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== Features of Zenity ==
There are many different types of dialog boxes that the Zenity command can create. The following is a table that uses options (starting with -- symbol immediately followed by a word to indicate the type dialog box to creategenerate. You are encouraged to use the online man pages to refer to all options, but here are a couple of options:<br /><br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="10">
To obtain input, think of Zenity as a replacement for the '''read''' command.
You can use '''--entry''' to prompt the user for input. When the user enters text and clicks the OK button, or presses the <ENTER> key, zenity will return the value of that entered text. To All of the zenity dialog boxes that prompt users for information, return that information as standard output (stdout). '''Therefore, to store it into a <u>variable </u> to be used later in the program, you can use command substitution (enough said, since this is being used for an assignment! You figure it out :) ... )'''. To obtain more options with this command, you should use the man pages... (eg. '''man zenity''').
== Simple Examples ==
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<td>'''zenity --info --text "Here is an example of using zenity command to display text in a dialog box instead instead of using echo to display in a shell..."'''</td>
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<u>Prompting User (Menu Selection)</u>
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<td>'''zenity --list --radiolist --text "<b>Please</b> make a selection:" --hide-header --column "Buy" --column "Item" FALSE "Door 1" FALSE "Door 2" FALSE "Door 3" FALSE Quit'''</td>
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<td>Here is input dialog box for user to make a selection from a menu:<br /><br />[[Image:zenity_selection.png|left|300px]]</td>
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<u>Piping Command Output to a Graphical Display</u>
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<td>'''cal | zenity --text-info'''</td>
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<td>Here is input dialog box to display stdout from a command graphically as opposed to in a shell:<br /><br />[[Image:zenityPipe.png|left|300px]]</td>
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<u>Displaying Text Over Several Lines</u>
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<td>'''zenity --info --text "Sentence1\n\nSentence2\n\nSentence3"'''</td>
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<td>Here is output from above command. Notice how each sentence appears on a separate line. The "\n" character represents a new-line:<br /><br />[[Image:newlines.png|left|150px]]</td>
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</table>
Have fun :)
Murray Saul
