Here’s a shout out of two great tools you should try if you want (or planning) to integrate your PowerShell scripts into a Visual Studio solution. Specially, if you’re using SQL Data BI Tools for Visual Studio or just build apps with Visual Studio full version.
- “PowerShell Tools for Visual Studio” by Adam Driscoll (PowerShell MVP) – http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/c9eb3ba8-0c59-4944-9a62-6eee37294597
- “StudioShell” by Christopher Beefarino (PowerShell MVP) – http://studioshell.codeplex.com/
In my laptop I have both the SQL Data BI tools for Visual Studio 2012 (VS shell), and the full version of Visual Studio 2013. One thing to point out, only the “PowerShell Tools for Visual Studio” will install in both versions: 2012, and 2013. But, when using both at the same time, then you have both full editor features to write scripts and a practical PowerShell prompt so you can test one-liners.
You can create either a PowerShell solution by adding a new PowerShell Project, or simple adding “a new item” to your existing solution.
Now we can work with Visual Studio and PowerShell from the cloud if we want. Here’s an image of my physical laptop and my Surface 2 connected to my Windows Azure VM running Windows Server 2012 R2 with Visual Studio 2013 installed.
Notice when creating scripts Intellisense is available and you can execute the code from withing Visual Studio.
Next you may want to pay attention to Microsoft Team Foundation server either on-premise or cloud options. So you can build your solution and do some source code versioning.
Everything is about trying and evaluating these great community tools. Give them your honest feedback so they can keep making enhancements and increase their value.
Additional Information
Here’s some other important updates for Visual Studio 2012: Visual Studio 2012 Team Explorer 8/2/2012 – http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30656 Visual Studio 2012 Update 4 11/12/2013 – http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39305
Happy PowerShelling!!