Clear-Host, Without Clearing the Host – Part 2 (TMConsole Module)

Download the TMConsole Module here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/TMConsole-Module-Clear-487eff0e

Back in early September, I wrote a post about “clearing” the host. I was proud of my simple, little function, that I then called clx, and so in early October, I linked the post on Twitter. To my surprise, a few well-known names in Windows PowerShell helped promote the blog post. I’m talking about PowerShell MVPs, authors, and community bloggers – the very people I look up to and learn from.

Just recently, I decided it would be wise to add comment-based help and some minor logic-based, error checking to the function, and then post it on the Microsoft TechNet Gallery. In addition, I wanted to combine it with another simple console function that I use, and upload them both as a module.

If you’ve read the link above then you already know about the first half of the module (the Clear-TMConsole function, aka clx). The second half of this module (the New-TMConsole function) simply opens a new PowerShell console and provides the user the option to keep, or close the current console. I wrote this function because there are many times when I want a fresh console that doesn’t have any left over variables. I was tired of typing Start-Process (or saps) powershell. I understand these are simple, but I’ve become quite dependent on them to speed up my work, and to mildly safeguard information I want to keep in my console(s).

Below are a few aliases I use to help speed up my use of the functions. Opening a new console, and closing the current one, is as simple as entering: nc y n and pressing enter. The y is to indicate to continue running the New-TMConsole function, and the n indicates to not keep the current console. Hopefully this module can be helpful to others, too.

Set-Alias -Name nc -Value New-TMConsole
Set-Alias -Name clx -Value Clear-TMConsole
Set-Alias -Name cc -Value Clear-TMConsole

Download the TMConsole Module here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/TMConsole-Module-Clear-487eff0e

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