Zenity

Zenity
Zenity
	Example of a Zenity dialog box
Original author(s)	Sun Microsystems
Developer(s)	Glynn Foster; Lucas Rocha
Stable release	4.1.90 / 31 January 2025; 7 months ago
Repository	gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/zenity.git ;
Operating system	Unix-like
License	GNU Lesser General Public License
Website	gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/zenity

Zenity is free software and a cross-platform program that allows the execution of GTK dialog boxes in command-line and shell scripts.

Description

Like tools such as whiptail and dialog, Zenity allows easy creation of GUIs,^[2] though it has fewer features than more complex GUI-creation tools.^[3]

Other scripting languages such as Perl and Python can be used to construct full-scale GUI applications, but the zenity program enables a shell script to interact with a GUI user.... [The] user interface is not as refined as one that could be provided by a full-featured GUI application, but it is perfectly suitable for simple interactions.

— Chris Tyler^[4]

Cross-platform compatibility

As of 2012^[update], Zenity is available for Linux, BSD and Windows.^[5] A Zenity port to Mac OS X is available in MacPorts and Homebrew.

As of 2018, Zenity ports for Windows are available: zenity-windows (based on version 3.20.0) and winzenity (based on 3.8.0 / statically linked)

Zenity does not possess any built-in scripting capabilities and it must, therefore, rely on an interpreter for processing. It is found that for the creation of a script that runs on more than one platform without extensive modifications, it would be best to use an interpreter that is available on the widest range of operating systems. One option is Python in combination with the PyZenity library.^[6]

Examples

Python example

from PyZenity import InfoMessage
from PyZenity import Question
from PyZenity import ErrorMessage

choice = Question("Please press a button.")

if choice:
    InfoMessage("You pressed Yes!")
else:
    ErrorMessage("You pressed No!")

POSIX shell script example

#!/bin/sh

if zenity --question --text="Please press a button."; then
zenity --info --text="You pressed Yes\!"
else
zenity --error --text="You pressed No\!"
fi

Windows shell script example

@echo off
zenity --question --ok-label="Yes" --cancel-label="No" --text="Please press a button."
if %ERRORLEVEL% == 1 goto error
zenity --info --text="You pressed Yes!"
goto end
:error
zenity --error --text="You pressed No!"
:end

References

^ "4.1.90 · Tags · GNOME / zenity · GitLab". Retrieved 6 March 2025.
^ Cartwright, Ryan (2009-01-30), "More fun with Zenity: shell script/GUI interactivity", Free Software Magazine, archived from the original on 2011-11-06, retrieved 2011-12-10
^ Diehl, Mike (2008-05-12), "Make Your Scripts User Friendly with Zenity", LinuxJournal, archived from the original on 2011-11-26, retrieved 2011-12-10
^ Tyler, Chris (2006), "Chapter 4. Basic System Management", Fedora Linux, O'Reilly Media, pp. 258–259, ISBN 978-0-596-52682-5, archived from the original on 2011-07-15, retrieved 2010-03-15
^ Zenity for Windows, archived from the original on 2012-01-12, retrieved 2011-12-10
^ Ramos, Brian (2011-04-20), PyZenity, archived from the original on 2013-10-07, retrieved 2012-11-15