Create a multi user input form

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi All,

Please ignore if terminology used is incorrect as I am new to Unix.

I want to create a Multi user input form which looks something like this:

ABCD TOOL

Logged User: abcd12 Current Directory: /dir1/dir2

Input1: ___________ Input2 : ________________

Input3: ___________

Confirm : Yes/No

I have divided the above form in 3 components:

  1. Header: which will display needed information
  2. Input: The input given by the user
  3. Confirm : this will be a dropdown and will display Yes/No to allow the user to select one.

User should be able to go back/forward (to modify it) from one field to another.

When users selects Yes on confirm, I want to read all the input values.

I searched for some helpful commands and find a few like:
read;

dialog --form;

Now the problem is <read> will pause the execution until the first input is provided which I don't want.

<dialog> I cannot execute this command on my unix server as it says : dialog: command not found.

P.S.

I am trying to execute on a remote server. The Unix kernel has following version details:
SunOS 5.8

Some help would be highly appreciable.

2

It would be helpful if u post the code what u have tried till now

3

Are you trying to create an html form, or a text form to run though a telnet session, or a form for an X session.

4

The form is neither a text form nor a HTML form.

It will be executed like this:

>home>dir1>dir2> ./testscript

When the user would run the above command, the form data provided will follow in the same window(same session):

ABCD TOOL

Logged User: abcd12 Current Directory: /dir1/dir2

Input1: ___________ Input2 : ________________

Input3: ___________

Confirm : Yes/No

Displaying the Header part is not a issue.

But I have no clue how to display the Input fields all at the same time and let the user enter the input one by one. Also he should be able to move from one field to other to modify it.

Till now I only used the <read> command.

echo Input1
read Input1
echo Input2
read Input2
echo Input3
read Input3

I have already mentioned the problem with the <read> command.

Please suggest some commands/ways to do it.

5

You could do that with C and ncurses, but it's not that easy.
June 2004 Linux Productivity Magazine: Curses, Part 2

Following link might also be interesting for you:
Forms Library