Jaykul/About using NerdFonts as named Entities.md

## About using NerdFonts as named Entities.md

      
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              About using NerdFonts as named Entities.md
            
          
    Using Nerd Fonts in PowerShell

I've been recommending people use NerdFonts in their terminals for a while, but using the extra characters ends up being rather a pain. I have to look up characters in their web cheat-sheet, and then I either end up with a whole bunch of "$([char]0xf1ed)$([char]0xf00d)" in my profile scripts, which is impossible to read, or I have to translate the hex to decimal so I can type the ALT codes in my editor...
So today I fixed it, using PANSIES (the PowerShell ANSI Escape Sequences module).
PANSIES has &entities;

In PANSIES output (i.e. via the Write-Host, or by using New-Text in a string), you can embed named entities like in html. But unlike HTML, Pansies entities are extensible. So I wrote a little script to re-use the css names for the nerd-font characters and generate entities.
Now I can write things like:
Read-Host (Text "Do you use $fg:OrangeRed&nf-fa-firefox;$fg:clear, $fg:SteelBlue&nf-fa-chrome;$fg:clear or $fg:DodgerBlue&nf-fa-edge;$fg:clear")


## Import-NerdFonts.ps1
if([PoshCode.Pansies.Entities]::ExtendedCharacters.ContainsKey("nf-custom-c")) { return }

Invoke-RestMethod https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/master/css/nerd-fonts-generated.css |
Select-String '(?m)^\.(nf-[^:]+):[^{]+{\s+content: "\\([^"]{4})"[^}]+}' -AllMatches | ForEach-Object Matches |
ForEach-Object { [PoshCode.Pansies.Entities]::ExtendedCharacters.Add($_.Groups[1], ([char][int]"0x$($_.Groups[2])") ) }
	if([PoshCode.Pansies.Entities]::ExtendedCharacters.ContainsKey("nf-custom-c")) { return }

	Invoke-RestMethod https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/master/css/nerd-fonts-generated.css \|
	Select-String '(?m)^\.(nf-[^:]+):[^{]+{\s+content: "\\([^"]{4})"[^}]+}' -AllMatches \| ForEach-Object Matches \|
	ForEach-Object { [PoshCode.Pansies.Entities]::ExtendedCharacters.Add($_.Groups[1], ([char][int]"0x$($_.Groups[2])") ) }