ztuffaha@gmail.com wrote:

> Is there any form of xmessage (or something similar) in X windows that
> reads input? I know that you can read return status for xmessage but
> can you read input like a username or something similar.
> Thanks

I don't know about this "X windows" thing, but in The X Window System (yes,
the distinction is important) there is no built-in user interface. All
those things are handled by higher level libraries built on top of the
system.

There are lots of pre-built X GUI libraries, such as Qt.

ztuffaha@gmail.com writes:

> Is there any form of xmessage (or something similar) in X windows that
> reads input? I know that you can read return status for xmessage but
> can you read input like a username or something similar.

Since xmessage is a program used for getting input from a user to a
shell script through a dialog box it seems like you want a program for
that with more capabilities than xmessage. One such is zenity, which
is included in the Gnome environment.

zenity --title="User name" --text="User name" --entry

would give a dialog with a text entry and "User name" as window title
and text in dialog. Zenity sends the entered text to standard output.

--
- Mårten

mail: msv@kth.se *** ICQ: 4356928 *** mobile: +46 (0)707390385

Tony O'Bryan wrote:
> ztuffaha@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Is there any form of xmessage (or something similar) in X windows that
> > reads input? I know that you can read return status for xmessage but
> > can you read input like a username or something similar.
> > Thanks
>
> I don't know about this "X windows" thing, but in The X Window System (yes,
> the distinction is important) there is no built-in user interface. All
> those things are handled by higher level libraries built on top of the
> system.
>
> There are lots of pre-built X GUI libraries, such as Qt.

Could you please tell me the difference between X windows and X window
system? I am kind of a newbie at this. I know that I am running Cygwin
X server and client and I am still looking for a simple way to read
user input through that. Any direction is appreciated.
Thanks
Zed

ztuffaha@gmail.com wrote:

> Could you please tell me the difference between X windows and X window
> system?

"X Windows" is a common (and wrong) name used by newbies (and some
not-so-newbies, unfortunately) when referring to the X Window System. I'm
pasting the relevant section of the X11 manual:

-- start--

The X.Org Foundation requests that the following names be used when
referring to this software:

X
X Window System
X Version 11
X Window System, Version 11
X11

-- end --

> I am kind of a newbie at this. I know that I am running Cygwin
> X server and client and I am still looking for a simple way to read
> user input through that.

That depends on what you're doing. Are you writing a stand-alone X
application? If so, then you should get a higher level toolkit (such as
GTK+ and Qt). There is no simple built-in way to get a line of user input
from the basic X11 library. You need a higher level library like the ones
I mentioned above.

Tony O'Bryan wrote:

> Are you writing a stand-alone X
> application? If so, then you should get a higher level toolkit (such as
> GTK+ and Qt).

I should have finished this thought before posting: if you really want to
stay at the XLib level, I'll post an overview of how to read input text.
It's rather involved, so I'm not going to dive into it unless that's really
what you want.