WHIPTAIL(1)                 General Commands Manual                WHIPTAIL(1)



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 ] [ --can-
       cel-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  dia-
              log 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 but-
              ton 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 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 input-
              ing  the string, the BACKSPACE key can be used to correct typing
              errors. If the input string is longer than the width of the dia-
              log  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  any-
              thing  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 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. 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  mul-
              tiple  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 follow-
              ing  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 argu-
       ments.  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 but-
       ton, 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 -1.

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)



Whiptail Version 0.52.5         31 January 2007                    WHIPTAIL(1)
