NAME
dialog - display dialog boxes from shell scripts
SYNOPSIS
dialog --clear
dialog --create-rc file
dialog [ --title title ] [ --clear ] box-options
DESCRIPTION
Dialog is a program that will let you to present a variety
of questions or display messages using dialog boxes from a
shell script. Currently, these types of dialog boxes are
implemented:
yes/no box, menu box, input box, message box, text box, info
box, and checklist box.
OPTIONS
--clear
The screen will be cleared to the screen attribute on
exit.
--create-rc file
Since dialog supports run-time configuration, this can
be used to dump a sample configuration file to the file
specified by file.
--title title
Specifies a title string to be displayed at the top of
the dialog box.
Box Options
--yesno text height width
A yes/no dialog box of size height rows by width
columns will be displayed. The string specified by text
is displayed inside the dialog box. If this string is
too long to be fitted in one line, it will be automati-
cally divided into multiple lines at appropriate
places. The text string may also contain the sub-string
"\n" or newline characters `\n' to control line break-
ing explicitly. This dialog box is useful for asking
questions that require the user to answer either yes or
no. The dialog box has a Yes button and a No button,
in which the user can switch between by pressing the
TAB key.
--msgbox text height width
A message box is very similar to a yes/no box. The
only difference between a message box and a yes/no box
is that a message box has only a single OK button. You
can use this dialog box to display any message you
like. After reading the message, the user can press
the ENTER key so that dialog will exit and the calling
shell script can continue its operation.
--infobox text height width
An info box is basically a message box. However, in
this case, dialog will exit immediately after display-
ing the message to the user. The screen is not cleared
when dialog exits, so that the message will remain on
the screen until the calling shell script clears it
later. This is useful when you want to inform the user
that some operations are carrying on that may require
some time to finish.
--inputbox text height width
An input box is useful when you want to ask questions
that require the user to input a string as the answer.
When inputing the string, the BACKSPACE key can be used
to correct typing errors. If the input string is longer
than can be fitted in the dialog box, the input field
will be scrolled. On exit, the input string will be
printed on stderr.
--textbox file height width
A text box lets you display the contents of a text file
in a dialog box. It is like a simple text file viewer.
The user can move through the file by using the
UP/DOWN, PGUP/PGDN and HOME/END keys available on most
keyboards. If the lines are too long to be displayed
in the box, the LEFT/RIGHT keys can be used to scroll
the text region horizontally. For more convenience,
forward and backward searching functions are also pro-
vided.
--menu text height width menu-height [ tag item ] ...
As its name suggests, a menu box is a dialog box that
can be used to present a list of choices in the form of
a menu for the user to choose. Each menu entry consists
of a tag string and an item string. The tag gives the
entry a name to distinguish it from the other entries
in the menu. The item is a short description of the
option that the entry represents. The user can move
between the menu entries by pressing the UP/DOWN keys,
the first letter of the tag as a hot-key, or the number
keys 1-9. There are menu-height entries displayed in
the menu at one time, but the menu will be scrolled if
there are more entries than that. When dialog exits,
the tag of the chosen menu entry will be printed on
stderr.
--checklist text height width list-
height [ tag item status ] ...
A checklist box is similar to a menu box in that there
are multiple entries presented in the form of a menu.
Instead of choosing one entry among the entries, each
entry can be turned on or off by the user. The initial
on/off state of each entry is specified by status. On
exit, a list of the tag strings of those entries that
are turned on will be printed on stderr.
RUN-TIME CONFIGURATION
1. Create a sample configuration file by typing:
"dialog --create-rc <file>"
2. At start, dialog determines the settings to use as fol-
lows:
a) if environment variable DIALOGRC is set, it's value
determines the name of the configuration file.
b) if the file in (a) can't be found, use the file
$HOME/.dialogrc as the configuration file.
c) if the file in (b) can't be found, use compiled in
defaults.
3. Edit the sample configuration file and copy it to some
place that dialog can find, as stated in step 2 above.
ENVIROMENT
DIALOGRC Define this variable if you want to specify
the name of the configuration file to use.
FILES
$HOME/.dialogrc default configuration file
DIAGNOSTICS
Exit status is 0 if dialog is exited by pressing the Yes or
OK button, and 1 if the No or Cancel button is pressed. Oth-
erwise, if errors occur inside dialog or dialog is exited by
pressing the ESC key, the exit status is -1.
BUGS
Text files containing tab characters may cause problems with
text box. Tab characters in text files must first be
expanded to spaces before being displayed by text box.
Screen update is too slow.
AUTHOR
Savio Lam (lam836@cs.cuhk.hk)
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