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xmessage(1)		     General Commands Manual		     xmessage(1)

NAME
     xmsg - X window system message display program.

SYNOPSIS
     xmsg [-options ...] -m <message>

NOTE
     The xmsg command is identical in behaviour to the X11R4 version of xmessage
     but  it  also builds/installs/runs with X11R5, so it allows you to have the
     R4 behaviour on R5 machines.  The behaviour of the standard R5  version  of
     xmessage  is  significantly  different  from, and incompatible with, the R4
     version.  For the rest of this man page, where you see "xmessage",  substi-
     tute "xmsg".

DESCRIPTION
     Xmsg  opens  a window on the screen that will contain the text of a message
     from either the command line or stdin.  This text may  have  a  scroll  bar
     along  the  left  side  to allow the user to browse through relatively long
     messages.	Along the lower edge of the message is list of words with  boxes
     around  them.  Clicking  the  left  mouse	button on any of these "buttons"
     (words with boxes around them) will cause the message to go away.	If there
     is more than one "button" then some state will be returned to  the  invoker
     of the xmessage process via a change of the exit status of the program.

     This  program  serves two functions.  Firstly, it can be a method for shell
     scripts to present the user with information much as 'echo' allows in a tty
     environment, as well as allowing the user to answer simple questions.  Sec-
     ondly it allows much of the functionality of 'cat'  again	in  a  windowing
     versus tty environment.

     It  should  be  noted that this program is intended for short messages, and
     will be quite slow when asked to handle long files  from  stdin.	Although
     xmessage  can  accept  input  from stdin, this input is not allowed to come
     from a tty. If this is attempted, an error  message  will	be  printed.  If
     xmessage  is executed with an incorrect argument then it will print a usage
     message to standard output, as well as to an xmessage window.

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
     These are the command line options that xmessage understands.  Please  note
     that  some  of these are inherited from the XToolkit and as the list of de-
     fault toolkit options changes xmessage will follow.

     -printlabel
		     This will cause the program to print the label of the  but-
		     ton  pressed  to standard output (stdout).  I envision this
		     to be useful when popping up a message to a friend, as  in:
		     "ready  to  go  to  lunch".   This allows you to know if he
		     clicked the "yes" or the "no" button.

     -noscroll (-nsb)
		     The scroll bar is active on the  text  window  by	default;
		     this causes it to be removed.

     -buttons <button> <button> ...
		     This  option  will  cause xmessage to create one button for
		     each argument that follows it until something starts with a
		     '-'.  The string passed to the button is the  name  of  the
		     Command  button widget created and will be the default text
		     displayed to the user.  Since this is the name of the  wid-
		     get  it may be used to change any of the Xresources associ-
		     ated with that button.

     -message <word> <word> ...
		     This must be the last argument  in  the  command  list,  as
		     every  argument after this one is assumed to be part of the
		     message.  There is no limit to the length of this message.

     -geometry (height)x(width)+(x_offset)+(y_offset)
		     Sets the size and location of the window created  by  xmes-
		     sage.

     -bw <pixels>

     -borderwidth <pixels>
		     Specifies	the width of the border for all windows in xmes-
		     sage.

     -bd <color>

     -bordercolor <color>
		     Specifies the color of the borders of all windows in  xmes-
		     sage.

     -fg <color>

     -foreground <color>
		     Specifies the foreground color to be used.

     -bg <color>

     -background <color>
		     Specifies the background color to be used.

     -fn <font>

     -font <font>
		     Specifies the font to use for all buttons and text.

     -display <host:display[.screen]>
		     Specifies a display to use other than the default specified
		     by the DISPLAY environment variable.

     -name <name>
		     Specifies the name to use when retrieving resources.

     -title <title>
		     Specifies the title of this application.

     -xrm <resource>
		     Allows a resource to be specified on the command line.

WIDGET AND RESOURCE NAMES
     Resource  management  is  an  important part of X Toolkit applications, and
     xmessage is no exception.	All objects in xmessage can have many  of  their
     distinguishing characteristics changed by changing the resources associated
     with them.  Below is a brief list of the resources and what they modify.

     foreground 			- foreground color

     background 			- background color

     width & height			- size

     borderWidth			- border width

     borderColor			- border color

     In  order to change the default values for the widget resources you need to
     have the names; thus, below I have specified the names of some of the  most
     common widgets.

     xmessage - (argv[0])		-  shell widget that contains everything
					displayed.

     text				- the text window.

     <button name>			- each of the  buttons.  "okay"  is  de-
					fault.

     You can also reference Widgets by class. The important classes for this ap-
     plication are: Command and Text.

     Here are a few examples of how to string all this information together into
     a resource specification that can be used on the command line with the -xrm
     flag, or added to your .Xresources file.

     xmessage*Command.foreground: Blue	All command buttons will be blue.

     xmessage*foreground: Blue		Everything  in the xmessage window has a
					blue foreground.

     xmessage*Text.border: Red		The text widget has a red border.

     In addition Xmessage has a few specific application  resources  that  allow
     customizations that are specific to xmessage.

     ScrollText
	     A	Boolean  resource  that  determines  whether  you are allowed to
	     scroll the text widget.  The default value is TRUE.

     printLabel
	     A Boolean resource that determines whether or not the label of  the
	     button  pressed  to  exit	the program is printed. Default value is
	     FALSE.

ERROR MESSAGES
     Xmessage errors may be printed into their own xmessage window.  This  invo-
     cation  of  xmessage has a different name.  This allows its resources to be
     specified separately.  The name of xmessage error program	is  xmessage_er-
     ror.

EXIT STATUS
     Xmessage  will  exit  with status zero (0) when there is only one button in
     the list, and it is clicked to exit.  If there is more than one  button  in
     the  list	then the exit status will correspond to the number of the button
     pressed, starting at one (1) for the first button, and counting  up.   Zero
     (0)  is  not  used because no button should have a preferred place over the
     others.

WATERLOO DIFFERENCES
     See the NOTE section at the beginning of this man page.

SEE ALSO
     X(1), X(8C), xmessage(1), echo(1), cat(1)

BUGS
     There must be some, somewhere.

AUTHORS
     Copyright 1988 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
     Chris Peterson, MIT Project Athena

X Version 11			 20 October 1988		     xmessage(1)

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