DIALOG(1) DIALOG(1)
dialog - display dialog boxes from shell scripts
dialog --clear
dialog --create-rc file
dialog --print-maxsize
dialog common-options box-options
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), 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 (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.
All options begin with "--" (two ASCII hyphens, for the benefit of
those using systems with deranged locale support).
A "--" by itself is used as an escape, i.e., the next token on the com-
mand-line is not treated as an option.
dialog --title -- --Not an option
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 backslashes to quote
single characters). The result is inserted into the command-line,
replacing "--file" and its option value. Interpretation of the com-
mand-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 back-
ground. 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. Under-
stand this as the complement of "--keep-window". 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
colors and send your
cursor home after the
dialog program 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 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 "--nocancel"
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
output 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
checklist, radiolist or
form information after
the item-help "HELP"
information. This can
be used to reconstruct
the state of a checklist
after processing 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
compatibility 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
background, 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
output.
--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 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.
--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 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. 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, dialog 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. 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.
--timeout secs
Timeout (exit with error
code) if no user
response within the
given number of seconds.
This is overridden 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 letter of the
tag) apply to the list
items. If you tab to
the button row,
abbrevations 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 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 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 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 dialog's output. 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 behavior.
--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 scrollable 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. 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 windows.
On exit, the contents of the form-fields are written to dialog's
output, each field separated by a newline. Input-only fields
(flen is zero) are not written out.
--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 "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 integer 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 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, 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 dialog'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 <tag> <item>
--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 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 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.
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.
--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 "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 dialog's output.
--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.
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 background 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 individually, e.g., by pressing 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.
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 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 cursor, 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. 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 pageup/pagedown 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 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 "\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 pressing one of the
buttons.
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, 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.
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_OK Define any of these variables to change the exit code on
Cancel (1), error (-1), ESC (255), Extra (3), Help (2),
or OK (0). Normally shell scripts cannot distinguish
between -1 and 255.
DIALOG_TTY Set this variable to "1" to provide compatibility with
older versions of dialog which assumed that if the
script redirects the standard output, that the
"--stdout" option was given.
$HOME/.dialogrc default configuration file
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.
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.
Perhaps.
Savio Lam (lam836 [AT] cs.hk) - version 0.3, "dialog"
Stuart Herbert (S.Herbert [AT] sheffield.uk) - patch for version 0.4
Pako (demarco_p [AT] abramo.it) - version 0.9a, "cdialog",
Thomas Dickey (updates for 0.9b and beyond)
Tobias C. Rittweiler (tobrit [AT] freebits.de)
$Date: 2004/09/21 01:43:31 $ DIALOG(1)