Creating message box in a shell script

Shell scripts are generally assumed to be restricted to using only the command line for interaction with the user and lacks the graphical user interfaces available in the GUI mode.

One way of creating small GUIs in shell scripts is by the use of whiptail.

Here is how we can create a message box using whiptail. To create a message box we need to use the option --msgbox.

syntax:

$ whiptail --msgmox <text> <height> <width>

example

$ whiptail --msgbox Hello 10 20

The above command will create a message box of 10 X 20 with the text hello in it as shown below.



By default the text that appears for exiting the message box is OK.

We can changet the text using the option --ok-button

$ whiptail --ok-button Done --msgbox Hello 10 20





Example script

#!/bin/bash echo "Welcome to message box example" sleep 2 whiptail --msgbox Hello 10 20 echo "Message box example with Done button" sleep 2 whiptail --ok-button Done --msgbox Hello 10 20 echo "Thank you"