Write your own PowerShell provider using only script, no C# required. Module definition is provided by a Windows PowerShell 2.0 Module, which may be pure script, binary or a mix of both.

Debugging is as easy as any ordinary ps1 script file:

All functions in backing module reflect the same signature as those found on MSDN. This means that you go to MSDN documentation on providers to learn about how to write the corresponding script.

Current Release PSProvider 0.4

Samples and Templates

• See Documentation

Roadmap

0.1

• ContainerCmdletProvider support through "ModuleBoundProvider" provider
• Demo provider included navigating a Hashtable
• Can be debugged in the debugger of your choice: console, ISE, PowerGUI.

0.2

• NavigationCmdletProvider support
• Providers rename to ContainerScriptProvider and TreeScriptProvider
• Container Sample & Tree Template modules
• Supports: Clear-Item, Copy-Item, Get-Item, Invoke-Item, Move-Item, New-Item, Remove-Item, Rename-Item, Set-Item

0.3

• IContentCmdletProvider support
• New Commands: New-ContentReader, New-ContentWriter implement IContentReader, IContentWriter
• Adds support for: Add-Content, Clear-Content, Get-Content, Set-Content

0.4 (Current Release)

• IPropertyCmdletProvider support
• Adds support for: Clear-ItemProperty, Copy-ItemProperty, Get-ItemProperty, Move-ItemProperty, New-ItemProperty, Remove-ItemProperty, Rename-ItemProperty, Set-ItemProperty

0.5

• Dynamic Parameter support

0.6

• Security Interfaces
• Adds support for: Get-ACL, Set-ACL

http://psprovider.codeplex.com/

It looks like the SharePoint team is slowly catching up to what the community has had for years in various guises on CodePlex, but I’ve a good feeling that sometime in the future, the community will finally be able to relax and get back to real work as official support will surpass even the best of the open source offerings (optimistic? we’ll see). Here’s the feature set for the current CTP:

(These are features added in v1.3 which were not available in v1.2 or v1.1)

· Support for developing and deploying on 64 bit (x64).

• New menu commands within Visual Studio
  • Package - package the solution but does not deploy.
  • Retract - retracts and deletes the active solution from SharePoint.
  • Quick Deploy
    • Copy to 12 - copies template files, modules to the 12 Hive.
    • Copy Binarie(s) - deploys only the assemblies.
    • Copy Both
    • Recycle Application Pool
    • Attach to IIS Worker Processes

• WSP View Improvements (Create New Feature)
  • Allows specify feature scope (Web, Site, Web Application, Farm)
  • Allows creation of a feature receiver
  • Option to automatically create elements.xml with new feature
  • Elements can be dragged from one feature to another
• Build Commands Updates
  • Package command added to Visual Studio IDE and command line.
  • Retract command added to Visual Studio IDE and command line.

1) Command line operation is as follows:
devenv.exe <Project.csproj or Solution.sln and other usual flags> /deploy Debug
devenv.exe <Project.csproj or Solution.sln and other usual flags> /deploy Debug /package
devenv.exe <Project.csproj or Solution.sln and other usual flags> /deploy Debug /retract
Note that with the /package and /retract flags the /deploy flag is required.  

• CTRL-F5 no longer launches the debugger. Use F5 to launch the debugger. CTRL-F5 will just launch the web browser and show the SharePoint site.
• SharePoint Solution Generator Enhancements
  • Export from publishing sites. Note that round tripping of generated sites is not supported for anything but the simplest of sites. Instead some editing may be required.
• Correct VB and C# Inconsistency Correction
  • VB VSeWSS projects no longer use VSeWSS as the root namespace
• New Item Templates for RootFiles
  • Create a <RootFiles> item from template.
• Web Part Item Template Improvements
  • Allows selection of deployment model to the global assembly cache (GAC) or to the \BIN directory. For /BIN deployment a simple Code Access Security permissions set is provided.
• Easier Web Part Project Item Rename
  • Detect web part rename and modify dependent files
• Support for deploying dependant assemblies added as a reference with CopyLocal=true.
  • VSeWSS now checks for any "CopyLocal=true" reference and incorporates this binary in the manifest.  The binary is added to the manifest with a DeploymentTarget matching the first binary found in the manifest, usually the project target binary.  Subsequent changes to "CopyLocal", or removing a binary altogether will correctly be cleaned up when rebuilding the manifest (either through WSP view or through a deployment command).  Changes to the DeploymentTarget can be made by editing the manifest.
• Improved solution validation during full deployment
• Validation Logging
  • Adding the element <add key="IfLog" value="true" /> to the <appSettings> node of your web.config will turn on validation logging. Logging occurs during a full deployment from a VSeWSS project and can be used for diagnostic purposes. Note: The log location will be noted on the build output window."
• Conflict resolution dialog when deploying from within Visual Studio
  • Duplicate Features: If a feature with the same name as a feature you are trying to deploy is already on the server a dialog will give you the choice of uninstalling the existing feature first. If the feature was deployed via WSP the entire solution is retracted. If the feature was manually installed it will be deactivated then uninstalled.
  • Duplicate Site Definition Folders: Site definition folder is the same as 12/Templates/SiteTemplates or the WebTemp folder already exists. The option to delete the deployed folder is available.
  • RootFiles and Templates: If there is a RootFile or Template with the same name the option to delete the files first is given.
  • Solutions: If a solution with the same name exists on the server (possibly unique solution IDs) the option is given to retract and delete the existing solution.
• The List Definition from Content Type template now allows for the creation of a List Definition Event Receiver.

Grab it from the Microsoft Download Center.

The CodePlex guys do it again. This is a great feature that will surely help large projects garner a bit more help and support through the use of better developer documentation for getting contributors up to speed. The only thing that’s missing is syntax highlighting support for the PowerShell language. Vote for the feature here - Wiki Syntax Highlighting for PowerShell

You’ll need a CodePlex account for this I think. More information on the July 22nd release:

Syntax highlighting has been added to project wiki pages. See the Wiki Markup Guide for details.
Also added is mailing list support for project discussions: start or respond to a discussion from your e-mail client; get notifications of new responses as they come in, or in daily digest format. Now users can subscribe to an entire project’s discussions, including all new discussions posted to the project. See Mailing Lists Documentation for more information.
Feature requests addressed in this release:
Syntax Highlighting Extension
Feature request: Mailing lists
Issues addressed in this release:
HTTPS should be dropped
HTTPS in forums causes browser warnings
Feature request: please let me input ENTER in release description textbox
Pressing enter while in textarea submits form

In the latest PowerShellCX changeset, archive read and extract support is finally available. Sorry there are no binary builds yet. Use the Extract-Archive cmdlet as a stand-alone to extract all files. Use Read-Archive to generate ArchiveEntry objects which can be piped through Where-Object for filtering and eventual consumption by Extract-Archive (which can accept ArchiveEntry as well as FileInfo pipeline input). I’ve got progress reporting working too for extract. I’ve added support for reading/extracting SevenZip, Arj, BZip2, Cab, Chm, Cpio, Deb, GZip, Iso, Lzh, Lzma, Nsis, Rar, Rpm, Tar, Wim, Z & Zip.  Yes, you did see ISO support in that list ;-) Write support is only zip, bzip2, tar and gzip still.

There are more features coming, including encrypted archive support.

I took a few hours yesterday to "tidy up my room" so to speak, so I built a nice MSI installer, updated the help, CodePlex Wiki and examples and closed all bugs. This is probably the final release now that PowerShell 2.0 CTP2 has introduced support for eventing, so thanks for all the support.

New Features

• Multiple named queue support and default queue with -QueueName parameter
• Better COM support, window message pumping etc.
• NoFlush / Peek parameter support for queue reading
• Get-EventQueue command added for viewing queues and their message counts.

Cmdlet Name Changes

• Get-Event -> Read-Event
• Connect-EventListener -> Connect-Event
• Disconnect-EventListener -> Disconnect-Event

Additionally, several niggling bugs closed (including the one where read-event -wait would return immediately with no events).

http://www.codeplex.com/pseventing

For an advanced example: Foreground / Background Swappable Downloads In PowerShell.