Whiptail
Whiptail is a lightweight user interface shell for shell scripts. It allows creating dialog boxes, menus, progress bars and more to interact with users through a text terminal.
shell
dialog
user-interface
Whiptail: Lightweight UI Shell
A text terminal-based user interface shell for creating dialog boxes, menus, progress bars and more
What is Whiptail?
Whiptail is a lightweight user interface shell originally designed for shell scripts. It provides a suite of dialog tools to display simple text user interfaces even when a graphical environment is not available, like in a Linux text console or terminal.
Some of the common user interface components whiptail can generate include:
- Message boxes (yes/no, ok/cancel etc.)
- Input boxes to get text input
- Menus to select from options
- Checklists to select multiple items
- Radio lists to select one item
- Progress bars
Since it runs in a text terminal, whiptail is very lightweight and doesn't require an X server or window manager to run. All the UI is rendered using ASCII characters. This makes it well-suited for use in shell scripts to interact with users.
Whiptail is highly customizable - the look and feel, dimensions, colors etc can be changed by passing arguments. It can also run unattended in a script without user interaction. The return output can be checked by the script to take decisions.
Some common uses of whiptail include installing software to gather user preferences, configuration wizards in Linux admin scripts, as a general menuing system for text UIs and more.
Whiptail Features
Features
- Create dialog boxes, menus, progress bars, and more for shell scripts
- Lightweight user interface for terminal/console applications
- Display informational messages, warnings, error messages
- Get input from users through text prompts, checkboxes, radioboxes
- Validate user input
- Modular and customizable UI components
Pricing
- Open Source
Pros
Easy to add interactivity to shell scripts
Works in text terminals/consoles
Lightweight and fast
Good for prototyping and creating simple UIs
Widely available on Linux distros
Cons
Limited UI capabilities compared to GUI toolkits
Text-only, not graphical
Somewhat arcane syntax
Limited customization options
Not as full-featured as other TUI libraries
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