Upgrade function to include alias and second parameter

For day 14 of 100 Days of Code I’m going to update my new-blogpost function again, by adding an alias and a second parameter.

New-Blogpost

function New-Blogpost {
    <#
    .SYNOPSIS
        Shortcut for creating new folder and file in the jekyll date format
    .EXAMPLE
        New-BlogPost "how-to-create-a-blog" -AddDays 1
        nbp "new-blog-post"
    #>
    [Alias("nbp")]
    param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$false,Position = 0)] 
        [string]
        $Title = "new-blogpost",
        [int]$AddDays = 0)
        
    $date = (get-date).AddDays($AddDays).ToString('yyyy-MM-dd')
    
    New-Item -ItemType directory -Path ".\$date"

    Copy-Item -Path  "$profileDir\blog_template.md" -Destination ".\$date\$date-$title.md"
              
    code ".\$date\$date-$title.md"
    }

So a couple new updates are happening here:

1. I’ve added the [Alias("nbp")] block to the start of the script, that lets me call it by typing nbp instead of new-blogpost.
2. I’ve added the -Title parameter, which is not Mandatory so if no title is chosen it defaults to $date-new-blogpost.md
3. The -Title parameter is also positional, which means when running the script it will accept any string of text as the $title value, without having to explicitly call -Title
4. Script now creates a copy of a markdown folder that lives in my $profileDir to use as a template base for all new blogposts. In my template I’ve included a useful link for markdown stuff because I’m forgetful.

Conclusion

For day 14 of 100 days of code, I’ve upgraded my custom function for the 2nd time, and added it to my powershell-profile startup script so that it is availble to run in my sessions. I can now kick off a new blog post by navigating to my _posts directory and typing nbp "update-new-blogpost-function" and it will create a folder and starting .md file to my specifications.