Tag Archives: Find-Link

CSV Browser Links

Edit: At some point between publishing this post and now — 11:43 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Eve — I thought people consuming this post would benefit from seeing the menu open a CSV-based bookmark. A short gif has been added to the bottom of this post.

I do not know what my problem is, but for the last few years, I’ve been an anti-browser-bookmarks person. I don’t really have a good reason as to why, but I look forward to getting over it; I do. But until then, I have been saving all my links inside of a CSV file with the assumption that at some point I will write some PowerShell that will allow me to easily search my CSV file and then open links programmatically. Well, guess what, I finally wrote that.

The first thing sharing this project is going to require is a properly formatted CSV file we can both work from. No need to put mine in here; it would be full of links that are worthless to anyone but me. Copy and paste the comma-separated data below and save that off to a CSV file called Links.csv Be sure to note the path where you chose to save it, as we will work with it as a part of this post.

Title,Link,Note
PowerShell GitHub,https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell,
PowerShell GitHub Issues,https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/issues,
PowerShell Docs GitHub,https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/PowerShell-Docs,
Powershell Docs GitHub Issues,https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/PowerShell-Docs/issues,
PowerShell Docs,https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell,
PowerShell Gallery,https://www.powershellgallery.com,
PowerShell Reddit,https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerShell,
Twitter Legends @jeffhicks,https://twitter.com/JeffHicks,
Twitter Legends @jsnover,https://twitter.com/jsnover,
Twitter Legends @concentrateddon, https://twitter.com/concentrateddon,
TechCrunch.com,https://techcrunch.com/,Tech News
Cnet.com,https://www.cnet.com/,Tech News
Gizmodo.com,https://gizmodo.com/,Tech News
9to5mac.com,https://9to5mac.com/,Tech News
Engadget.com,https://www.engadget.com/,Tech News
Wired.com,https://www.wired.com/,Tech News
TechRadar.com,https://www.techradar.com/,News
Axios.com,https://www.axios.com/,News

With our CSV in place, we can work through the below PowerShell and then take it for a test drive. Have a look and meet me below for a quick discussion, before we try it out.

function Find-Link {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    Param (
        [Parameter()]
        $Path = 'C:\Users\tommymaynard\Documents\CSVs\Links.csv',
        [Parameter()]$Title,[Parameter()]$Link,[Parameter()]$Note
    )

    #region Import CSV/filter.
    $AllLinks = Import-Csv -Path $Path
    $ FilterLinks = $AllLinks | Where-Object -FilterScript {
        $_.Title -like "*$Title*" -and $_.Link -like "*$Link*" -and $_.Note -like "*$Note*"
    }
    #endregion
    #region Create link menu.
    for ($i = 0; $i -lt $FilterLinks.Count; $i++) {
        "[$($i + 1)] $(($FilterLinks[$i]).Title)"
    } # for
    #endregion
    #region Prompt user.
    do {
        $Option = Read-Host -Prompt 'Link Number'
    } # do
    until ($Option -in (1..$FilterLinks.Count))
    Start-Process -FilePath "$($FilterLinks[$($Option - 1)].Link)"
    #endregion
}

The function is named Find-Link, and it includes a -Path parameter. This is the location of the CSV file. While the function contains a default path, it can be changed when the function is invoked by passing in a different value. The static entry in the function can also be permanently modified, as well — it is up to you.

Find-Link -Path '/users/landrews/Documents/bookmarks.csv'

When the file is imported, the entire CSV is assigned to the $AllLinks variable. Then, it runs a command against that variable, creating a new variable, to filter down the results using the value(s) potentially passed to three other parameters: -Title, -Link, and -Note. There is more than just the -Path parameter.  It does not check if any of these parameters were actually included, but it could have using $PSBoundParameters. Once we have a filtered list of links to display, we cycle through them using a for loop, which creates a menu of options. Here’s an example of one of the outputs created by invoking this command with the -Title parameter.

Find-Link -Title Twitter
[1] Twitter Legends @jeffhicks
[2] Twitter Legends @jsnover        
[3] Twitter Legends @concentrateddon
Link Number:

The final portion of the function is a do-until loop. This invokes Read-Host prompt until one of the available menu numbers is entered. When a number that is not included is entered, it will prompt the user again for a different value. Here is an example of that.

Find-Link -Title Twitter
[1] Twitter Legends @jeffhicks
[2] Twitter Legends @jsnover        
[3] Twitter Legends @concentrateddon
Link Number: 8
Link Number: 15
Link Number: 4
Link Number: 

When a value is selected that is included from the list, Start-Process invokes the corresponding link. Before we close out, here are a few more examples.

Find-Link -Link powershell
[1] PowerShell GitHub
[2] PowerShell GitHub Issues     
[3] PowerShell Docs GitHub       
[4] Powershell Docs GitHub Issues
[5] PowerShell Docs
[6] PowerShell Gallery
[7] PowerShell Reddit
Link Number:
Find-Link -Note News
[1] TechCrunch.com
[2] Cnet.com
[3] Gizmodo.com
[4] 9to5mac.com
[5] Engadget.com
[6] Wired.com
[7] TechRadar.com
[8] Axios.com
Link Number:
Find-Link -Note 'Tech News' 
[1] TechCrunch.com
[2] Cnet.com      
[3] Gizmodo.com   
[4] 9to5mac.com 
[5] Engadget.com
[6] Wired.com   
Link Number:   

We can combine the parameters too, to further filter the results.

Find-Link -Title GitHub -Link powershell
[1] PowerShell GitHub
[2] PowerShell GitHub Issues
[3] PowerShell Docs GitHub
[4] Powershell Docs GitHub Issues
Link Number: 

There may be a few things to add over time, but for now, this gives me what I wanted. It is better than navigating to the document and copying out a link — never. again.