Dialog is an application used in shell scripts which displays text user interface widgets. It uses the curses or ncurses library. The latter provides users with the ability to use a mouse, e.g., in an xterm.
Dialog was created by Savio Lam (first reported version 0.3 was in 1994).[2][3][4] It was further modified by several people. Since 1999 it has been maintained (and rewritten) by Thomas Dickey.[5]
At least one fork exists, a FreeBSD-only split into application and library in late 1994.[6][7] One might also consider lxdialog (part of menuconfig), except that it has been reduced to fragments that can no longer run dialog scripts.
There are several programs inspired by dialog; not all read the same scripts. The most well-known are Xdialog and whiptail.
See also
References
- ^ http://invisible-island.net/dialog/CHANGES.html#t20160126 – accessed on 2016/01/26
- ^ Phil Hughes (April 1994). “Interview with Patrick Volkerding”. Linux Journal.
- ^ Jeff Tranter (September 1994). “Dialog: An Introductory Tutorial”. Linux Journal.
- ^ “Dialog 0.3 manual page”. 1994-01-10.
- ^ “Dialog Change Log”.
- ^ “FreeBSD CVS src/gnu/usr.bin/dialog/”.
- ^ “FreeBSD library manual for dialog“.