How to show a GUI message box from a bash script in linux

Question

I m writing a few little bash scripts under Ubuntu linux  I want to be able to run them from the GUI without needing a terminal window to enter any input or view any output   So far the only input required is a password for sudo - and gksudo handles that fine  But I haven t found an easy way to show a message box yet  Is there some kind of  gkmessage  command available  I d prefer something present in a default Ubuntu install  but I don t mind installing a new package if necessary

User · Accepted Answer

I believe Zenity will do what you want   It s specifically designed for displaying GTK dialogs from the command line  and it s available as an Ubuntu package

User · Answer

There is also dialog and the KDE version kdialog   dialog is used by slackware  so it might not be immediately available on other distributions

User · Answer

If you are using Ubuntu many distros the notify-send command will throw one of those nice perishable notifications in the top right corner  Like so   notify-send  My name is bash and I rock da house   B e a utiful

User · Answer

I found the xmessage command  which is sort of good enough

User · Answer

Kdialog and dialog are both good  but I d recommend Zenity  Quick  easy  and much better looking the xmessage or dialog

User · Answer

Here s a little Tcl script that will do what you want   The Wish interpreter should be installed by default on Ubuntu      usr bin wish pack  label  msg -text  lindex  argv 0   pack  entry  ent  bind  ent  lt KeyPress-Return gt    puts   ent get   destroy     focus  ent   Call it like this   myanswer  gui-prompt  type your answer and press enter

User · Answer

if nothing else is present  you can launch an xterm and echo in it  like this    xterm -e bash -c  echo  this is the message  echo echo -n  press enter to continue    stty sane -echo answer    while   head -c 1 do true  done

User · Answer

Example bash script for using Gambas GTK QT Controls GUI Objects   The Gambas IDE can be used to design even large GUIs and act as a GUI server  Example expplications can be downloaded from the Gambas App store  https   gambas one gambasfarm  id 823 amp action search

User · Answer

Zenity is really the exact tool that I think that you are looking for   or  zenity --help

User · Answer

alert and notify-send seem to be the same thing  I use notify-send for non-input messages as it doesn t steal focus and I cannot find a way to stop zenity etc  from doing this   e g      This will display message and then disappear after a delay  notify-send  job complete     This will display message and stay on-screen until clicked  notify-send -u critical  job complete

User · Answer

How about Ubuntu s alert  It can be used after any operation to alert it finished and even show red cross icon if operaton was finnished with errors  ls -la  alert

User · Answer

Everyone mentions zenity  there seem to be many others  A mixed up but interesting list is at http   alternativeto net software zenity   First  an example of zenity featuring text formatting markup  window title  button label   zenity   --info   --text   lt span size   xx-large   gt Time is   date   Hh M   lt  span gt  n nGet your  lt b gt coffee lt  b gt      --title  Coffee time    --ok-label  Sip    gxmessage  gxmessage  my text    xmessage  xmessage is very old so it is stable and probably available in all distributions that use X  since it s distributed with X    It is customizable through X resources  for those that have been using Linux or Unix for long enough to know what it means   Xdefaults  anyone      xmessage -buttons Ok 0  Not sure  1 Cancel 2 -default Ok -nearmouse  Is xmessage enough for the job    -timeout 10   kdialog   not tested   In a PPA  YAD  Zenity On Steroids  Display Graphical Dialogs From Shell Scripts    Web Upd8  Ubuntu   Linux blog  Does not seem to auto-size dialogs   echo My text   yad   --text-info   --width 400   --height 200   An bigger example  yad   --title  Desktop entry editor    --text  Simple desktop entry editor    --form   --field  Type CB    --field  Name    --field  Generic name    --field  Comment    --field  Command FL    --field  Icon    --field  In terminal CHK    --field  Startup notify CHK   Application   Name   Generic name   This is the comment    usr bin yad   yad  FALSE TRUE   --button  WebUpd8 2    --button  gtk-ok 0    --button  gtk-cancel 1    Others not in Ubuntu standard repositories   shellgui xdialog gtkdialog   Off-topic  for terminal   whiptail --msgbox  my text  10 20 dialog --msgbox  my text  10 20   Feel free to edit

User · Answer

The zenity application appears to be what you are looking for    To take input from zenity  you can specify a variable and have the output of zenity --entry saved to it  It looks something like this   my variable   zenity --entry    If you look at the value in my variable now  it will be whatever was typed in the zenity pop up entry dialog   If you want to give some sort of prompt as to what the user  or you  should enter in the dialog  add the --text switch with the label that you want  It looks something like this   my variable   zenity --entry --text  What s my variable      Zenity has lot of other nice options that are for specific tasks  so you might want to check those out as well with zenity --help  One example is the --calendar option that let s you select a date from a graphical calendar   my date   zenity --calendar    Which gives a nicely formatted date based on what the user clicked on   echo   my date    gives      08 05 2009   There are also options for slider selectors  errors  lists and so on   Hope this helps

[linux] How to show a GUI message box from a bash script in linux?

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