Simple bash menu

Question

I wanted a simple bash menu where arrow keys could be used to select items. So here it is. It requires cuu and cud in the teminfo or it fails to look nice.
Example usage, distro="`smenu ArchLinux Debian Ubuntu Gentoo`"
Feel free to modify and adapt for your own personal usage.
#!/bin/bash
# input: list of menu items
# output: item selected
# exit codes: 0 - normal, 1 - abort, 2 - no menu items, 3 - too many items
# to select item, press enter; to abort press q
[[ $# -lt 1 ]] && exit 2 # no menu items, at least 1 required
[[ $# -gt $(( `tput lines` - 1 )) ]] && exit 3 # more items than rows
# set colors
cn="`echo -e '\r\e[0;1m'`" # normal
cr="`echo -e '\r\e[1;7m'`" # reverse
# keys
au="`echo -e '\e[A'`" # arrow up
ad="`echo -e '\e[B'`" # arrow down
ec="`echo -e '\e'`" # escape
nl="`echo -e '\n'`" # newline
tn="$#" # total number of items
{ # capture stdout to stderr
tput civis # hide cursor
cp=1 # current position
end=false
while ! $end
do
for i in `seq 1 $tn`
do
echo -n "$cn"
[[ $cp == $i ]] && echo -n "$cr"
eval "echo \$$i"
done
read -sn 1 key
[[ "$key" == "$ec" ]] &&
read -sn 2 k2
key="$key$k2"
case "$key" in
"$au")
cp=$(( cp - 1 ))
[[ $cp == 0 ]] && cp=$tn
"$ad")
cp=$(( cp + 1 ))
[[ $cp == $(( tn + 1 )) ]] && cp=1
"$nl")
si=true
end=true
"q")
si=false
end=true
esac
tput cuu $tn
done
tput cud $(( tn - 1 ))
tput cnorm # unhide cursor
echo "$cn" # normal colors
} >&2 # end capture
$si && eval "echo \$$cp"
# eof
Last edited by fsckd (2010-09-29 21:31:17)

Answer 1

livibetter wrote:
Nice code.
I manually added j, k, and o (~Return) into the key checking part. I could use j,k or up,down to choose, but I wonder if that possible you can re-code to make it can accept multiple keys set in $au,$ad, and $nl.
Thanks. In the case statement you can add multiple keys, like:
"$au"|k)
<snip>
"$ad"|j)
livibetter wrote:Also, a new option to clean up the menu after user choice or leave?
I didn't want this which is why it's not in the script. At the bottom of the script, change tput cud $(( tn - 1 )) to tput dl $tn ; tput cuu1 and it should delete the lines.
Bug: does not work with fish shell, set distro (./smenu ArchLinux Debian Ubuntu Gentoo); I wonder how it fares with other shells and terminals.