Index of Section 1 Manual Pages
| Interix / SUA | dialog.1 | Interix / SUA |
DIALOG(1) DIALOG(1)
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, form, fselect, gauge, infobox,
inputbox, inputmenu, menu, msgbox (message), pass-
word, pause, progressbox, radiolist, tailbox, tail-
boxbg, 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 pro-
ceed 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 (see
DIAGNOSTICS).
Some widgets, e.g., checklist, will write text to dialog's
output. Normally that is the standard error, but there
are options for changing this: "--output-fd", "--stderr"
and "--stdout". No text is written if the Cancel button
(or ESC) is pressed; dialog exits immediately in that
case.
OPTIONS
All options begin with "--" (two ASCII hyphens, for the
benefit of those using systems with deranged locale sup-
port).
A "--" by itself is used as an escape, i.e., the next
token on the command-line is not treated as an option.
dialog --title -- --Not an option
The "--args" option tells dialog to list the command-line
parameters to the standard error. This is useful when
debugging complex scripts using the "--" and "--file",
since the command-line may be rewritten as these are
expanded.
The "--file" option tells dialog to read parameters from
the file named as its value.
dialog --file parameterfile
Blanks not within double-quotes are discarded (use back-
slashes to quote single characters). The result is
inserted into the command-line, replacing "--file" and its
option value. Interpretation of the command-line resumes
from that point.
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.
--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 "Cancel" buttons.
--clear
Clears the widget screen, keeping only the
screen_color background. Use this when you combine
widgets with "--and-widget" to erase the contents
of a previous widget on the screen, so it won't be
seen under the contents of a following widget.
Understand this as the complement of "--keep-win-
dow". To compare the effects, use these:
All three widgets visible, staircase effect,
ordered 1,2,3:
dialog --begin 2 2 --yesno "" 0 0 \
--and-widget --begin 4 4 --yesno "" 0 0 \
--and-widget --begin 6 6 --yesno "" 0 0
Only the last widget is left visible:
dialog --clear --begin 2 2 --yesno "" 0 0 \
--and-widget --clear --begin 4 4 --yesno "" 0 0 \
--and-widget --begin 6 6 --yesno "" 0 0
All three widgets visible, staircase effect,
ordered 3,2,1:
dialog --keep-window --begin 2 2 --yesno "" 0 0 \
--and-widget --keep-window --begin 4 4 --yesno "" 0 0 \
--and-widget --begin 6 6 --yesno "" 0 0
First and third widget visible, staircase effect,
ordered 3,1:
dialog --keep-window --begin 2 2 --yesno "" 0 0 \
--and-widget --clear --begin 4 4 --yesno "" 0 0 \
--and-widget --begin 6 6 --yesno "" 0 0
Note, if you want to restore original console col-
ors and send your cursor home after the dialog pro-
gram has exited, use the clear (1) command.
--colors
Interpret embedded "\Z" sequences in the dialog
text by the following character, which tells dialog
to set colors or video attributes: 0 through 7 are
the ANSI used in curses: black, red, green, yellow,
blue, magenta, cyan and white respectively. Bold
is set by 'b', reset by 'B'. Reverse is set by
'r', reset by 'R'. Underline is set by 'u', reset
by 'U'. The settings are cumulative, e.g.,
"\Zb\Z1" makes the following text bold (perhaps
bright) red. Restore normal settings with "\Zn".
--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.
See also the "--no-collapse" and "--trim" options.
--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.
Likewise, make the default button of widgets that
provide "OK" and "Cancel" a Cancel. If "--nocan-
cel" or "--visit-items" are given those options
overrides this, making the default button always
"Yes" (internally the same as "OK").
--default-item string
Set the default item in a checklist, form or menu
box. Normally the first item in the box is the
default.
--exit-label string
Override the label used for "EXIT" buttons.
--extra-button
Show an extra button, between "OK" and "Cancel"
buttons.
--extra-label string
Override the label used for "Extra" buttons. Note:
for inputmenu widgets, this defaults to "Rename".
--help Prints the help message to dialog's output. The
help message is printed if no options are given.
--help-button
Show a help-button after "OK" and "Cancel" buttons,
i.e., in checklist, radiolist and menu boxes. If
"--item-help" is also given, on exit the return
status will be the same as for the "OK" button, and
the item-help text will be written to dialog's out-
put after the token "HELP". Otherwise, the return
status will indicate that the Help button was
pressed, and no message printed.
--help-label string
Override the label used for "Help" buttons.
--help-status
If the help-button is selected, writes the check-
list, radiolist or form information after the item-
help "HELP" information. This can be used to
reconstruct the state of a checklist after process-
ing the help request.
--ignore
Ignore options that dialog does not recognize.
Some well-known ones such as "--icon" are ignored
anyway, but this is a better choice for compatibil-
ity with other implementations.
--input-fd fd
Read keyboard input from the given file descriptor.
Most dialog scripts read from the standard input,
but the gauge widget reads a pipe (which is always
standard input). Some configurations do not work
properly when dialog tries to reopen the terminal.
Use this option (with appropriate juggling of file-
descriptors) if your script must work in that type
of environment.
--insecure
Makes the password widget friendlier but less
secure, by echoing asterisks for each character.
--item-help
Interpret the tags data for checklist, radiolist
and menu boxes adding a column which is displayed
in the bottom line of the screen, for the currently
selected item.
--keep-window
Normally when dialog performs several tailboxbg
widgets connected by "--and-widget", it clears the
old widget from the screen by painting over it.
Use this option to suppress that repainting.
At exit, dialog repaints all of the widgets which
have been marked with "--keep-window", even if they
are not tailboxbg widgets. That causes them to be
repainted in reverse order. See the discussion of
the "--clear" option for examples.
--max-input size
Limit input strings to the given size. If not
specified, the limit is 2048.
--no-cancel
--nocancel
Suppress the "Cancel" button in checklist, inputbox
and menu box modes. A script can still test if the
user pressed the ESC key to cancel to quit.
--no-collapse
Normally dialog converts tabs to spaces and reduces
multiple spaces to a single space for text which is
displayed in a message boxes, etc. Use this option
to disable that feature. Note that dialog will
still wrap text, subject to the "--cr-wrap" and
"--trim" options.
--no-kill
Tells dialog to put the tailboxbg box in the back-
ground, printing its process id to dialog's output.
SIGHUP is disabled for the background process.
--no-label string
Override the label used for "No" buttons.
--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 "OK" buttons.
--output-fd fd
Direct output to the given file descriptor. Most
dialog scripts write to the standard error, but
error messages may also be written there, depending
on your script.
--print-maxsize
Print the maximum size of dialog boxes, i.e., the
screen size, to dialog's output. This may be used
alone, without other options.
--print-size
Prints the size of each dialog box to dialog's out-
put.
--print-version
Prints dialog's version to dialog's output. 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.
--separator string
--separate-widget string
Specify a string that will separate the output on
dialog's output from each widget. This is used to
simplify parsing the result of a dialog with sev-
eral 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 dia-
log box.
--single-quoted
Use single-quoting as needed (and no quotes if
unneeded) for the output of checklist's as well as
the item-help text. If this option is not set,
dialog uses double quotes around each item. That
requires occasional use of backslashes to make the
output useful in shell scripts.
--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 obso-
lete, 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. This option
is provided for compatibility with Xdialog, however
using it in portable scripts is not recommended,
since curses normally writes its screen updates to
the standard output. If you use this option, dia-
log attempts to reopen the terminal so it can write
to the display. Depending on the platform and your
environment, that may fail.
--tab-correct
Convert each tab character to one or more spaces
(for the textbox widget; otherwise to a single
space). 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" option is given.
The default is 8. This option is only effective
for the textbox widget.
--timeout secs
Timeout (exit with error code) if no user response
within the given number of seconds. This is over-
ridden if the background "--tailboxbg is used. A
timeout of zero seconds is ignored.
--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.
See also the "--cr-wrap" and "--no-collapse"
options.
--version
Same as "--print-version".
--visit-items
Modify the tab-traversal of checklist, radiobox,
menubox and inputmenu to include the list of items
as one of the states. This is useful as a visual
aid, i.e., the cursor position helps some users.
When this option is given, the cursor is initially
placed on the list. Abbreviations (the first let-
ter of the tag) apply to the list items. If you
tab to the button row, abbreviations apply to the
buttons.
--yes-label string
Override the label used for "Yes" buttons.
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 sep-
arately 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 vi-style
h, j, k and l for moving around the array of days
in a month. 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 sta-
tus ] ...
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 dialog's out-
put. If the "--separate-output" option is not
given, the strings will be quoted to make it simple
for scripts to separate them. See the "--single-
quoted" option, which modifies the quoting behav-
ior.
--form text height width formheight [ label y x item y x flen ilen ] ...
The form dialog displays a form consisting of
labels and fields, which are positioned on a scrol-
lable window by coordinates given in the script.
The field length flen and input-length ilen tell
how long the field can be. The former defines the
length shown for a selected field, while the latter
defines the permissible length of the data entered
in the field.
- If flen is zero, the corresponding field cannot
be altered. and the contents of the field
determine the displayed-length.
- If flen is negative, the corresponding field
cannot be altered, and the negated value of flen
is used as the displayed-length.
- If ilen is zero, it is set to flen.
Use up/down arrows (or control/N, control/P) to
move between fields. Use tab to move between win-
dows.
On exit, the contents of the form-fields are writ-
ten to dialog's output, each field separated by a
newline. The text used to fill non-editable fields
(flen is zero or negative) is not written out.
--fselect filepath height width
The file-selection dialog displays a text-entry
window in which you can type a filename (or direc-
tory), 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 con-
tents 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 win-
dows to the closest match.
Use a carriage return or the "OK" button to accept
the current value in the text-entry window and
exit.
On exit, the contents of the text-entry window are
written to dialog's output.
--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 inte-
ger per line. The meter is updated to reflect each
new percentage. If the standard input reads the
string "XXX", then subsequent lines up to another
"XXX" are used for a new prompt. The gauge exits
when EOF is reached on the standard input.
The percent value denotes the initial percentage
shown in the meter. If not specified, it is zero.
On exit, no text is written to dialog's output.
The widget accepts no input, so the exit status is
always OK.
--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.
On exit, no text is written to dialog's output.
Only an "OK" button is provided for input, but an
ESC exit status may be returned.
--inputbox text height width [init]
An input box is useful when you want to ask ques-
tions that require the user to input a string as
the answer. If init is supplied it is used to ini-
tialize the input string. When entering the
string, the backspace, delete and cursor keys 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 dia-
log's output.
--inputmenu text height width menu-height [ tag item ] ...
An inputmenu box is very similar to an ordinary
menu box. There are only a few differences between
them:
1. The entries are not automatically centered but
left adjusted.
2. An extra button (called Rename) is implied to
rename the current item when it is pressed.
3. It is possible to rename the current entry by
pressing the Rename button. Then dialog will
write the following on dialog's output.
RENAMED -
--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 repre-
sents. The user can move between the menu entries
by pressing the cursor 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.
On exit the tag of the chosen menu entry will be
printed on dialog's output. 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 but-
ton. 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.
If the message is too large for the space, dialog
may allow you to scroll it, provided that the
underlying curses implementation is capable enough.
In this case, a percentage is shown in the base of
the widget.
On exit, no text is written to dialog's output.
Only an "OK" button is provided for input, but an
ESC exit status may be returned.
--pause text height width seconds
A pause box displays a meter along the bottom of
the box. The meter indicates how many seconds
remain until the end of the pause. The pause exits
when timeout is reached (status OK) or the user
presses the Exit button (status CANCEL).
--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 any-
thing is passed in "init", it will be visible in
the system's process table to casual snoopers.
Also, it is very confusing to the user to provide
them with a default password they cannot see. For
these reasons, using "init" is highly discouraged.
See "--insecure" if you do not care about your
password.
On exit, the input string will be printed on dia-
log's output.
--passwordform text height width formheight [ label y x
item y x flen ilen ] ...
This is identical to --form except that all text
fields are treated as password widgets rather than
inputbox widgets.
--progressbox text height width
--progressbox height width
A progressbox is similar to an tailbox, except that
it will exit when it reaches the end of the file.
If three parameters are given, it displays the text
under the title, delineated from the scrolling
file's contents. If only two parameters are given,
this text is omitted.
--radiolist text height width list-height [ tag item sta-
tus ] ...
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.
On exit, the name of the selected item is written
to dialog's output.
--tailbox file height width
Display text from a file in a dialog box, as in a
"tail -f" command. Scroll left/right using vi-
style 'h' and 'l', or arrow-keys. A '0' resets the
scrolling.
On exit, no text is written to dialog's output.
Only an "OK" button is provided for input, but an
ESC exit status may be returned.
--tailboxbg file height width
Display text from a file in a dialog box as a back-
ground task, as in a "tail -f &" command. Scroll
left/right using vi-style 'h' and 'l', or arrow-
keys. A '0' resets the scrolling.
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 "OK"), dialog will perform all of
the tailboxbg widgets in the same process, polling
for updates. You may use a tab to traverse between
the widgets on the screen, and close them individu-
ally, e.g., by pressing ENTER. Once the non-tail-
boxbg widgets are closed, dialog forks a copy of
itself into the background, and prints its process
id if the "--no-kill" option is given.
On exit, no text is written to dialog's output.
Only an "EXIT" button is provided for input, but an
ESC exit status may be returned.
NOTE: Older versions of dialog forked immediately
and attempted to update the screen individually.
Besides being bad for performance, it was unwork-
able. 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 cursor, page-up, page-down 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 horizon-
tally. You may also use vi-style keys h, j, k, l
in place of the cursor keys, and B or N in place of
the page-up and page-down keys. Scroll up/down
using vi-style 'k' and 'j', or arrow-keys. Scroll
left/right using vi-style 'h' and 'l', or arrow-
keys. A '0' resets the left/right scrolling. For
more convenience, vi-style forward and backward
searching functions are also provided.
On exit, no text is written to dialog's output.
Only an "EXIT" button is provided for input, but an
ESC exit status may be returned.
--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 cur-
rent 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 appro-
priate places. The text string can also contain
the sub-string "\n" 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.
On exit, no text is written to dialog's output. In
addition to the "Yes" and "No" exit codes (see
DIAGNOSTICS) an ESC exit status may be returned.
The codes used for "Yes" and "No" match those used
for "OK" and "Cancel", internally no distinction is
made.
Obsolete Options
--beep This was used to tell the original cdialog that it
should make a beep when the separate processes of
the tailboxbg widget would repaint the screen.
--beep-after
Beep after a user has completed a widget by press-
ing one of the buttons.
RUN-TIME CONFIGURATION
1. Create a sample configuration file by typing:
"dialog --create-rc "
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.
KEY BINDINGS
You can override or add to key bindings in dialog by
adding to the configuration file. Dialog's bindkey com-
mand maps single keys to its internal coding.
bindkey widget curses_key dialog_key
The widget name can be "*" (all widgets), or specific wid-
gets such as textbox. Specific widget bindings override
the "*" bindings. User-defined bindings override the
built-in bindings.
The curses_key can be any of the names derived from
curses.h, e.g., "HELP" from "KEY_HELP". Dialog also rec-
ognizes ANSI control characters such as "^A", "^?", as
well as C1-controls such as "~A" and "~?". Finally, it
allows any single character to be escaped with a back-
slash.
Dialog's internal keycode names correspond to the
DLG_KEYS_ENUM type in dlg_keys.h, e.g., "HELP" from
"DLGK_HELP".
ENVIRONMENT
DIALOGOPTS Define this variable to apply any of the
common options to each widget. Most of the
common options are reset before processing
each widget. If you set the options in
this environment variable, they are applied
to dialog's state after the reset. As in
the "--file" option, double-quotes and
backslashes are interpreted.
The "--file" option is not considered a
common option (so you cannot embed it
within this environment variable).
DIALOGRC Define this variable if you want to specify
the name of the configuration file to use.
DIALOG_CANCEL
DIALOG_ERROR
DIALOG_ESC
DIALOG_EXTRA
DIALOG_HELP
DIALOG_ITEM_HELP
DIALOG_OK Define any of these variables to change the
exit code on Cancel (1), error (-1), ESC
(255), Extra (3), Help (2), Help with
--item-help (2), or OK (0). Normally shell
scripts cannot distinguish between -1 and
255.
DIALOG_TTY Set this variable to "1" to provide compat-
ibility with older versions of dialog which
assumed that if the script redirects the
standard output, that the "--stdout" option
was given.
FILES
$HOME/.dialogrc default configuration file
EXAMPLES
The dialog sources contain several samples of how to use
the different box options and how they look. Just take a
look into the directory samples/ of the source.
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.
2 if the Help button is pressed.
3 if the Extra button is pressed.
-1 if errors occur inside dialog or dialog is exited by
pressing the ESC key.
BUGS
Perhaps.
AUTHOR
Thomas E. Dickey (updates for 0.9b and beyond)
CONTRIBUTORS
Tobias C. Rittweiler
Valery Reznic - the form and progressbox widgets.
Yura Kalinichenko adapted the gauge widget as "pause".
This is a rewrite (except as needed to provide compatibil-
ity) of the earlier version of dialog 0.9a, which lists as
authors:
Savio Lam - version 0.3, "dialog"
Stuart Herbert - patch for version 0.4
Marc Ewing - the gauge widget.
Pasquale De Marco "Pako" - version 0.9a, "cdialog"
$Date: 2006/01/19 19:33:47 $ DIALOG(1)