Explore zenity

zenity:

Zenity is an open source and a cross-platform application which displays GTK+ Dialog Boxes in command-line and using shell scripts. It allows to ask and present information to/from shell in Graphical Boxes. The application lets you create Graphical dialog boxes in command-line and makes the interaction between user and shell very easy.

we can use zenity to create simple dialog that interact graphically with the user.

For example, zenity: — question will return either 0, 1 or 5, depending on whether the user pressed OK, Cancel or timeout has been reached. zenity — entry will output on standard output what the user
typed into the text entry field.

Zenity Features:

1. FOSS Software
2. Cross Platform Application
3. Allow GTK+ Dialog Box Execution
4. Command Line Tool
5. Support in Shell Scripting

Usefulness:

1. Easy GUI Creation
2. Less features than other complex Tools
3. Enables shell scripts to interact with a GUI users
4. Simple dialog creation is possible for graphical user interaction

zeinty Manual:

>_ man zenity

OPTIONS
This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes
(`-’).

Dialog options

— calendar
Display calendar dialog

— entry
Display text entry dialog

— error
Display error dialog

— file-selection
Display file selection dialog

— info Display info dialog

— list Display list dialog

etc etc……………………………

Examples:

Display calendar dialog.

>_ zenity — — calendar

>_ zenity — question — title “Alert” — text “Can we proceed?”

Display a dialog, asking “Can we proceed?”. The return c
ode will be 0 (true in shell) if OK is selected, and 1
(false) if Cancel is selected.

Display programming language list in a check list dialog with python, java and Dart pre selected.

>_ zenity — list — checklist — column “Pragrming” — column “Language” TRUE Python TRUE Java FALSE c FALSE c++ TRUE Dart

>_ zenity — notification — window-icon=update.png — text “System update necessary!”

Show a notification in the message tray.

Display a progress dialog while searching for all the postscript files in your home directory.

>_ find $HOME -name ‘*.ps’ | zenity — progress — pulsate

>_ zenity — notification — text=”$($(zenity — entry))”

By this command we can give linux command in entry box and the command output will show in notification.

giving “date” command in entry box.

Output of “date” command showing in notification.

And a lot of GTK. Graphical dialog can be build using zenity. For all knowledge take a read of zenity manual.

Thank You………