Show a custom sorted grid of all PowerShell verbs in an easy to read format

verbs.ps1

<#
.SYNOPSIS
    Show all verbs in an easy-to-read grid.
.DESCRIPTION
    Show all verbs in a grid, with custom sorting applied so that we can quickly scan each column and find verbs more easily.

    This command was designed for ad-hoc use only. To get the most value out of this command, place it in your profile script. It outputs format data which is not easily used in automated commands.
#>
function verbs {
    # Get the verbs in a sorted list
    $verbs = Get-Verb | Sort-Object -Property Verb | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Verb
    # Figure out the number of columns, the minimum number of verbs per column, and the
    # number of columns containing an extra verb
    $columnCount = [System.Math]::Min($Host.UI.RawUI.BufferSize.Width / 'ConvertFrom '.Length -as [System.Int32], 10)
    $columnsWithOneMore = 0
    $rowCount = [System.Math]::DivRem($verbs.Count, $columnCount, [REF]$columnsWithOneMore)
    if ($columnsWithOneMore -gt 0) {
        $rowCount++
    }
    # Add a buffer to the array to make the resulting wide grid a rectangle
    $buffer = @('') * ($columnCount - $columnsWithOneMore)
    $verbs += $buffer
    # Once we have enough entries to produce a rectangular grid, flip the rows
    # and the columns
    $reorderedVerbs = New-Object -TypeName System.Collections.ArrayList
    for ($rowIndex = 0; $rowIndex -lt $rowCount; $rowIndex++) {
        for ($columnIndex = 0; $columnIndex -lt $columnCount; $columnIndex++) {
            $reorderedVerbs.Add($verbs[$rowIndex + $columnIndex * $rowCount]) > $null
        }
    }
    # With the grid reordered, we can output the results
    $reorderedVerbs | Format-Wide -Property {$_} -Column $columnCount -Force
}

Why not use: Format-Wide -AutoSize

Good question @wimjan. Format-Wide -AutoSize creates a wide grid that takes up less space, but the data is row-oriented rather than column oriented. For example, if you were showing values 1-7, with Format-Wide -AutoSize you get this:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7

With the function above, you get this instead:

1 4 7
2 5
3 6

You can see this with the Get-Verb function by comparing the results of this:

Get-Verb | Sort-Object -Property Verb | Format-Wide -AutoSize -Property Verb

with this:

verbs

Many people find the second example much easier to read/scan for information, because it matches how we actually read sorted lists of information. This is why I created this function, to make Format-Wide output (which is really only useful on sorted data anyway) more readable. I have an even better solution coming soon that addresses this issue for any Format-Wide output.