How to make a GUI for bash scripts?

Question

I want to make some graphical dialogs for my script but don't know how. I hear something about GTK-Server or something like that. If someone knows how to link Bash with tcl/tk I also be satisfied.

Please do not post something like "change to C++" because my project must be a script in Bash; there are no other options.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Thanks for answers but I don't want "graphics" as in colors in the console, but graphical windows which I can move, minimize etc. I will test xmessage, but I don't think that will be what I am searching for.

EDIT 2: I don't want make a simple dialog like yes/no, but some interface like progress bars and buttons, something like a game.

Answer 1

Before actually using GUI dialogues, consider using console prompts. Quite often you can get away with simple "y/n?" prompts, which in bash you achieve via the read command..

read -p "Do something? ";
if [ $REPLY == "y" ]; then
    echo yay;
fi

If console prompt's just won't cut it, Zenity is really easy to use, for example:

      zenity --error --text="Testing..."
      zenity --question --text="Continue?"

This only works on Linux/Gnome (or rather, it'll only be installed by default on such systems). The read method will work on pretty much any platform (including headless machines, or via SSH)

If you need anything more complex than what read or Zenity provides, "change to C++" is really the best method (although I'd recommend Python/Ruby over C++ for such shell-script-replacement tasks)

I want to do simple interface for some strange game, the progress bar for health or something is the example for what I want. Variable "HEALTH" is 34, so make progress bar filled in 34/100

As a command-line script, it'd use Python:

$ export HEALTH=34
$ python -c "import os; print '*' * int(os.environ.get('HEALTH', 0))"
**********************************

Or to normalise the values between 1 and 78 (so you don't get line-wrapping on a standard terminal size):

$ python -c "import os; print '*' * int((int(os.environ.get('HEALTH', 0)) / 100.0) * 78)"

Zenity also has a Progress Dialog,

#!/bin/sh
(
echo "10" ; sleep 1
echo "# Updating mail logs" ; sleep 1
echo "20" ; sleep 1
echo "# Resetting cron jobs" ; sleep 1
echo "50" ; sleep 1
echo "This line will just be ignored" ; sleep 1
echo "75" ; sleep 1
echo "# Rebooting system" ; sleep 1
echo "100" ; sleep 1
) |
zenity --progress \
  --title="Update System Logs" \
  --text="Scanning mail logs..." \
  --percentage=0

if [ "$?" = -1 ] ; then
        zenity --error \
          --text="Update canceled."
fi

As I said before, if Zenity cannot do what you need, look into writing your game-thing as a "proper" script in Python/Ruby/Perl/C++/etc as it sounds like you're pushing the bounds of what a shell-script can do..