PSReadLine is only available in the Preview Extension

[SydneyhSmith]

This is an issue to track that PSReadLine support is only available in the PowerShell Preview Extension (and not in the PowerShell extension).

For more information about the Preview Extension read this blog post.

[ili101]

I was very impressed by the PSReadLine console in the preview 1 version.
But I fallback to the stable version because of the bugs that make it mostly unusable:
#1753 #1727 #1570
I was hoping this things will be fixed and packed in "preview 2" so I and probably others can give PSReadLine/Preview a second try and provide feedback if needed but 2 months passed and all the bugs still unresolved.

[fMichaleczek]

I hope next preview will be available on French keyboard.
@sba923

[Jaykul]

You can't just ship a preview and close all the bugs -- it's been over 8 months since that "preview" was first released, and over 5 months since it was publicly announced and blogged about, and none of these features have made it from "preview" to release.

[rjmholt]

The issue that's been blocking this: #1936

It's turned out to require significant work to overcome, but we're doing our best to engineer around it.

[rjmholt]

@Jaykul please understand that GitHub issues represent open work items for us. More open issues means less focus (and therefore less ability to deliver features), and our workflow is that issues solved in master (i.e. preview) are closed. But because of the *nix console issue, we PSReadLine is not ready for stable release -- we were hoping it would be, but sometimes you hit hard problems in software. We're doing our best to work on it.

[yobyot]

Please don't take this as pressure or badgering -- but is this extension leaving preview status anytime soon? Use it once -- for PSReadLine -- and you can't go back. But there's been no activity on the public preview since May and I'm wondering if the bigger issues that @rjmholt references have put this on the back burner.

I do have to say that with pwsh 7 imminent (at least I hope it's imminent), the fact that the only real ISE for current releases of PowerShell, VScode, doesn't have a basic console editing capability in production is an embarrassment for me with clients. I sing the praises of PowerShell to Windows shops migrating to Azure but then have to deal with Az/VS Code newbies who find the environment off-putting.

It's OK for the combo of VSCode and pwsh to not be a completely replacement for the creaky, old ISE. But when you are trying to get people used to doing on-prem work in the ISE to transfer their thinking to the cloud, the ISE isn't the best place to do that. And with the basics lacking for several years in the extension, it just doesn't make for a great end-user story.

[TylerLeonhardt]

@yobyot

there's been no activity on the public preview since May

That's because of the quality. I'm not happy with the quality of the code and as such, I've been rewriting and rearchitecting a lot of the extension. You can see my work wrt that over in the omnisharp-lsp branch. The only reason that has slowed down (I mean, it's been 7 days, but still) is because I'm working with the Omnisharp folks to add a feature to their product that I can take advantage of in the PowerShell extension.

I hear your frustration. I really want to ship it and get it into to stable for all of you to use... but I can't ship a product in such a state that it is. It wouldn't be fair to you or anyone.

At the moment, it's just me working on this project so if you think that the PowerShell team as a whole should prioritize this over other things, speak to @SydneyhSmith @joeyaiello or @SteveL-MSFT.

That said, keep in mind that we're all running pretty hot maintaining both PowerShell itself and all the other tooling.

[yobyot]

@TylerLeonhardt

Thank you very much for the quick reply and the update.

It's great to know that you will "ship no extension before its time," to repurpose an old ad. IOW, you want it to be good. I do, too. I was just checking to see if it has a heartbeat. One of the coolest things about Microsoft these days is how responsive you folks are here. When someone working on the product responds like you have, it's a "signal" that the issue or feature or whatever is being actively worked. We never used to have that -- and I think MSFT is alone among mega software companies in permitting this level of interaction (at least for some products). I'm very grateful for that.

I wouldn't presume to attempt to set or reset the PowerShell roadmap that @SydneyhSmith @joeyaiello or @SteveL-MSFT are working on. I trust them to understand that PowerShell needs a top-drawer development toolset that isn't Visual Studio.

From my outside, end-user POV it looks like you are really, really close. I'm just impatient, is all.

[iampeterdaniels]

Apologies in advance if this is the wrong place for this. I thought that the latest powershell extension added PSReadLine to the console like the preview. Am I confused? I would prefer not to go back to the preview as the "regular" extension does seem more stable. I just miss the syntax highlighting and intellisense in the console.

[iampeterdaniels]

Justin Grote set me straight in #535. PSReadline is NOT in the non-preview extension, ergo this open issue.