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fltk-dialog is meant to start dialog windows from a shell script. This can be used to make user interaction easier.

Here I will explain the different dialog types and give some usage examples.

--message

A simple message box with a "close" button. Return code (echo $?) is always 0.

Usage example:

fltk-dialog \
  --message \
  --title="Example" \
  --text="Hello World"

Hint: line breaks make your code easier to read if you add a lot of command line parameters.

--warning

A message box with an "OK" button and a "Cancel" button. Return code is 1 if "Cancel" is clicked or if the window was closed (Alt+F4), clicking "OK" returns 0.

Example:

fltk-dialog --warning \
  --title="Warning!" \
  --text="Something went wrong!"

You can use the command directly in an if-else statement to make use of the return code:

if fltk-dialog --warning \
  --title="$title" \
  --text="$text"
then
  do_something_ok
else
  do_something_cancel
fi

Or you can use the special shell variable $? to get the exit code of the last executed command:

fltk-dialog --warning \
  --title="$title" \
  --text="$text"

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  do_something_ok
else
  do_something_cancel
fi

--question

A yes/no question dialog. "Yes" returns 0, "No" and closing the window returns 1.

Example:

if ! fltk-dialog --question \
  --title="Continue" \
  --text="Do you really want to continue?"
then
  exit
fi

You can also alter the text of the buttons with --yes-label=TEXT and --no-label=TEXT:

if ! fltk-dialog --question \
  --title="Continue" \
  --text="Do you want to continue?" \
  --yes-label="Continue" \
  --no-label="Stop"
then
  exit
fi

If required, a third button which will return 2 if clicked can be added with --alt-label=TEXT:

fltk-dialog --question \
  --title="Continue" \
  --text="Do you want to continue?" \
  --yes-label="Continue" \
  --no-label="Stop" \
  --alt-label="Go back"

case $? in
  0) action_continue ;;
  1) exit ;;
  2) action_back ;;
esac

--dnd

A drag & drop window. You can drag files/directories/symbolic links, hypertext links and selected text into it. The filenames, links or text will be printed on the shell. File paths are printed as URIs. Return code is always 0. Here's an example that will convert URIs (file:///path/to/the%20file.txt) into regular filenames (/path/to/the file.txt):

for f in $(fltk-dialog --dnd) ; do
  # replace percent-escaped characters and
  # remove preceeding "file://"
  printf "%b\n" "${f//%/\\x}" | sed 's|^file://||'
done

--file / --directory

A file/directory selection dialog. Returns 1 if cancelled, otherwise 0. The full path of the selected file/directoy will be printed on the shell. With --file --native or --directory --native you can also choose the system's native selection dialog, which may look and integrate better into your desktop environment. If fltk-dialog can't start the native dialog, it will fall back to FLTK's version. You can also try to explicitly run the Qt5, Qt4 or GTK dialog by using --native-qt5, --native-qt4 or --native-gtk instead of --native.

Example:

file=$(fltk-dialog --file \
  --native \
  --title="Select a file you want to copy")

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  cp "$file" "$HOME/$(basename $file)"
fi

--entry

A text entry dialog. Returns 1 if cancelled, otherwise 0.

Example:

name=$(fltk-dialog \
  --entry \
  --title="Username" \
  --text="Select a username:")

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  echo "Username: $name"
fi

--password

Same as --entry, but instead of the entered characters only dots will be visible. Use this wisely. The commands gksudo or kdesudo are preferred if you need a graphical sudo password entering form.

--progress

To do.