REPLY

NAME

REPLY - The tiny shell script user interface (DOS & UNIX).

DESCRIPTION

Reply yields basic interaction for batch and script files, like simple menus or input lines, drawn on a colored background with random fill patterns (if desired). The program works on a line-by-line basis. See Gerolf Markup Shredder (text mode interface) for an example of usage.

COPYRIGHT

Reply is copyright (c) 1991–2006 by G. D. Brettschneider (domain: www.Gerolf.org – email: MarkupShredder@Gerolf.org).

SYNOPSIS

reply [mode] [line] [text] [hotkey] [item]

OPTIONS

• [mode] can be one of the following:
  • -random: Draw screen background with random pattern
  • -banner: Write [text] on the screen
  • -top: Draw top border of a box
  • -item: Write [text] into a box
  • -question: Write [text] into a box and answer to a file
  • -bottom: Draw bottom border of a box
  • -shadow: Draw a shadow below the box
  • -stripe: Draw a [text] colored stripe of [hotkey]
  • -background: Draw a [text] colored background of [hotkey]
  • -clear: Overwrite a line with spaces
  • -sleep: Delay for one second (DOS onnly)
  • -time: Measure time (in seconds)
• [line]: Number of a line to be drawn on the screen
• [text]: Text to be shown as a menu item or question
• [hotkey]: Letter to be highlighted in a menu item
• [item]: Number of an item within the menu

EXAMPLE

Reply command line invocation might look like this:

reply -banner       1 "CoolProg"
reply -random       2
reply -top          7 "+-------+"
reply -item         8 "Your name"
reply -question     9 "Gerolf B."  N 3
reply -item        10 "Get money"  M 2
reply -item        11 "Exit now!" XX 1
reply -bottom      12 "+-------+"
reply -shadow      13
reply -stripe       1  8          36
reply -background   2  8          36
reply -clear        7

Reply must be called from a shell script, multiple times in sequence, in order to build a menu or dialog box. If the hotkey parameter is doubled, Reply displays a highlighted line and waits for user input. The answer, in terms of environment variable settings, is written to a temporary batch or shell file, which can be executed by the menu-building script (from within a loop). This is a work-around for the problem that a running program cannot change its own environment.

ENVIRONMENT

A few additional environment variables must be defined before running Reply; so the number of parameters passed to Reply can be kept smaller:

• REPLY_AFTER: Number of seconds
• REPLY_BEFORE: Number of seconds
• REPLY_ITEMS: Number of menu items
• REPLY_OFFSET: Horizontal offset of dialog box
• REPLY_SIZE: Width of dialog box, or height of background
• REPLY_MODULE: Name of script to be called
• REPLY_ACTION: Name of action to be executed
• REPLY_HOT: Hot key pressed be the user
• REPLY_COLD: Last hot key
• REPLY_TEMP: Name of temporary answering script
• REPLY_DESKTOP: Number of desktop color (0...7)
• REPLY_PATTERN: Number of pattern color (0..15)
• REPLY_BANNER: Number of banner color (0...7)
• REPLY_TEXT: Number of text color (0..15)
• REPLY_SHADE: Number of shadow color (0...7)
• REPLY_HOTKEY: Number of hotkey color (0..15)

PORTABILITY

Reply is portable to both DOS and Unix. The source codesource code is written in ANSI C.

• UNIX compiler invocation:
  gcc -o reply reply.c -Lstring 2> reply.log
  Alternatively, you can execute the mk_replymk_reply script. By default, Reply will output ANSI escape sequences for color adjust and cursor movement. The keyboard driver must be set to one character at a time mode by saying stty raw -echo before running Reply (and stty -raw echo afterwards).
• DOS compiler invocation:
  bcc -o reply reply.c -Lstring -DCONIO
  On DOS systems, a conditional symbol CONIO must be defined because the ansi.sys driver for the command shell usually isn't installed in config.sys; so Reply makes use of the conio.h functions instead.

BUG REPORTS

You can send bug reports, corrections or suggestions to: MarkupShredder(at)Gerolf.orgMarkupShredder(at)Gerolf.org, subject: GMS REPLY user interface.

LICENSE

Copyright (c) 1991-2006 by Gerolf Diethelm Brettschneider, Luchtbergstraße 27, D-28237 Bremen. All rights reserved. This software comes without any warranty. You may freely distribute and use it.

G. D. Brettschneider (2006) – www.Gerolf.org – MarkupShredder(at)Gerolf.org