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DIALOG !!!DIALOG NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS RUN-TIME CONFIGURATION ENVIRONMENT FILES DIAGNOSTICS BUGS AUTHOR ---- !!NAME dialog - display dialog boxes from shell scripts !!SYNOPSIS __dialog --clear dialog --create-rc__ ''file''__ dialog --print-maxsize dialog__ ''common-options 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. These types of dialog boxes are implemented (though not all are necessarily compiled into __dialog__): __calendar__, __checklist__, __fselect__, __gauge__, __infobox__, __inputbox__, __menu__, __msgbox__ (message), __password__, __radiolist__, __tailbox__, __tailboxbg__, __textbox__, __timebox__, and __yesno__ (yes/no). You can put more than one dialog box into a script: - Use the __--and-widget__ token to force Dialog to proceed to the next dialog unless you have pressed ESC to cancel, or - Simply add the tokens for the next dialog box, making a chain. Dialog stops chaining when the return code from a dialog is nonzero, e.g., Cancel or No. !!OPTIONS __Common Options__ __--aspect__ ''ratio'' This gives you some control over the box dimensions when using auto sizing (specifying 0 for height and width). It represents width / height. The default is 9, which means 9 characters wide to every 1 line high. __--backtitle__ ''backtitle'' Specifies a ''backtitle'' string to be displayed on the backdrop, at the top of the screen. __--beep__ Sound the audible alarm each time the screen is refreshed. __--beep-after__ Beep if input is interrupted, e.g., by a control/C. __--begin__ ''y x'' Specify the position of the upper left corner of a dialog box on the screen. __--cancel-label__ ''string'' Override the label used for __--clear__ The screen will be cleared to the __screen attribute__ on exit. This may be used alone, without other options. __--cr-wrap__ Interpret embedded newlines in the dialog text as a newline on the screen. Otherwise, __dialog__ will only wrap lines where needed to fit inside the text box. Even though you can control line breaks with this, __dialog__ will still wrap any lines that are too long for the width of the box. Without cr-wrap, the layout of your text may be formatted to look nice in the source code of your script without affecting the way it will look in the dialog. __--create-rc__ ''file'' When __dialog__ supports run-time configuration, this can be used to dump a sample configuration file to the file specified by ''file''. __--defaultno__ Make the default value of the __yes/no__ box a __No__. __--default-item__ ''string'' Set the default item in a menu box. Normally the first item in the box is the default. __--help__ Prints the help message to standard error. The help message is printed if no options are given. __--help-button__ Show a help-button after ok/cancel buttons. __--help-label__ ''string'' Override the label used for __--ignore__ Ignore options that __dialog__ does not recognize. Some well-known ones such as __--icon__ __ __--item-help__ Interpret the tags data for checklist, radiolist and menuboxes adding a column which is displayed in the bottom line of the screen, for the currently selected item. __--max-input__ ''size'' Limit input strings to the given size. If not specified, the limit is 2000. __--no-kill__ Tells __dialog__ to put the __tailboxbg__ box in the background, printing its process id to standard error. SIGHUP is disabled for the background process. __--no-cancel__ __--nocancel__ Suppress the __--no-shadow__ Suppress shadows that would be drawn to the right and bottom of each dialog box. __--ok-label__ ''string'' Override the label used for __--print-maxsize__ Print the maximum size of dialog boxes, i.e., the screen size, to the standard error. This may be used alone, without other options. __--print-size__ Prints the size of each dialog box to standard error. __--print-version__ Prints __dialog__'s version to standard error. This may be used alone, without other options. __--separate-output__ For checklist widgets, output result one line at a time, with no quoting. This facilitates parsing by another program. __--separate-widget__ ''string'' Specify a string that will separate the output on standard error from each widget. This is used to simplify parsing the result of a dialog with several widgets. If this option is not given, the default separator string is a tab character. __--shadow__ Draw a shadow to the right and bottom of each dialog box. __--size-err__ Check the resulting size of a dialog box before trying to use it, printing the resulting size if it is larger than the screen. (This option is obsolete, since all new-window calls are checked). __--sleep__ ''secs'' Sleep (delay) for the given number of seconds after processing a dialog box. __--stderr__ Direct output to the standard error. This is the default, since curses normally writes screen updates to the standard output. __--stdout__ Direct output to the standard output. __--tab-correct__ Convert each tab character to one or more spaces. Otherwise, tabs are rendered according to the curses library's interpretation. __--tab-len__ ''n'' Specify the number of spaces that a tab character occupies if the --tab-correct__ __ __--timeout__ ''secs'' Timeout (exit with error code) if no user response within the given number of seconds. __--title__ ''title'' Specifies a ''title'' string to be displayed at the top of the dialog box. __--trim__ eliminate leading blanks, trim literal newlines and repeated blanks from message text. __--version__ Same as --print-version____ __Box Options__ All dialog boxes have at least three parameters: ''text'' the caption or contents of the box. ''height'' the height of the dialog box. ''width'' the width of the dialog box. Other parameters depend on the box type. __--calendar__ ''text height width day month year'' A __calendar__ box displays month, day and year in separately adjustable windows. If the values for day, month or year are missing or negative, the current date's corresponding values are used. You can increment or decrement any of those using the left-, up-, right- and down-arrows. Use tab or backtab to move between windows. If the year is given as zero, the current date is used as an initial value. On exit, the date is printed in the form day/month/year. __--checklist__ ''text height width list-height'' [[ ''tag item status'' ] ''...'' A __checklist__ box is similar to a __menu__ box; 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''. __--fselect__ ''filepath height width'' The file-selection dialog displays a text-entry window in which you can type a filename (or directory), and above that two windows with directory names and filenames. Here __filepath__ can be a filepath in which case the file and directory windows will display the contents of the path and the text-entry window will contain the preselected filename. Use tab or arrow keys to move between the windows. Within the directory or filename windows, use the up/down arrow keys to scroll the current selection. Use the space-bar to copy the current selection into the text-entry window. Typing any printable characters switches focus to the text-entry window, entering that character as well as scrolling the directory and filename windows to the closest match. Use a carriage return or the __--gauge__ ''text height width [[percent]'' A __gauge__ box displays a meter along the bottom of the box. The meter indicates the percentage. New percentages are read from standard input, one integer per line. The meter is updated to reflect each new percentage. If stdin is XXX, then subsequent lines up to another XXX are used for a new prompt. The gauge exits when EOF is reached on stdin. The ''percent'' value denotes the initial percentage shown in the meter. If not specified, it is zero. __--infobox__ ''text height width'' An __info__ box is basically a __message__ box. However, in this case, __dialog__ will exit immediately after displaying 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 [[init]'' An __input__ box is useful when you want to ask questions that require the user to input a string as the answer. If init is supplied it is used to initialize the input string. When entering the string, the ''BACKSPACE'' key can be used to correct typing errors. If the input string is longer than can fit in the dialog box, the input field will be scrolled. On exit, the input string will be printed on ''stderr''. __--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. Choices are displayed in the order given. 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''. If the __--help-button__ option is given, the corresponding help text will be printed if the user selects the help button. __--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. __--passwordbox__ ''text height width [[init]'' A __password__ box is similar to an input box, except that the text the user enters is not displayed. This is useful when prompting for passwords or other sensitive information. Be aware that if anything is passed in __ __--radiolist__ ''text height width list-height'' [[ ''tag item status'' ] ''...'' A __radiolist__ box is similar to a __menu__ box. The only difference is that you can indicate which entry is currently selected, by setting its ''status'' to ''on''. __--tailbox file height width__ Display text from a file in a dialog box, as in a __--tailboxbg file height width__ Display text from a file in a dialog box as a background task, as in a Dialog treats the background task specially if there are other widgets (__--and-widget__) on the screen concurrently. Until those widgets are closed (e.g., an __ENTER''. Once the non-tailboxbg widgets are closed, dialog forks a copy of itself into the background, and prints its process id if the __--no-kill__ option is given. NOTE: Older versions of dialog forked immediately and attempted to update the screen individually. Besides being bad for performance, it was unworkable. Some older scripts may not work properly with the polled scheme. __--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 provided. __--timebox__ ''text height [[width hour minute second]'' A dialog is displayed which allows you to select hour, minute and second. If the values for hour, minute or second are missing or negative, the current date's corresponding values are used. You can increment or decrement any of those using the left-, up-, right- and down-arrows. Use tab or backtab to move between windows. On exit, the result is printed in the form hour:minute:second. __--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 fit in one line, it will be automatically divided into multiple lines at appropriate places. The ''text'' string can also contain the sub-string '''' or newline characters ''`n'' to control line breaking 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. !!RUN-TIME CONFIGURATION 1. Create a sample configuration file by typing: 2. At start, __dialog__ determines the settings to use as follows: a) if environment variable __DIALOGRC__ is set, its value determines the name of the configuration file. b) if the file in (a) is not found, use the file ''$HOME/.dialogrc'' as the configuration file. c) if the file in (b) is not found, try using the GLOBALRC file determined at compile-time, i.e., ''/etc/dialogrc''. d) if the file in (c) is not found, use compiled in defaults. 3. Edit the sample configuration file and copy it to some place that __dialog__ can find, as stated in step 2 above. !!ENVIRONMENT __DIALOGRC__ Define this variable if you want to specify the name of the configuration file to use. __DIALOG_CANCEL__ __DIALOG_ERROR__ __DIALOG_ESC__ __DIALOG_OK__ Define any of these variables to change the exit code on Cancel (1), error (-1), ESC (255) or Ok (0). Normally shell scripts cannot distinguish between -1 and 255. !!FILES ''$HOME/.dialogrc'' default configuration file !!DIAGNOSTICS Exit status is subject to being overridden by environment variables. Normally they are: 0 if __dialog__ is exited by pressing the __Yes__ or __OK__ button. 1 if the __No__ or __Cancel__ button is pressed. -1 if errors occur inside __dialog__ or __dialog__ is exited by pressing the ''ESC'' key. !!BUGS Perhaps. !!AUTHOR Savio Lam (lam836@cs.cuhk.hk) - version 0.3, Stuart Herbert (S.Herbert@sheffield.ac.uk) - patch for version 0.4 Pako (demarco_p@abramo.it) - version 0.9a, Thomas Dickey (updates for 0.9b) ----
4 pages link to
dialog(1)
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Man1d
whiptail(1)
texconfig(1)
gdialog(1)
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