Car menu example

A minimal arrow-key navigation menu for Windows PowerShell. Pick a favourite car, then a colour, and the script prints your choices.

Compatible with Windows PowerShell 5.1 and later (including PowerShell 7). Uses only APIs available in 5.1.

Files

File	Description
car-menu-example.ps1	Runnable script
car-menu-example.README.md	This file

Requirements

• Windows PowerShell 5.1+ or PowerShell 7+
• An interactive console (Windows Terminal, powershell.exe, or pwsh.exe)

The script uses [Console]::ReadKey and will not work when stdin is redirected or when there is no real console (for example, some IDE “Run” panels).

Run

Clone from GitHub and run

git clone https://github.com/mharwooduk/powershell-arrow-key-menu.git
cd powershell-arrow-key-menu
.\car-menu-example.ps1

Or save everything (function + arrays + calls) locally as car-menu-example.ps1, then run:

& "$HOME\car-menu-example.ps1"

Or with the full path:

& 'C:\Users\Mark.MH-LAPTOP1\car-menu-example.ps1'

Controls

Key	Action
Up	Move highlight up
Down	Move highlight down
Enter	Select the highlighted option

The current choice is shown with a > prefix and a cyan highlight.

Flow

1. Main menu — “What is your favourite car?” (6 options)
2. Sub menu — “What colour is your car?” (4 options)
3. Summary — Prints car and colour, then exits

Example output:

You selected:
  Car:   Porsche 911
  Color: Blue

Goodbye.

Customize

Edit the option arrays at the bottom of car-menu-example.ps1:

• $cars — main menu (6 items)
• $colors — sub menu (4 items)

Reuse Show-ArrowMenu for other menus:

$choice = Show-ArrowMenu -Title 'Pick one' -Options @('A', 'B', 'C')

How it works

Show-ArrowMenu clears the screen, redraws all options with one row highlighted, and reads a single key per loop via [System.Console]::ReadKey($true). Enter returns the highlighted string to the caller.