gDialog

Display macOS dialogs from terminal and scripts, capable of displaying advanced dialogs and forms using the different templates.

gDialog is using the system color scheme, if the Mac has Dark Mode turned on, the background will be dark, if Dark Mode is turned off, the background will be bright.

Light Mode	Dark Mode

Supported on:

• macOS Catalina (10.15.x)
• macOS Big Sur (11.x) - Intel or M1 with Rosetta

Current Status

gDialog is available as a standalone application and as a Node.js module.

Downloading gDialog

Download gDialog v1.0.1

Installing gDialog

Download and install the package from the release page or from the link above.
gDialog will be installed to /usr/local/gDialog/
Application Name: gDialog.app
Bundle Identifier: com.gilad.gDialog
Executable Path: /usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog

Executing gDialog

gDialog is executed in the following format:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog template_name options

The "template_name" parameter is always required in order to specify which dialog template to use.
If the option "--buttons" is not provided, an "OK" button will be added by default.
Example:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog msgbox --title "Dialog Title" --header "Dialog Header" --text "Dialog Text" --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png"

Return Values / Output

The return values will be printed to stdout.
The return values will contain which button number was clicked (Right to Left) and each value will be separated by a new line.

Example:

% CMD_RESULT=$( ./gDialog msgbox --title "Dialog Title" --header "Free Disk Space" --text 'Run "sudo rm -rf /"?' --icon_file "./assets/GD-Logo.png" --buttons '["Yes", "No"]' )
% echo "${CMD_RESULT}"
1

Table of Contents

• Global Options
• Message Box
• Input Box
• Secure Input Box
• Text Box - macOS Big Sur+
• Credentials Box
• HTML Box
• Progress Bar
• Picker Box
• File Select
• File Save
• Banner Box
• Notification

Global Options

Message Box

Template Name is msgbox.
Displays a message box.

Command Example:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog msgbox --title "Dialog Title" --header "Dialog Header" --text "Dialog Text" --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --focus

Input Box

Template Name is inputbox.
Displays an input box with one field.

Command Example:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog inputbox --title "Title" --header "Header" --text "Enter your name:" --background_text "Full Name" --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --focus

Secure Input Box

Template Name is secure-inputbox.
Displays an input box with one secured field, input is masked for use cases like passwords, output is still in plain text.

Command Example:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog secure-inputbox --title "Title" --header "Header" --text "Enter your password:" --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --focus

Text Box

Template Name is textbox.
Displays a text box.
NOTE: Supported only on macOS Big Sur and above.

Command Example:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog textbox --title "Title" --header "Header" --text "Do you agree to the T&C?" --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --buttons '["Agree", "Cancel"]' --initial_text "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, ...lacinia. Cras." --window_size 500x300 --focus

Credentials Box

Template Name is credentialsbox.
Displays an input box with 2-3 fields, a plain input field, secured input field and an extra (optional) input field.

Command Example:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog credentialsbox --title "Title" --header "Header" --text "Enter your corporate credentials:" --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --focus

HTML Box

Template Name is htmlbox.
Displays a window which allows to load HTML for advanced forms and GUI.
The following global options are not available in this template:
header, text, icon_file, system_icon, buttons and scrollable_text.

To return text from the dialog, use the javascript function print("text"). To close the dialog, use the javascript function quit().

Command Example:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog htmlbox --title "gDialog - HTML Box" --file "/path/to/html_file.html" --focus

HTML Page Example:

<form action="" id="sampleForm">
 <h2>Hello World</h2>
 <label>Enter your name:</label>
 <input type="text" name="username">
 <button type="submit" id="btnSubmit">Submit</button>
</form>
<script type="text/javascript">
 var sampleForm = document.querySelector("#sampleForm");
 if (sampleForm) {
  sampleForm.addEventListener("submit", function(e) {
   e.preventDefault();
   var btnSubmit = document.getElementById("btnSubmit");
   btnSubmit.disabled = true;
   var jsonData = {};
   for (var pair of new FormData(this)) {
    jsonData[pair[0]] = pair[1];
   }
   console.log(jsonData);
   print(JSON.stringify(jsonData));
   quit();
  });
 }
</script>

Progress Bar

Template Name is progressbar.
Displays a progress bar, depends on the options used, can display a progress bar that fills up, or, an indeterminate progress bar.
The following global options are not available in this template:
header, scrollable_text and buttons.

Regular Progress Bar	Indeterminate Progress Bar

Regular Progress Bar Example:

# Variables
PIPE_PATH="/private/tmp/apipe"
GDIALOG_PID=""

# Create a named pipe
rm -f "${PIPE_PATH}"
mkfifo "${PIPE_PATH}"

# Start gDialog in the background which takes the input (stdin) from the named pipe
/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog progressbar --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --title "Death Star Construction" --text "Please wait..." --focus < "${PIPE_PATH}" &
GDIALOG_PID=$!
# Associate file descriptor 3 with the pipe and start the progress bar
exec 3<> "${PIPE_PATH}"


# Do stuff
sleep 1
# Send progress to the progress bar, the line must start with the progress percentage and then the text separated by a space, if only the progress percentage is provided, the initial text will not change
echo "60 Building The Death Star" >&3
sleep 2
echo "100 The Death Star construction is completed" >&3

# Close the progress bar by sending an "EOF" message and then closing file descriptor 3
echo "EOF" >&3
exec 3>&-

# Wait for the background job to exit, or, kill the process saved in the variable "GDIALOG_PID"
wait

# Delete the named pipe
rm -f "${PIPE_PATH}"

# Exit
exit 0

Indeterminate Progress Bar Example:

# Variables
GDIALOG_PID=""

# Start gDialog in the background, if you would like to update the text, use the example of the regular progress bar and add the "--indeterminate"
/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog progressbar --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --title "Attack" --text "Attacking The Death Star" --indeterminate --focus 2>&1 > /dev/null &
GDIALOG_PID=$!

# Do stuff
sleep 15

# Kill the process saved in the variable "GDIALOG_PID"
kill $GDIALOG_PID

# Exit
exit 0

Picker Box

Template Name is pickerbox.
Displays a dialog window with either a drop down menu (default), radio buttons or segmented buttons, depends on the options used.

Drop Down Menu	Radio Buttons	Segmented Buttons

Command Example:

GDIALOG_BIN="/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog"
# Drop Down Menu
"${GDIALOG_BIN}" pickerbox --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --title "Title" --header "Header" --text "Select a number:" --items '["1", "2", "3"]' --buttons '["OK", "Cancel"]' --focus

# Radio Buttons
"${GDIALOG_BIN}" pickerbox --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --title "Title" --header "Header" --text "Select a number:" --items '["1", "2"]' --buttons '["OK", "Cancel"]' --style radio --focus

# Segmented Buttons
"${GDIALOG_BIN}" pickerbox --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --title "Title" --header "Header" --text "Select a number:" --items '["1", "2"]' --buttons '["OK", "Cancel"]' --style segmented --focus

File Select

Template Name is fileselect.
Displays a dialog window with an input field and a button to open the file select dialog.

Command Example:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog fileselect --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --title "Title" --header "Header" --text "Please select a file" --buttons '["OK", "Cancel"]' --focus

File Save

Template Name is filesave.
Displays a dialog window with an input field and a button to open the file save dialog.

Command Example:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog filesave --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --title "Title" --header "Header" --text "Please select where to save the file" --buttons '["OK", "Cancel"]' --focus

Banner Box

Template Name is bannerbox.
Displays a banner dialog window in the top right corner of the screen with up to two buttons.
NOTE: This template is not utilizing macOS's notification center.

Banner Box	Banner Box with one button	Banner Box with two buttons

Command Example:

/usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog bannerbox --icon_file "/path/to/logo.png" --header "Header" --text "Banner Box with two buttons" --buttons '["OK", "Cancel"]' --focus

Notification

Template Name is notification.
Sends a notification to macOS's notification center.
The notification must be sent as the user, to do so, you can use the launchctl asuser command as shown in the example below.
Unless gDialog is pre-approved for notifications via the MDM notifications payload, the user will get a notification asking to approve gDialog to present notifications:

The following global options are not available in this template:
icon_file, system_icon, buttons, width, height, window_size, allow_quit, no_return, focus and scrollable_text.\

macOS Big Sur	macOS Catalina

Command Example:

USER_UID=$(id -u $(stat -f%Su /dev/console))
launchctl asuser $USER_UID /usr/local/gDialog/gDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/gDialog notification --title "Title" --header "Header" --text "Notification Text"