From: lam836@cs.cuhk.hk
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Subject: dialog version 0.2
Date: 4 Jan 1994 22:43:50 GMT
Approved: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu (Lars Wirzenius)
Message-ID: <2gcrf6$r99@hydra.Helsinki.FI>

I've uploaded to sunsite.unc.edu the files:

    /pub/Linux/Incoming/dialog-0.2.lsm
and /pub/Linux/Incoming/dialog-0.2.tar.gz

Here is the README:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

dialog - Display dialog boxes in shell script (version 0.2)
===========================================================

This is a program that will enable you to present a variety of questions
or display messages using dialog boxes in a shell script. Currently, these
types of dialog boxes are implemented: yes/no box, menu box, input box,
message box, text box, info box, checklist box. The idea of writing this
program came from the fact that most questions asked in a shell script
(and many interactive programs as well) can be classified into these
few types:

1) One that requires the user to answer either yes or no.
2) One that presents a number of options for the user to choose.
3) One that requires the user to input a string.
4) One that displays a message and optionally wait for a key press
   before continuing.
5) One that presents a list of options that can be turned on or off.

The program 'dialog' can, say for example, be called in a shell script to
present the first type of questions like this:

if dialog --yesno <question text> <height> <width>
then
  ...
fi

e.g. if dialog --yesno "Do you want to continue?" 7 51
     then
       echo "Continuing..."
     else
       echo "Aborting..."
     fi

I've included a sample shell script for each type of boxes in the directory
samples. The program requires ncurses to compile. Running 'dialog' without
arguments will display the usage.


FEATURES
	- Friendly dialog box interface with buttons, etc.
        - Auto wrap around of question text if it's too long to fit on
          one line.
        - "\n" can be inserted in question text to control line breaking
          explicitly. The real newline character '\n' can also be used.


WHAT'S NEW SINCE VERSION 0.15?
        - Incorporated patch from Patrick J. Volkerding
          (volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu) that made these changes:
          - increased MAX_LEN to 2048
          - added 'infobox', equivalent to a message box without pausing
          - added option '--clear' that will clear the screen
          - Explicit line breaking when printing prompt text can be
            invoked by real newline '\n' besides the string "\n"

        - an optional parameter '--title <string>' can be used to
          specify a title string for the dialog box.

        - added 'textbox', a dialog box for displaying text from a file.


INSTALLATION
	1. cd ./src
	2. Edit Makefile and remove -DUSE_SHADOW from DEFS if you
           don't want shadowed dialog boxes.
	3. 'make depend; make install' will compile and install the
           binaries in /usr/local/bin (change BINDIR in Makefile if
           you want to install elsewhere).
        4. You can then try the sample shell scripts in the samples
           directory.


Comments and bug reports welcome.

- Savio Lam (lam836@cs.cuhk.hk)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Regards,
Savio Lam.
Email: lam836@cs.cuhk.hk

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