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WHIPTAIL(1)							   WHIPTAIL(1)



NAME
       whiptail - display dialog boxes from shell scripts

SYNOPSIS
       whiptail  [  --title  title  ]  [ --backtitle backtitle ] [ --clear ] [
       --default-item string ] [ --defaultno ] [  --fb	]  [  --nocancel  ]  [
       --noitem  [  ]  --output-fd fd ] [ --separate-output ] [ --scrolltext ]
       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 doesnt 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   Use full buttons. (By default, whiptail uses compact buttons).

       --nocancel
	      The dialog box wont have a Cancel button.

       --noitem
	      The  menu,  checklist  and  radiolist  widgets will display tags
	      only, not the item strings.

       --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.

       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  systems
	      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, then 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 0.51.6        20 September 2004		   WHIPTAIL(1)




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