Zenity is a graphical shell script editor that is easy to use and can be used to create simple graphical shells. This article will show you how to make a simple graphical shell script using Zenity. First, you need to install Zenity. You can find the installation instructions on the Zenity website. Once you have installed Zenity, open it up and click on the “New” button in the top left corner of the screen. Next, enter a name for your new script and click on the “Create” button. In this new window, you will need to provide a name for your new script and select a location for it to be stored. You can also choose to create an executable file for your new script. Click on the “Create” button and then click on the “Finish” button in the bottom left corner of the screen. Now that your newscript has been created, you can start it by clicking on its name in the top left corner of the screen. WhenZenity starts up, it will display a list of all of its features. You can select one of these features by clicking on one of its icons in this list: You can also use Zenity to edit your newly createdscript by clicking on its icon in this list: You can also use Zenity to view your newly createdscript by clicking on its icon in this list: Now that you have learned how to make a simple graphical shellscript using Zenity, you are ready to try it out!
Zenity adds graphical interfaces to shell scripts with a single command. Shell scripts are a great way to automate repetitive tasks, but they’re normally confined to the terminal — Zenity brings them out of the terminal and onto your desktop.
We’ve given an introduction to shell scripting in the past. You don’t have to be a programmer to get started with shell scripts — they require little more than knowledge of Linux terminal commands.
Getting Zenity
Zenity comes with Ubuntu by default. If you use an Ubuntu derivative, Such as Kubuntu, you may have to install it manually with the following command:
Zenity is a part of GNOME, so it should already be included on Linux distributions that use the GNOME desktop. Check your package manager for the zenity package if you don’t have it.
Using Zenity
You can play around with Zenity from the terminal. Let’s say you want to create an error window when a problem occurs with your shell script. Here’s an example command you could use:
Run the command and you’ll see a window with the message.
Put this single command into your shell script at the correct place and you’ll have a graphical error message. You could also use variables to include more information about the error.
Let’s say you want to ask a yes or no question. You could use a command like this one:
You can catch the yes or no response in your shell script and perform different commands based on which button the user clicks.
There’s also a text entry dialog:
Catch the user’s input in a shell script and you could store it as a variable.
There’s also a file picker, calendar, and other types of dialogs. For a full list of dialog types and their options, consult Zenity’s manual page.
An Example Script
Let’s try using Zenity to create a simple graphical shell script. With just three commands, we can create a graphical timer program:
TIME=$(zenity –entry –title=”Timer” –text=”Enter a duration for the timer.\n\n Use 5s for 5 seconds, 10m for 10 minutes, or 2h for 2 hours.”)
sleep $TIME
zenity –info –title=”Timer Complete” –text=”The timer is over.\n\n It has been $TIME.”
We’re using some extra tricks here. We get the value of the TIME variable from the first zenity command and feed it to the sleep command. We’re also using /n to create new lines of text in the zenity dialogs.
After saving the shell script and running the chmod +x command on it to give it executable permissions, we can launch it.
Enter a duration and the script will use the standard sleep command to count down in the background. When the sleep command’s timer finishes, the script will display the zenity info message.
You could create a desktop or panel shortcut for this script and run it without even touching the terminal.
This is just scratching the surface of what you could do with zenity; you could use it to make much more complicated programs. If you’re looking for more information on shell scripting, check out our guide to using for loops in shell scripts.
