Some basic understanding questions about using DLLs

PowerShell Help
1
Hello all,
quite some time has passed since my last post :).
I'm trying to use some .Net dll in Powershell and having some knowledge gaps there which you might be able to fill.Basically I'm trying to automate a Werbbrowser using selenium. I found an nice blogpost about it https://tech.mavericksevmont.com/blog/powershell-selenium-automate-web-browser-interactions-part-i/.
He explains the code in the comments but unfortunately that it isn't enough for me to understand the topic.
Here is the code which I used and worked:
$env:PATH += ";C:\Temp\PSL\" # Adds the path for ChromeDriver.exe to the environmental variable
Add-Type -Path "C:\Temp\PSL\WebDriver.dll" # Adding Selenium's .NET assembly (dll) to access it's classes in this PowerShell session
$ChromeDriver = New-Object OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome.ChromeDriver # Creates an instance of this class to control Selenium and stores it in an easy to handle variable
$ChromeDriver.Navigate().GoToURL($URL)
Here is my understanding and questions:
It seems we are loading some Net dlls. But after we added the DLL we are creating some object using "New-Object" based on the DDL. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
1) From where would I know how to use the dll or create a object from it if I can't read the .dll itself in Plaintext or any IDE? Sure I have the filenames but that's it "Webdriver.dll" + "WebdriverSupport.dll"
I'm talking about this part of the New-Object command "OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome.ChromeDriver".
2) is there any other way to load a dll besides Add-Type -Path "C:\Temp\PSL\WebDriver.dll"?
3) Also I found several different "Language Bindings" on the Selenium website. What are "Language Bindings"? https://www.selenium.dev/downloads/
Am I right that only C# Language Bindings are usable in Powershell?
 
On the selenium Website I found some examples for using a wait in C#. But how can I use these examples for Powershell. I thing I need to create the objects but PS gives me some errors.
Please find the selenium webpage examples below.
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
IWebElement firstResult = wait.Until(e => e.FindElement(By.XPath("//a/h3")));
What I tried in PS. 
$wait =  New-Object OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome.WebDriverWait(ChromeDriver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
-> Doesnt work. My Chromedriver Object is named "Chromedriver".
Best Regards,
Baschi
2

I’m aware of the selenium module in Powershell, but I try to get a better understanding of using DLLs in Powershell.

3
1) From where would I know how to use the dll or create a object from it if I can’t read the .dll itself in Plaintext or any IDE?

You could do the following after you load the assembly:

$a = [appdomain]::CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies() | where codebase -like '*WebDriver.dll'
# List types from the WebDriver assembly
$a.ExportedTypes
2) is there any other way to load a dll besides Add-Type -Path “C:\Temp\PSL\WebDriver.dll”?
Add-Type is the easiest and most recommended way that I have found.
4

Hey guys,

managed to collect some knowledge from the Selenium Module implementation.

Also I found a website which is explaining how to use the different classes of the DLL. Are those kind of documentations the only way to get that Info?

I learned now hot to work with the different classes but questions 1,2,3 are still unanswered to me.
best Regards, Marcel
5

@AdminOfThings45

Thanks for you reply, seems we send it at the same time. Will check :).

6

That was very helpful thanks.