dialog (shell script program) but for C/C++ programs

Question

I'm looking for a library or something usable from C/C++ (cross-platform if possible) that does something similar to the program "dialog", which is/was available on most Linux systems. Basically, I would like a simple menu similar to dialog --menu , but I don't want to have to write too much code for it. Console-based is fine; does anyone know of such a library?

By the way, does anyone know a good Google shortcut to search for the program "dialog" as opposed to GUI dialog boxes (eg "golang" for the Go programming language)? I can't get "dialog" to produce useful results.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Yad is yet another dialog.

Google this .

Answer 2

The dialog itself is based on curses library , which is a freely distributed GNU project .

PS I ususally use "dialog bash" as key words for Google searches.

Answer 3

dialog actually comes with a library. It is mentioned in the manual page.

If you use the following, it will show you the info on how to use that library. It is a static library and it has a dialog.h file:

man 3 dialog

The Ubuntu manual page includes an example:

#include <dialog.h>

int main(void)
{
    int status;
    init_dialog(stdin, stdout);
    status = dialog_yesno(
                 "Hello, in dialog-format",
                 "Hello World!",
                 0, 0);
    end_dialog();
    return status;
}

And to link, you have to specify the dialog and ncurses libraries as in:

g++ ... -ldialog -lncurses my-test.cpp -o my-test ...

Here is a list of the widgets:

extern int dialog_buildlist(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*list_height*/, int /*item_no*/, char ** /*items*/, int /*order_mode*/);
extern int dialog_calendar(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*subtitle*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*day*/, int /*month*/, int /*year*/);
extern int dialog_checklist(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*list_height*/, int /*item_no*/, char ** /*items*/, int /*flag*/);
extern int dialog_dselect(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*path*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/);
extern int dialog_editbox(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*file*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/);
extern int dialog_form(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*form_height*/, int /*item_no*/, char ** /*items*/);
extern int dialog_fselect(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*path*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/);
extern int dialog_gauge(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*percent*/);
extern int dialog_helpfile(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*file*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/);
extern int dialog_inputbox(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, const char * /*init*/, const int /*password*/);
extern int dialog_menu(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*menu_height*/, int /*item_no*/, char ** /*items*/);
extern int dialog_mixedform(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*form_height*/, int /*item_no*/, char ** /*items*/);
extern int dialog_mixedgauge(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*percent*/, int /*item_no*/, char ** /*items*/);
extern int dialog_msgbox(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*pauseopt*/);
extern int dialog_pause(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*seconds*/);
extern int dialog_prgbox(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, const char * /*command*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*pauseopt*/);
extern int dialog_progressbox(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/);
extern int dialog_rangebox(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*file*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*min_value*/, int /*max_value*/, int /*default_value*/);
extern int dialog_tailbox(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*file*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*bg_task*/);
extern int dialog_textbox(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*file*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/);
extern int dialog_timebox(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*subtitle*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*hour*/, int /*minute*/, int /*second*/);
extern int dialog_treeview(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*subtitle*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*list_height*/, int /*item_no*/, char ** /*items*/, int /*flag*/);
extern int dialog_yesno(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/);

As we can see, one of the widgets is dialog_menu() .

Here is also a few other definitions including a dlg_menu() :

extern int dlg_checklist(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*list_height*/, int /*item_no*/, DIALOG_LISTITEM * /*items*/, const char * /*states*/, int /*flag*/, int * /*current_item*/);
extern int dlg_form(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*form_height*/, int /*item_no*/, DIALOG_FORMITEM * /*items*/, int * /*current_item*/);
extern int dlg_menu(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*menu_height*/, int /*item_no*/, DIALOG_LISTITEM * /*items*/, int * /*current_item*/, DIALOG_INPUTMENU /*rename_menu*/);
extern int dlg_progressbox(const char * /*title*/, const char * /*cprompt*/, int /*height*/, int /*width*/, int /*pauseopt*/, FILE * /* fp */);

That manual page gives you a lot of information about all of these functions. So it's worth reading through it.

Here is a link to a FreeBSD copy of that specific manual page:

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=dialog&sektion=3