We are happy to announce the release of PowerShell Studio 2021 (v5.8.183). This major release is included as part of the regular update cycle for our subscribers.
New Look
New Icons
We have updated all icons to a new style. Depending on the theme you use, these icons may look different:
Ribbon Layout
There have been some minor changes to PowerShell Studio’s ribbon. The build and run sections have now been combined in the Home tab:
In the View tab, all panels are now listed in one section:
New features
Support for PowerShell 7.1
With the 2021 release, we have added support for PowerShell 7.1 in both PowerShell Studio and PrimalScript (7.7.146). This includes running and debugging as well as packaging.
For those of you who have not yet updated to 7.1, we will continue to support 7.0.3 as it is an LTS release.
New Theme
Since dark themes are all the rage right now, we have added a new dark theme named Office 2019 Black:
This new dark theme has also been added to PowerShell ModuleManager, PowerShell HelpWriter, and PrimalSQL.
We have also adjusted our theme coloring to improve your experience. All menus are now colored based on the theme.
Command Line Arguments
We have heard your requests and have added three command line arguments for those of who like to automate their build process. We have included a tool for building from the command line called SAPIENCommandLine.exe.
1. Building a Script
To build a script ready to be packaged, use the following syntax:
<path>SAPIENCommandLine.exe /buildscript<project_file_path>
Parameters:
- <path> – The path to the PowerShell Studio 2021 install folder.
- <project_file_path> – Path to project file (.psproj) or form (.psf). This parameter’s value must point to an existing full path, otherwise the operation will fail.
2. Building an Executable
To build an executable with our SAPIEN Script Packager, use the following syntax:
<path>SAPIENCommandLine.exe /buildexe <file_path>
Parameters:
- <path> – The path to the PowerShell Studio 2021 install folder.
- <file_path> – Path to the file. This file can be a PowerShell Script file (.ps1), a project (.psproj), or a form (.psf).
3. Displaying command line help
Use the following syntax to display the usage for the available command line options:
<path>SAPIENCommandLine.exe /help
Parameters:
- <path> – The path to the PowerShell Studio 2021 install folder.
When using any of these arguments, we tried to make the output similar to what you would see when doing these operations in application:
Its important to note that this tool cannot be moved and needs to stay in the PowerShell Studio install folder. This may change in a future release.
Printing
We have updated our printing interface. From the file menu (File->Print), you will now see the print preview of your document along with additional print settings:
Updated Pester
We have updated our in-product Pester support to now support Pester 5 as well as run with PowerShell 7. We have plans to further improve our Pester support.
You can view the complete service build log here.
Feedback
As always, please continue providing your feedback. Many of the new features included in the service builds are suggestions from users like you. Submit your suggestions or feature requests on the Wish List and Feature Requests forum or the new Feature Requests page.
Thank you so much for the addition of the command-line project builder. This is critical in order to fully support our corporate CI/CD process for automated testing and deployment. There’s only one more thing to complete the whole picture for automating build deployments – we need an option to build the msi installer package as well, but at least being able to build the exe for a forms project is an excellent step forward. Thank you!
Hi David – thank you for the feedback! If you haven’t already done so, I’d encourage you to file a feature request (https://www.sapien.com/requests) about the option you mention.