xenial (1) whiptail.1.gz

Provided by: whiptail_0.52.18-1ubuntu2_amd64 bug

NAME

       whiptail - display dialog boxes from shell scripts

SYNOPSIS

       whiptail  [ --title title ] [ --backtitle backtitle ] [ --clear ] [ --default-item string ] [ --defaultno
       ] [ --fb ] [ --nocancel  ]  [  --yes-button  text  ]  [  --no-button  text  ]  [  --ok-button  text  ]  [
       --cancel-button text ] [ --noitem [ ] --output-fd fd ] [ --separate-output ] [ --scrolltext ] [ --topleft
       ] box-options

DESCRIPTION

       whiptail is a program that will let you 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, checklist box, radiolist box, gauge
       box, and password box.

OPTIONS

       --clear
              The screen will be cleared to the screen attribute on exit.  This doesn't work in  an  xterm  (and
              descendants)  if  alternate screen switching is enabled, because in that case slang writes to (and
              clears) an alternate screen.

       --defaultno
              The dialog box will open with the cursor over the No button.

       --default-item string
              Set  the default item in a menu box.  Normally the first item in the box is the default.

       --fb, --fullbuttons
              Use full buttons. (By default, whiptail uses compact buttons).

       --nocancel
              The dialog box won't have a Cancel button.

       --yes-button text
              Set the text of the Yes button.

       --no-button text
              Set the text of the No button.

       --ok-button text
              Set the text of the Ok button.

       --cancel-button text
              Set the text of the Cancel button.

       --noitem
              The menu, checklist and radiolist widgets will display tags only, not the item strings.  The  menu
              widget still needs some items specified, but checklist and radiolist expect only tag and status.

       --notags
              Don't display tags in the menu, checklist and radiolist widgets.

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

       --output-fd fd
              Direct output to the given file descriptor.  Most whiptail scripts write to  standard  error,  but
              error  messages  may  also  be written there, depending on your script.

       --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.

       --scrolltext
              Force the display of a vertical scrollbar.

       --topleft
              Put window in top-left corner.

       -h, --help
              Print a help message and exit.

       -v, --version
              Print version information and exit.

       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 fit in one  line,  it
              will  be automatically divided into multiple lines at appropriate places. The text string may 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.

       --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
              whiptail 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,  whiptail  will  exit  immediately
              after  displaying  the message to the user. The screen is not cleared when whiptail 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
              the  width  of the dialog box, the input field will be scrolled. On exit, the input string will be
              printed on stderr.

       --passwordbox text height width [init]
              A password box is similar to an input box, except 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.

       --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.  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 whiptail 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.  You can select and deselect items using the SPACE key.  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 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 setting its status to on.

       --gauge text height width percent
              A  gauge box displays a meter along the bottom of the box.  The meter indicates a percentage.  New
              percentages are read from standard input, one integer per line.  The meter is updated  to  reflect
              each  new  percentage.   If  stdin is XXX, the first following line is a percentage and subsequent
              lines up to another XXX are used for a new prompt.  The gauge exits when EOF is reached on stdin.

NOTES

       whiptail interprets arguments starting with a dash "-" as being arguments.  To avoid this, and start some
       text  in,  for  example, a menubox item, with a dash, whiptail honours the getopt convention of accepting
       the special argument "--" which means that all following arguments with dashes are to be treated verbatim
       and not parsed as options.

DIAGNOSTICS

       Exit status is 0 if whiptail is exited by pressing the Yes or OK button, and 1 if the No or Cancel button
       is pressed. Otherwise, if errors occur inside whiptail or whiptail is exited by pressing the ESC key, the
       exit status is 255.

AUTHOR

       Based on the man page for dialog(1) by:

       Savio Lam (lam836@cs.cuhk.hk) - version 0.3

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

       Modifications for whiptail by:

       Enrique Zanardi (ezanard@debian.org)

       Alastair McKinstry (mckinstry@debian.org)