gdialog(1)						      General Commands Manual							gdialog(1)

NAME

       gdialog - display dialog boxes from shell scripts

SYNOPSIS

       gdialog --clear
       gdialog --create-rc file
       gdialog [ --title title ] [ --backtitle backtitle ] [ --clear ] [ --separate-output ] box-options

DESCRIPTION

       Gdialog	is  a program that will let you to present a variety of questions or display messages using dialog boxes from a shell script. Cur-
       rently, these types of dialog boxes are implemented:

       yes/no box, menu box, input box, message box, text box, info box, checklist box, radiolist box and gauge box.

       This program is much like the dialog program, but along with displaying textual dialog boxes if the environment variable DISPLAY is  unset,
       if the environment variable is set it will instead display graphical dialog boxes using gtk/gnome.

OPTIONS

       --clear
	      The screen will be cleared to the screen attribute on exit.

       --create-rc file
	      Since gdialog supports run-time configuration, this can be used to dump a sample configuration file to the file specified by file.

       --separate-output
	      For checklist widgets, output result one line at a time, with no quoting.  This facilitates parsing by another program.

       --title title
	      Specifies a title string to be displayed at the top of the dialog box.

       --backtitle backtitle
	      Specifies a backtitle string to be displayed on the backdrop, at the top of the screen.

       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 automatically divided into multiple lines at appropriate
	      places.  The  text string may also contain the sub-string "
" or newline characters `
' 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.

       --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 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 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 provided.

       --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 sta-
	      tus.  On exit, a list of the tag strings of those entries that are turned on will be printed on stderr.

       --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 set-
	      ting its status to on.

       --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  stan-
	      dard  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.

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 follows:

	   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.  Otherwise,	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) - version 0.3

       Stuart Herbert (S.Herbert@sheffield.ac.uk) - patch for version 0.4

SEE ALSO

       dialog(1), whiptail (1)

gnome-utils 1.4.0						    Apr 21 2001 							gdialog(1)