Edit: I’ve updated this post by adding a really quick video at the bottom — check it out. It briefly shows the results of the concepts in this post.

It was just yesterday when I wrote the Windows Terminal Fun Surprise post. This was a short post about executing the Alt+Shift+D keyboard key combination inside Windows Terminal. I got myself to a point where I could programmatically send in this key combination using the below commands.

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
[System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys]::SendWait('%+D')

This got me thinking: Can I use this to prep a command for immediate use? I know, what does that even mean? My profile script $PROFILE, contains a good deal of helpful tools. And then it has something like the PowerShell ASCII art below. It’s actually a work logo, but you get the idea. This laptop with the PowerShell logo will stand in just fine, however.

Function Show-PowerShellAsciiArt {
@"
   ._________________.
   |.---------------.|
   ||   PowerShell  ||
   ||     \         ||
   ||      \        ||
   ||      /        ||
   ||     / ------  ||
   ||_______________||
   /.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.\
  /.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.\
 /.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.\
/______/__________\___o_\
\_______________________/

"@
} # End Function: Show-PowerShellAsciiArt.
Show-PowerShellAsciiArt

As cool as I think this logo is — the one I actually use — and as certain as I am about it appearing every time I open a new terminal, I feel like it’s in the way when I want to start to use my terminal. Like you, I suspect, I want my prompt and cursor in the top-leftish corner and ready to go pretty quickly. The difference is, I’m willing a momentary slowdown. I can do better, however.

The thought was: Can I place a command at the prompt as a part of my profile script, that will allow me to just press Enter to clear the screen? You see, I usually type cls or clear, press Enter and then start with whatever I’m doing. I want the logo, but I also want to get started as soon as I can. The answer to that most recent thought though is yes.

In addition to the above Show-PowerShellAsciiArt function, is one more brief function and a modification to the code that started off this post.

Function Clear-Logo {Clear-Host}

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
[System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys]::SendWait('Clear-Logo')

Now, when my profile script executes, it places the “Clear-Logo” text at my prompt, allowing me to just press Enter to clear the image and start doing what I do at the command line. As you can see, Clear-Logo is only there to invoke Clear-Host. Still, I like it better.

Press Enter and voilà.

In order to get a better idea of how this works — just in case, I didn’t do a great job explaining it, who knows — I’ve included a short video below. This shows me opening two new tabs in Windows Terminal and pressing Enter after each is open, and therefore, clearing the screen (the logo).