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dialog(1)

SYNOPSIS

       dialog --clear
       dialog --create-rc file
       dialog  [ --title title ] [ --clear ] [ --hline line ] [ --hfile file ]
       box-options

DESCRIPTION

       Dialog is a program which allows you to present a variety of  questions
       or  display  messages in dialog box form from a shell script.  The fol-
       lowing types of dialog objects are currently supported:

       yes/no box, menu box, input box,  message  box,	text  box,  info  box,
       checklist box, program box, ftree and tree boxes.

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 dia-
	      log box.

       --hline line
	      Specifies a line string to be displayed at  the  bottom  of  the
	      dialog box.

       --hfile file
	      Specifies a file to be displayed by pressing ? or F1.

       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 fit in one line, it
	      will be automatically divided into multiple lines at the	appro-
	      priate  points.  The text string may also contain the sub-string
	      "\n" or newline characters `\n' to control line breaking explic-
	      itly.   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 differ-
	      ence  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
	      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 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 descrip-
	      tion  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.

       --prgbox command height width
	      A  program box lets you display output of command in dialog box.

       --checklist text height width list-height [ tag item status ] ...
	      A checklist box is similar to a menu box in that there are  mul-
	      tiple entries presented in the form of a menu. Instead of choos-
	      ing 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 spec-
	      ified by status.	On exit, a list of the tag  strings  of  those
	      entries that are turned on will be printed on stderr.

       --ftree file FS text height width menu-height
	      ftree box is a dialog box showing the tree described by the data
	      from the file file.  The data  in  the  file  should  look  like
	      find(1)	output.  For  the  find output, the field separator FS
	      will be '/'. If height and width are positive numbers, they  set
	      the  absolute  size  of the whole ftree box. If height and width
	      are negative numbers, the size of the ftree box will be selected
	      automatically.   menu-height sets the height of the tree subwin-
	      dow inside the ftree box and must be set.  text is shown	inside
	      the  ftree  box above the tree subwindow and can contain newline
	      characters '\n' to split lines. One can navigate in the tree  by
	      leaves  of  the  tree may be absent. Such data is corrected when
	      fed from file.

       --tree FS text height width menu-height [ item ] ...
	      tree box is like ftree box with some exceptions. First, the data
	      is  not  entered	from a file, but from the command line as item
	      item ...	Second, the data thus entered is not corrected in  any
	      way.   Thus,  the data like the output of find(1) with -d option
	      will look incorrectly.

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, its  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.

ENVIRONMENT

       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.

SEE ALSO

       dialog(3)

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.

       The  ftree and tree boxes do not allow the tree to be moved to the left
       or to the right. Thus, if there are many levels of data,  some  of  the
       leaves can be rendered invisible. A standard display with 80 characters
       allows for 17 levels to be visible. Deeper levels are  invisible.  How-
       ever, the navigation in the tree and selection of leaves do work.

AUTHOR

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