PowerShell Modules Central - Share with community - What PowerShell modules are you using?
Like the blog post title states this is all about sharing with others! My idea is to share with the community which PowerShell modules you are using.
Let me introduce to you the PowerShell Modules Central
PowerShellModulesCentral is a GitHub repository that was founded as a central hub to a list of PowerShell modules that people know/use. Each module has a file describing its name, basic information about the module, as well as one or more blog posts/videos from people that have written about or used them.
This way we can reduce friction when people are starting out or are trying to solve similar problems.
Why?
When a new module appears on the PowerShell scene it can be difficult to advertise and gain mindshare among developers/end users who could be interested in it. There are also times when difficulties arise in finding if a good tool exists or not, if its up to date, and how relevant it is in the community.
Why not just use the PS Gallery or script center?
This is, by no means, a replacement of those. Actually it is opposite, it is meant to be a community complement. Normally, when you need to do a task that you’ve never done before you like to have some jump start like blog posts or videos, and maybe you find the ones that are very close to your real scenario. This repository enables not only people to write blog posts and share them with the community, but also the new guy (on PowerShell or just on a new task) that is searching for a specific tool to accomplish a task. I can go to the PowerShell Gallery and see that the module I want to use has 1K downloads. That is really cool! It will give me confidence to use it. But, next, when you want to start working with it maybe you would like to see examples. The objective here is to have a quick look on some problems and tools used to solve them, as they can also be your problem.
Let me tell you a quick story
I went to google, found a PowerShell Gallery script, and after checking that the script didn’t work with some particulars I did a further research and found (google results - page 3 or 4 due ranks) a comment on a forum pointing to the GitHub repository. Guess what? The problems I was having were already addressed. ;-)
Are you a module owner? Are you writing something new? Do you contribute to a module? Share it! The ones I know and use could be very different from the ones you know and use! Why not share?
How can this help me?
Are you trying to find a module to work on a specific task? Use the search on the top of the repository page and try to find what you need.
- Working with Windows? Type “Windows”.
- Working with SQL Server? Type “SQL Server”.
- Do you know the author’s name? You can search that way too.
- Have you read a blog post before and just remember one word or the blogger’s name? Type it and see what you find.
How to contribute?
Just fork the repository, add the information and send a pull request (PR). I will merge it once everything is OK. For new modules please use the template available here . If you find that module already exists, you just need to add your URLs and any other information to be updated, tags that you think may be useful, add something to description, etc.
If you use a module that doesn’t have a blog post and/or videos yet, you can submit a PR anyway so all of the community can know that it exists and maybe someone will write about it!
Follow up
Follow the repository news by clicking on “Watch” button and/or follow @psmcentral Twitter account.
Feel free to share this blog post! The more people we reach, the better!
Thanks for reading.