Adding graphic elements to your scripts with Zenity and KDialog
Shell Click
© www.sxc.hu
Zenity and KDialog let you integrate your scripts with the native KDE or Gnome environment.
A full-blown GUI-based application is beautiful to behold, but a graphical interface is way more trouble to create than a simple shell script. If you like the simplicity of scripting, but you prefer a little more visual feedback, Zenity (for Gnome environments) and KDialog (for KDE) are a pair of tools you should know about. These handy helpers let you integrate graphic dialog boxes into your scripts.
Dialog boxes prompt users for input, display output, or just report progress on a process. Zenity and KDialog also output error messages and general status information in the form of visual feedback, and you'll never need to type pathnames painstakingly; instead, you can use a graphical file browser.
Zenity [1] is included by default with the Gnome desktop in openSUSE, Ubuntu, and several other distros. KDialog is often installed with the default KDE environment. If your distribution does not include these tools, install the kde4-dialog or zenity package to get started. If you write scripts for other people, the computers that run those scripts will also need Zenity or KDialog. It is a good idea to incorporate a test into your script that checks for the presence of Zenity or KDialog before invoking their commands.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.