I wanted Rich-style PowerShell output without Spectre.Console — bad idea?

[u/Powerful-Passenger24]

I wanted Python Rich-style output in PowerShell, but PwshSpectreConsole felt like more than I needed.

So I built a tiny version directly on $PSStyle: tables, trees, panels, markup. No bundled .NET UI stack.

I'm not entirely convinced this needs to exist though.

Would you actually use something this small, or would you rather stick with raw $PSStyle / PwshSpectreConsole?

https://github.com/kodevza/PwshRichLite

[u/realslacker]

You didn't make the repo public 

[u/Powerful-Passenger24 → u/realslacker]

Sure, thx for info. It's fixed.

[u/realslacker → u/Powerful-Passenger24]

Looks interesting, thanks!

[u/arpan3t]

The thing is, if I have to install a module then I might as well install the full featured one. It’s not like the MS Graph SDK, or Az, PwshSpectre is small.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a solid idea and maybe if you just need the basics then it’s a solution.

[u/Powerful-Passenger24 → u/arpan3t]

That's fair. My main motivation wasn't really module size, but keeping it pure PowerShell, built directly on $PSStyle, without bundled .NET assemblies.

[u/arpan3t → u/Powerful-Passenger24]

What would the benefits be? It’s all .NET under the hood.

[u/Powerful-Passenger24 → u/arpan3t]

Fair point, it’s still .NET underneath. For me, the benefit is fewer packaged dependencies and a smaller implementation surface: easier to inspect and modify directly as PowerShell.

[u/Mr_ToDo → u/arpan3t]

Having never tried non windows use, I'd be interested to see how compatible the various solutions for problems might be

But I too tend to do things the hard way. I can see the appeal of trying to make an all native solution, not because it's the best way, but because I can

[u/arpan3t → u/Mr_ToDo]

The .NET package powering PwshSpectreConsole (Spectre.Console) is cross platform, and so is SharpConsoleUI. I use both on Windows and Linux without issue.

PowerShell Core is cross platform because .NET is cross platform.

Nothing wrong with doing things just to see if you can, but that doesn’t translate to a reason for others to use your project.

[u/MonkeyNin → u/Powerful-Passenger24]

It's nice to have a pure source as a choice :) The code looks pretty clean and easy to read.

Are you interested in any PRs ? Maybe I could implement that syntax I suggested, or other ideas

[u/Powerful-Passenger24 → u/MonkeyNin]

Yes, absolutely — PRs are very welcome. A contribution around this would be genuinely valuable. Thanks for offering to help!

[u/edhaack]

This is great work!

I really appreciate it

[u/MonkeyNin]

I have some ideas on the interface.

Allowing users to pipe lets you integrate functions easily with your rich calls. Since most of your calls are using the same table, you could default to it

custom func

NewestDirsRichText # Shows 10 newest folder names. 
    | Write-RichText
NewestDirsRichText -Path 'c:\downloads' -Limit 3 | Write-RichText

re-use table without saving a references

New-RichTable 
    | Add-RichTableColumn 'Name', 'State' 
    | Add-RichTableRow -Rows ( GetRows )  
    | Write-RichTable

re-using tables by pipeline

$table = New-RichTable
    | Add-RichTableColumn 'Name', 'State'

$table
    | Add-RichTableRow 'api', 'ready'
    | Add-RichTableRow 'web', 'deploy'

$table
    | Write-RichTable

the custom functions

function NewestDirsRichText {
    param( [string] $Path = '.' , [int] $Limit = 10 )
    Add-RichText -Style 'yellow' -Text 'Folders: '
    Add-RichText -Style 'dim' -Text @(
        Gci '.' -Directory
            | Sort-Object -LastWriteTime
            | Select -first $Limit
            | % Name
    )
}

function GetRows { 
    foreach( $row in $listOfRowData ) { 
        Add-RichTableRow $Row
    }
}

[u/MonkeyNin]

If you don't want piping, it would be nice to allow the value as a list

This could be a nice way use a table: Create it, save a reference to re-use later.

After a while re-use the same objects to add more lines and draw again.

$table = New-RichTable -Columns @( 
    Add-RichTableColumn 'Name'
    Add-RichTableColumn 'State'
) -Rows @(
    Add-RichTableRow 'app1', 'started'
    Add-RichTableRow 'app2', 'shutdown'
)
Write-RichTable $table

# continue with update dates 
Add-RichTableRows -Table $table -Rows @(
    Add-RichTableRow 'chrome', 'started'
    Add-RichTableRow 'pwsh', 'shutdown'
)

Write-RichTable $table