dialog man page on BSDOS

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DIALOG(1)							     DIALOG(1)

NAME
       dialog - display dialog boxes from shell scripts

SYNOPSIS
       dialog --clear
       dialog --create-rc file
       dialog [ --title title ] [ --clear ] 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.  Currently,
       these types of dialog boxes are implemented:

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

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.

       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	appro‐
	      priate  places.  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
	      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
	      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.

       --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.

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)

				10 January 1994			     DIALOG(1)
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