Dialog

• Linux is based on the Unix operating system, but also features a number of unique and useful kernel features and application programs that often go beyond what is available under Unix. 

• True to the Unix tradition of writing general-purpose tools that work together, dialog allows creating text-based color dialog boxes from any shell script language. 

• It supports eight types of dialogs:

  1. yes/no boxes

  2. menu boxes

  3. input boxes

  4. message boxes

  5. text boxes

  6. info boxes

  7. checklist boxes

  8. radiolist boxes

In order to run dialog, we need to install it in Ubuntu by typing the following command.

sudo apt install dialog

Syntax

The syntax is as follows:

dialog --common-options --boxType "Text" Height Width —box-specific-option

• --common-options are used to set dialog boxes background color, title, etc.

• 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.