Categories
App Config Getting-Started PowerShell VS Code

Viewing Default Settings in VS Code

Where is the default settings.json or keybindings.json ? There isn’t one, because it’s dynamically generated.

When you run run the ‘default settings’ command, it builds a new one — this means it’s always up to date. It includes settings from all enabled addons.

Command Palette: The Only Hotkey You Need to Remember.

Can’t remember what key formats without saving? No problem, f1 -> forsave and it will come up.

Go to Symbol: The Secret to Navigating giant JSON files

It’s better than using a regular search ctrl+f . If you searched for ‘fontsize’ not only will you get every setting, but, lots of comments as well. When there’s duplicate settings, the bottom one has priority. If you like customizing, you may end up with duplicated keys. This instantly lets shows you which is the final one. Even if they are 3000 lines apart.

Control+Space: The 2nd Best Hotkey

As you’re editing, ctrl+space will fuzzy search every possible setting. Hit it a 2nd time to toggle the documentation.

Searching Keybindings by Name or Command by name

Suggested PowerShell Config

I tried keeping it short, I recommend checking these settings for PowerShell.
If you want to control autocomplete or suggestions , this config has notes on some properties to check out.

{
    // this file is almost the same as 
    //<https://github.com/ninmonkey/dotfiles_git/blob/614fc06cd8b989e8438cba6cae648605fae2491a/vscode/User/nin10/Code/minimum-config/powershell.settings.json>

    "workbench.settings.editor": "json", // good for editing, [ctrl+,]
    // will by default open your global settings as JSON instead of UI

    // improve code quality
    "powershell.codeFormatting.autoCorrectAliases": true,
    "powershell.codeFormatting.useConstantStrings": true,
    "powershell.codeFormatting.useCorrectCasing": true,

    // I have this enabled for most languages
    "editor.formatOnSave": true,

    // some people are pretty polarized on which style to use, 
    // So I have both styles and variants to try
    "editor.wordSeparators": "`~!@#%^&*()=+[{]}\\|;:'\",.<>/?", // combine $ and -
    "editor.wordSeparators": "`~!@#%^&*()-=+[{]}\\|;:'\",.<>/?", // causes splat-expression etc to break
    "editor.wordSeparators": "`~!@#$%^&*()-=+[{]}\\|;:'\",.<>/?", // break on $ and -
    "editor.wordSeparators": "`~!@#%^&*()=+[{]}\\|;:'\",.<>/?", // combine $ and -
    "editor.wordSeparators": "`~!@#%^&*()-=+[{]}\\|;:'\",.<>/?",

    // If you don't like snippets, you can disable them for as specific language, leaving the others
    // the blog isn't rendering the next line, it should say
    // "[power shell]" as the key If you don't like snippets, you can disable them for as specific language, leaving the others
    "[powershell]": {
        "editor.semanticHighlighting.enabled": false,
        "editor.snippetSuggestions": "bottom",
        "editor.snippetSuggestions": "none",
        "files.encoding": "utf8bom",
        "files.trimTrailingWhitespace": true,
    },

    /*
        Adds autocompletion and validation to any .Format.ps1xml and .Types.ps1xml files.
        It uses the addon: 'redhat.vscode-xml'
    */
    "editor.suggest.preview": true, // interesting but can be jarring   
    ],

    "powershell.integratedConsole.suppressStartupBanner": true,
    "powershell.powerShellDefaultVersion": "PowerShell (x64)",

    "powershell.promptToUpdatePowerShell": false,
    // Specifies the path to a PowerShell Script Analyzer settings file. To override the default settings for all projects, enter an absolute path, or enter a path relative to your workspace.
    "powershell.scriptAnalysis.settingsPath": "C:/Users/monkey/Documents/2021/dotfiles_git/powershell/PSScriptAnalyzerSettings.psd1",
    // "powershell.scriptAnalysis.settingsPath

     // Autocomplete and a schema/validation for
     // powershell's  "types.ps1xml" and "format.ps1xml" files
     "xml.fileAssociations": [
        {
            "systemId": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/master/src/Schemas/Format.xsd",
            "pattern": "**/*.Format.ps1xml"
        },
        {
            "systemId": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/master/src/Schemas/Types.xsd",
            "pattern": "**/*.Types.ps1xml"
        }

}

Error Lens

"errorLens.followCursor": "closestProblem",
"errorLens.followCursorMore": 2,

One of the extensions from Justin Grote’s addon pack is the error lens. I like it, after reducing the visual noise. You can

See More:

For customizing themes, check out these settings. There’s different sections depending on if semantic color is enabled

"editor.semanticTokenColorCustomizations": { ... },
"editor.tokenColorCustomizations": { ... },

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/447579065877266454/969757374216802304/unknown.png
Categories
App Config Cheatsheet Getting-Started Power Apps Power BI References And Cheat Sheets

How Do I Get Started with Power Apps? With Cheat Sheets

– Moving your cursor around will change the tooltips
– It shows the data type, and the function

The Documentation Is Great

Sample Data Without a Data Source – Declaring Inline Tables

Step1: Choose Insert -> Button.

Step2: Set the button’s OnSelect property to this.

Step3: Alt left click the button, and it’ll create the table. You’re still in edit mode.

ClearCollect(
    Customers,
    Table(
        { Name: "Fred Garcia", Company: "Northwind Traders" },
        { Name: "Cole Miller", Company: "Contoso" },
        { Name: "Glenda Johnson", Company: "Contoso" },
        { Name: "Mike Collins", Company: "Adventure Works"},
        { Name: "Colleen Jones", Company: "Adventure Works"} 
    )
)

The “I know how to program, Give me the good stuff!” Section

Here’s the main links I recommend

Categories
PowerShell Quick Tips

Creating a Discord Webhook in a few lines of PowerShell

Discord Web Hooks are easier than you’d think. It uses a regular `HTTP` web request .

Step1: Creating your webhook url

Go to: Server Settings -> Integrations -> View Webhooks
Then click create webhook.

Choose a name, the channel, then copy webhook url

Step2: Invoke-RestMethod

$webhookUri = 'https://discord.com/api/YourWebhookUrlHere'

$Body = @{
  'username' = 'Nomad'
  'content' = 'https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Nomad'
}
Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $webhookUri -Method 'post' -Body $Body

Success!

Docs

There are optional webhook arguments to customize the output: https://discord.com/developers/docs/resources/webhook#execute-webhook

Comparison with curl

I tried making curl easier to read by splitting content, and pipe so that you don’t have to manually escape Json

$Json = @{ 'username' = 'Nomad'; 'content' = 'https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Nomad' } | ConvertTo-Json -Compress

$Json | curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '@-' $webhookUri

Categories
Command Line PowerShell Quick Tips References And Cheat Sheets

Easy way to cache results on the Command Line | Power Shell Tip

Sometimes you’ll need to run a command with the same input with different logic.
This can be a hassle using a slow command like Get-ADUser or Get-ChildItem on a lot of files like ~ (Home) with -Depth / -Recurse

ls ~ -Depth 4 | Format-Table Name

PowerShell 7.0+

Powershell 7 added the Ternary Operator, and several operators for handling $null values.

All of these examples will only run Get-ChildItem the first time. Any future calls are cached.

Null-Coalesce ??= Assignment Operator

This is my favorite on the Command line. The RHS (Right Hand Side) skips evaluation if the left side is not $null

$AllFiles ??= ls ~ -Depth 4

Using the Null-Coalesce ?? Operator

$AllFiles = $AllFiles ?? ( ls ~ -Depth 4  )

Ternary Operator ? whenTrue : WhenFalse

$allFiles = $allFiles ? $allFiles : ( ls ~ -Depth 4 )

Windows PowerShell and Powershell < 7

Windows Powershell can achieve the same effect with an if statement

if(! $AllFiles) { $AllFiles = ls ~ -Depth 4 }
Categories
Power BI Power Query Quick Tips

Preserving Types When using “Add Custom Column” in Power Query

The default UI sets your column to type any.

You can use the optional argument of Table.AddColumn to set it to number
Or you can declare your function’s return type

Why doesn’t the original [Num] * 2 work?

Powerquery does not know what type will be returned by your function. That’s because each is by definition a function that returns type any

See More

Categories
Command Line Getting-Started PowerShell Pwsh7+ Quick Tips What's New

PowerShell : Prefixing lines with the Pipe operator |

There’s a lot of ways to use line continuations in Windows Powershell without backticks . Powershell added a new one, the | pipe operator. It’s cleaner to read, and makes it easier to insert, delete, or toggle comments on the console.

Now you can write:

# Powershell
ls | sort Length
| Select -First 10
| ft Name, Length

Instead of piping on line endings

# Windows Powershell
ls | sort Length |
Select -First 10 |
ft Name, Length

# or
ls | sort Length | Select -First 10 | ft Name, Length
Categories
Quick Tips Snippets SQL

Generating Random Numbers in SQL

To generate random integers from min to max, including min and max

SELECT FLOOR( RAND()*( Max - Min + 1 )) + Min;

Example: To create a random integer between 5 and 10

SELECT FLOOR( RAND()*( 10 - 5 + 1 )) + 5;
Categories
PowerShell Quick Tips Regex

Using Case-Sensitive Regular expressions in PowerShell – Tips

Say you want to find functions that uses parameters named like:
-AsString, -AsHashTable, or -AsByteStream

Using Find-Member makes it easy.

> Find-Member -Name 'As*'

That’s close, but I want it to start with a capital letter, to skip matches like:
Assembly or Asin

Converting Like to a Regex

The -like pattern As* is the same as the regex ^As
To start with a capital letter you could use: ^As[A-Z]

Disabling Case-Sensitive matches

Because PowerShell defaults to case-insensitive matches
You need to remove the i insensitive flag using the syntax (?-i)

Solution

> Find-Member -Name '(?-i)^As[A-Z]' -RegularExpression

The final pattern is (?-i)^As[A-Z]
Making it case-sensitive narrowed down the matches from 113 to 43 !

See More

Categories
Power BI Quick Tips

Tip: Controlling a Column’s “Summarize By” Type in Power BI

The Model view allows you to set a global default “Summarize By” type for every column.
You still have the ability to override the aggregation type per-visual in Report view