
          dialog - Display dialog boxes in shell script (version 0.5)
          ===========================================================

This is a program that will enable you to 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. The idea of writing this
program came from the fact that most questions asked in a shell script (and
many interactive programs as well) can be classified into these few types:


    1)  One that requires the user to answer either yes or no.

    2)  One that presents a number of options for the user to choose.

    3)  One that requires the user to input a string.

    4)  One that displays a message and optionally wait for a key press
        before continuing.

    5)  One that presents a list of options that can be turned on or off.


The program 'dialog' can, say for example, be called in a shell script to
present the first type of questions like this:


	if dialog --yesno <question text> <height> <width>
	then
	  ...
	fi


	e.g.  if dialog --yesno "Do you want to continue?" 7 51
	      then
	        echo "Continuing..."
	      else
	        echo "Aborting..."
	      fi


I've included a sample shell script for each type of boxes in the directory
samples. The program requires ncurses to compile. Running 'dialog' without
arguments will display the usage.



FEATURES
--------

	*  Friendly dialog box interface with buttons, etc.

	*  Auto wrap around of question text if it's too long to fit on
	   one line.

        *  "\n" can be inserted in question text to control line breaking
           explicitly. The real newline character '\n' can also be used.
	   (note - using \n means that you have to do all layout yourself,
	   as this isn't handled by the word-wrap routine - Stuart)

        *  run-time configruation of color settings and other options using
           a configuration file.

WHAT'S NEW SINCE VERSION 0.4?
-----------------------------

	*  New guage widget to display progress meter-like stuff.

	*  New dialog.pl perl interface to dialog.  Makes using
	   dialog from perl simple and powerful.

	*  inputbox widgets now accept an initial string to display

	*  Added --separate-output option which affects the output of
	   checklist widgets.  Each selected item is printed on an
	   individual line, with no quotes.  This makes processing of
	   the output a snap.

	*  Word wrap is still broken (see samples/yesno) but wordwrap
	   using dialog.pl works nicely.

WHAT'S NEW SINCE VERSION 0.3?
-----------------------------

	*  dialog works with ncurses 1.8.5 now (patch is supplied to fix
	   ncurses 1.8.5 as well)
	
	*  word-wrap in infobox's etc has been fixed (so long as you don't
	   use \n in your prompts.
	
	*  new default colour scheme (sort of 3D look now)
	
	*  radiolist option added (same as a menu, but with radio buttons)

	*  backtitle option added (place a title on the background - can be
	   used with --title, or instead of it)
	
	
WHAT'S NEW SINCE VERSION 0.21?
------------------------------

	*  some changes for faster screen update.

	*  much more flexible color settings. Can use all 16 colors
           (8 normal, 8 highlight) of the Linux console.

	*  added run-time configuration using configuration file.

	*  some minor bug fixes and cleanups for menubox, checklist and
	   textbox.

	*  added a man page.

	*  some changes for easier porting to other Unix systems (tested
           on Ultrix, SunOS and HPUX)


Savio Lam (lam836@cs.cuhk.hk)


COMMENTS
--------

	*  This release is primarily to fix dialog for use with ncurses
	   1.8.5, and to include the two new options.
	
	*  This release includes the 8-bit-clean patches, and is derived from
	   the Slackware sources, rather than from the copy on sunsite.
	   
	*  I understand that Savio no longer maintains dialog.  To the best
	   of my knowledge, I've fixed all the remaining bugs in dialog.
	   
	*  My quoted email address is only valid until the end of June, 1994.
	   This means that I'm not in a position to maintain this release :(

Stuart Herbert,
S.Herbert@Sheffield.ac.uk


MORE COMMENTS
-------------

The 0.5 release was made by me (Marc Ewing).  Neither Savio nor Stuart are
maintaining dialog any longer.  Please don't bother them with any problems
created by my own alterations!

Marc Ewing
marc@redhat.com
