cdialog For Linux

cdialog is an open source and totally free command-line software that allows you to display messages or present a variety of questions on a graphical desktop environment using dialog boxes, directly from the shell prompt.

The software has been engineered to implement various types of dialog boxes, including calendar, file-selection, checklist, gauge, input, info, menu, radiolist, message, tailbox, time, yes/no, and text. A reduced version of dialog exists under the lxdialog name, which is used in the Linux kernel configuration.

The application is available for download as a universal sources archive, which will allow you to optimize it for either 32-bit or 64-bit computer platforms. Debian and Red Hat packages can also be found on the project’s homepage, along with FreeBSD ports.

To install this software on your computer, you must first download the latest source tarball from Softpedia, save it on a location of your choice, extract the archive and open a terminal emulator. Navigate to the location of the extracted files and type the “./configure && make” command (without quotes) to configure and compile the project.

After compilation, the program will output a binary file called "dialog." This is the actual program and it can be used only via the command-line shell in any supported GNU/Linux distribution or another UNIX-like environment.

The “dialog” command has a wide range of options, which can be used when attempting to create dialog boxes. Users should use the “box” option to define what type of dialog box they want to generate.

Available box options include calendar, gauge, menu, message box, mixed form, input menu, checklist, edit box, form, info box, fselect, password box, program box, progress box, radio list, text box, treeview, time box, range box, pause, yesno, and built list.