Online support for about_... help topics

Get-Help can display both locally cached help files and online resources. Since online resources do not require prerequisites like Update-Help and are always up-to-date, and since online resources are much better formatted and include navigation to discover related items, a “Copy” button to copy&paste sample code, and more, many users default to using online help, i.e. by adding this to their profile:

$PSDefaultParameterValues.Add("Get-Help:Online",$true)

Now, without any prerequisites, users can easily display cmdlet help in an extra window like so:

dir -?
Get-Process -?

However, Get-Help -Online can only show help topics with a dedicated URI property. That’s why all about_… topics fail to display even though there are online versions available.

Steps to reproduce

help Get-process -Online # works
help about_for -Online #fails

Expected behavior

When Get-Help is used with -Online, it should detect whether the requested help starts with about_ and then construct the appropriate URI rather than fail. This could be done with a hard-coded topic list to include only the MSFT about_ topics, or simply done heuristically with the potential of failing for about topics from 3rd party.

If all else fails and there is no match, Get-Help -Online should default to the PowerShell documentation home page: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core This would enable users to try and search there rather than being left with a red exception.

Get-Help about_for -Online # should open https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_for
Get-Help about_doesnotexist -Online # should open https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core

Actual behavior

Get-Help -Online fails for any topic that has no distinct URI property

Environment data

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      7.0.3
PSEdition                      Core
GitCommitId                    7.0.3
OS                             Microsoft Windows 10.0.18363
Platform                       Win32NT
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion              3.0

[mklement0]

@sdwheeler states in https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/PowerShell-Docs/issues/2939#issuecomment-926874648 that the about_* help source files have now been updated with URL information; alas, the downloaded versions still lack this information.

As a temporary workaround, the following may be of interest:

I’ve created a Show-Help function that is essentially a wrapper for Get-Help -Online, but it supports about_* topics too, whose URLs it constructs behind the scenes; e.g. Show-Help about_pwsh (tab-completion supported).

It’s available from an MIT-licensed Gist - assuming you have looked at the code (which I can personally assure you is safe, but you should always check), you can install it directly:

irm https://gist.github.com/mklement0/880624fd665073bb439dfff5d71da886/raw/Show-Help.ps1 | iex

See also these related suggestions:

• #11338
• #11339

I’ve also created helper functions for these; here are all three installation commands:

# Show-Help function (wrapper for Get-Help -Online with support for about_* topics); e.g.
#     Show-Help about_pwsh
#     Show-Help about_Automatic_Variables PSItem
irm https://gist.github.com/mklement0/880624fd665073bb439dfff5d71da886/raw/Show-Help.ps1 | iex

# Show-OperatorHelp function (online help for PowerShell's operators; e.g.
#    Show-OperatorHelp replace
irm https://gist.github.com/mklement0/146f3202a810a74cb54a2d353ee4003f/raw/Show-OperatorHelp.ps1 | iex

# Show-TypeHelp function (online documentation for .NET types and instances); e.g.
#    Show-TypeHelp regex
#    Show-TypeHelp datetime tostring
irm https://gist.github.com/mklement0/50a1b101cd53978cd147b4b138fe6ef4/raw/Show-TypeHelp.ps1 | iex

[Jaykul]

@AndASM your problem is you’re trying to get help for a module you can’t import – please start a new issue instead of hijacking this one.