This blog does a fairly straight-forward job on explaining the basics. For me, I learn best in an interactive 1:1 or well-constructed video, so ChatGPT was priceless. I could ask it stupid questions all day long, and after throwing some different ideas around I started to see the essential parts and just let my prior knowledge of PS, .NET, and C# WPF take it from there.

At the end of the day, all that really matters is using the PresentationFramework assembly and creating a window:

• Add-Type -AssemblyName PresentationFramework
• Either use Visual Studio > WPF Project and make the UI you want. Take the XAML file and use PowerShell to get the raw content:
  • $Xaml = Get-Content -Path MainWindow.xaml -Raw
  • $SanitizedXaml = $Xaml -replace “bad syntax e.g. Foreground={x:Null}” "Foreground=“Transparent” # Certain XAML syntax is incompatible with PS XML
  • [xml]$XmlReader = [System.Xml.XmlNodeReader]::new($SanitizedXaml)
  • $Window = [Windows.Markup.XamlReader]::Load($XmlReader)
• Or, use .NET-style syntax in PS directly:
  • $Window = [System.Windows.Window]::new()
• Then show the window:
  • $Window.ShowDialog() | Out-Null