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How to refresh Powershell_ise for contents modified outside the IDE.

Most of the time i would have opened both Powershell_ise and notepad++

If i does changes in Powershell_ise , notepad++ asks for reload but if i modify in notepad++ there is no way to refresh in Powershell_ise.

Whether any way to refresh the content or am i overlooking any feature which provides this?

Samselvaprabu
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  • What version of powershellgui are you using? Mine does this now and is version 2.4.0.1659 – JNK Jan 09 '12 at 14:25
  • @JPBlanc Fwiw, I've found PowerGUI to be a bit buggy. [Relative path completion is off](http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/powergui/f/4833/t/19603445), and with complicated debugging, I've often gotten into states where what's in some variables won't change until I restart PowerGUI, a state which is difficult to detect. It can also get a little RAM hungry at times. If we could have the stability of ISE with the niceties of PowerGUI (or even just edit detection), I'd be much happier. This *is* the "killer feature" that ISE 3 is missing. – ruffin Jan 06 '15 at 15:29
  • Since PowerShell 3 I use ISE, it's ok for me. – JPBlanc Jan 06 '15 at 19:44

3 Answers3

5

This post is old, but I figured I'd post this as google brought me here with the same issue.

I eventually just wrote this little function which doesn't do exactly what the OP wanted, but maybe other googlers will find it useful:

function Build {
    #Reload file
    $CurrentFile = $psise.CurrentFile
    $FilePath = $CurrentFile.FullPath
    $PsISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.Files.remove($CurrentFile)
    $PsISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.Files.add($FilePath)

    iex $PsISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.Files.Editor.Text
}

$psISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.AddOnsMenu.SubMenus.Clear()
$psISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.AddOnsMenu.Submenus.Add("Reload file and run",{Build},'f4')

Its not perfect, but its good enough for me for now. All is does is create a key binding that closes,reopens, and then executes the current file. Its a bit jarring though because when you run it you'll lose your current cursor position when the file is closed and reopened. I'm sure you could store the column and line position of the cursor and restore it when reloading, but I'm too lazy to bother with that for the time being.

Edit: I accidentally posted an older non-working version of my code. Updated with working version.

red888
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  • This is a good answer, helped me a lot when I could not figure out why Powershel ISE was not refreshing variables after I changed the script. It is called an Integrated Scripting Environment, but it should not be necessary to do such hacks, Microsoft. Great answer though red888. – Tore Aurstad Sep 13 '18 at 08:50
4

Here is a different spin on red888's script:

function Reload {

    $CurrentFile = $psise.CurrentFile
    $FilePath = $CurrentFile.FullPath

    $lineNum = $psise.CurrentFile.Editor.CaretLine
    $colNum = $psise.CurrentFile.Editor.CaretColumn

    $PsISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.Files.remove($CurrentFile) > $null

    $newFile = $PsISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.Files.add($FilePath)

    $newfile.Editor.SetCaretPosition($lineNum,$colNum)
}

$psISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.AddOnsMenu.SubMenus.Clear()
$psISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.AddOnsMenu.Submenus.Add("Reload File",{Reload},'f4') > $null

It restores the position of the caret after reload. I removed the line

iex $PsISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.Files.Editor.Text

As I didn't need it and its also not the same as running the script (and so results in strange behavior of statements like $script:MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path).

Incidentally, if you put this code in your ISE profile it will automatically run when you first load the ISE. The ISE profile is just a powershell script whose location is given by the $profile variable.

Here are some commands that create the profile if it doesn't exist, and then opens it. Run it from inside the ISE:

if (!(Test-Path (Split-Path $profile))) { mkdir (Split-Path $profile) } ;
if (!(Test-Path $profile)) { New-Item $profile -ItemType file } ;
notepad $profile
Oliver
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  • Nice, but where can I put that so that it automatically executes when I launch PS-ISE ? Also, executing keeps caret position, but still loses `the selection`, and the `exact position (a.k.a. scrolling)` in the file. The worse is probably that the new tab doesn't reopens at the same index in the tab bar. Can any of those be fixed ? – Balmipour Oct 22 '15 at 11:39
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    @Balmipour Type '$profile' in the ISE command prompt, then put the code in that file. Regarding the other stuff - I'm not so sure, I also noticed that this solution isn't ideal. – Oliver Oct 23 '15 at 08:15
3

PowerShell ISE does not support refreshing the changed files automatically. It is not there even in ISE v3.

There is connect suggestion on this topic: https://connect.microsoft.com/PowerShell/feedback/details/711915/open-ise-files-should-update-when-edited-externally

However, this can be done using PowerShell ISE Object model and PowerShell eventing. Explore $psise.CurrentFile and $psise.CurrentPowerShellTab.Files collection. This must give you enough information to write your own simple addon.

ravikanth
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