know, in the midst of a hectic work day if some pesky dialog…   More »

The “Spotlight on Controls” series focuses on a single WinForms control in PrimalForms 2011, details the important Properties, Methods, and Events of the control and demonstrates how to utilize the control. Most of the information about the controls is still applicable to previous versions of PrimalForms. In Part 1 of the Spotlight on the TreeView control, we looked at the TreeView properties, methods and event. Now we will focus on the TreeNodes and the TreeView’s Nodes property. TreeView Nodes Property Revisited: The TreeView keeps track of its nodes via the Nodes property, which consists of a collection of TreeNode objects.…   More »

The “Spotlight on Controls” series focuses on a single WinForms control in PrimalForms 2011 , details the important Properties, Methods, and Events of the control and demonstrates how to utilize the control. Most of the information about the controls is still applicable to previous versions of PrimalForms. Last time we looked at the TabControl. This time we will look at the TreeView control. Since the TreeView is one of the most elaborate controls we are going to split this Spotlight article into two parts: Part 1: TreeView Overview Part 2: TreeNode Overview TreeView [System.Windows.Forms.TreeView] Displays a hierarchical collection of labeled…   More »