guile-zenity

guile-zenity

Version: 0.1

Zenity is a command line tool that displays simple dialog boxes.

This library creates scheme procedures that build up a zenity command line, call it then parse the result and return it as scheme data.

• https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/stable/
• https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Projects/Zenity
• https://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=product%3Azenity

installation

To use this you need to install the zenity program.

After than you need to move the zenity.scm file of this repo into your GUILE_LOAD_PATH.

To test that it's working try this:

$ guile
scheme@(guile-user)> (use-modules (zenity))
scheme@(guile-user)> (zenity-info "Hello world!")
Gtk-Message: GtkDialog mapped without a transient parent. This is discouraged.
$1 = #t

the warning can be ignored.

examples

There are two examples programs:

• guile -l birthday.scm: This programs asks your date of birth and sometimes wishes a happy birthday.
• guile -l list-example.scm: This program demonstrates using the list dialog (since it is a bit more complex to call than others).
• guile -l todo.scm: A more fun list example that lets you manage a todo list.
• guile -l forms-example.scm: Shows how to use the forms dialog.
• guile -l egg-timer.scm: Demonstrates the progress-bar feature - select a length of time then wait that long.
• guile -l guix-helper.scm: A sample program that helps build a guix package definition from forms filled in.

If you get an error like this:

ERROR: In procedure scm-error:
ERROR: no code for module (zenity)

try running it this way:

GUILE_LOAD_PATH=`pwd` guile -l examples/egg-timer.scm

that should help guile find the library.

functions

Calendar Dialog

(zenity-calendar message)

Shows a calendar for the user to pick a date from. The return value will be #f on Cancel, and an assoc list with fields day, month, year on success.

Color Selection Dialog

(zenity-color-selection #:key (color #f) (show-palette #f))

This opens a color picker, it returns strings of the form "rgb(0,1,2)". You can preset the color by name e.g. #:color "blue". By default it is a HSV color picker but you can change it to a palette by passing #:show-palette #t.

File Selection Dialog

(zenity-file-selection title #:key (multiple #f) (directory #f) (save #f) (filename #f))

This opens up a dialog for choosing a file. There are keyword options to allow selecting multiple files, restricting it to directories only or making a new filename to save data to. A new keyword filename added to let you preset which directory the file might be chosen from.

Warning: A limitation of the way zenity outputs the file list (separated by the | character) is that this gives bad output on files with | in the name.

Forms Dialog

(zenity-forms title text layout)

This produces a form built out of 'layout', layout is an assoc list of (<type> . <name>) pairs. The form field types are: entry, password, calendar. The field names are just strings.

The return value is a list: each piece of data entered by the user.

Warning: A limitation of the way zenity outputs data (separated by the , character) is that this will error if any data inputted contains the , character.

List Dialog

(zenity-list message columns rows) (zenity-checklist message columns rows)

Pass in list of columns and then a list of rows to let display and let an item be chosen from a list.

The return value of zenity-list is the selected row. The return value of zenity-checklist is a list of the string versions of the first column of the selected items.

Message Dialog

(zenity-error message) (zenity-info message) (zenity-question message) (zenity-warning message)

Display a simple informational dialog box. The -question and -warning variants return a boolean for whether OK or Cancel was pressed.

Scale Dialog

(zenity-scale message #:key (value #f) (minimum #f) (maximum #f) (step #f) (hide-value #f))

This dialog gives a slider to enable picking a number in a range.

Password Dialog, Text Entry Dialog

(zenity-password message) (zenity-entry message)

Asks the user for some input, the return value is #f on Cancel or the text that was inputted.

(zenity-pulsate message #:key (auto-close #f) (no-cancel #f) ) (zenity-progress message #:key (value #f) (auto-close #f) (no-cancel #f))

These display a progress bar and return a new procedure while the dialog is still open.

• For pulsate the function returned is simply a thunk that you call when the computation is finished, this enables the Ok button.
• For progress the function returned takes one argument, a number from 0 to 100 indicating the progress of the operation. The Ok button appears when it reaches 100.

Notes:

All these functions now accept the #:width and #:height keys to set the size of the dialog boxes.

contributors

• Raymond Nicholson <rain1@openmailbox.org
• Fabian Harfert fhmgufs@opmbx.org