gxmessage1

Usage

Overview

gxmessage opens a window to display a message obtained from the command line, from a file, or from stdin. The window includes a row of buttons, each of which causes the program to exit with a different return code.

Pressing CTRL-F brings up a search bar to help find words in the displayed message. CTRL-G and CTRL-SHIFT-G find Next and Previous matches respectively.

The GNU Info entry for gxmessage contains detailed information and examples.

Options

gxmessage accepts any option xmessage would, although some (such as -bw and -xrm) are silently ignored.

-bg COLOR

Sets the background color of the message to COLOR. Examples: red, "#c90", "#446a7e".

-buttons BUTTON_LIST

Defines the buttons to be created. BUTTON_LIST is a comma-separated list of LABEL:VALUE pairs, one for each button. The LABEL is the text that appears on the button. The VALUE (0..255) is the code the program will exit with if that button is pressed. Commas and colons can be escaped using backslashes (\).

As well as ordinary text, the LABEL can include an underscore (_) to specify a keyboard accelerator. If VALUEs are omitted, they default to 101, 102, 103, etc., in order. If no -buttons option is given, BUTTON_LIST defaults to "okay:0".

gxmessage -buttons "Foo:42,Bar:63" "Example"
echo $?
gxmessage -buttons "_Foo,_Bar" "Example"
echo $?
gxmessage "Example"
echo $?
gxmessage -buttons "Hello\, world" "Example"

-default LABEL

Opens the gxmessage window with input focused on the specified button. LABEL is one of the LABELs in BUTTON_LIST (see -buttons, above).

-display DISPLAY

Opens the window on the X11 display DISPLAY (for example, :1). This forces GTK to use its X11 backend, so under Wayland it works only if an X server such as XWayland is available.

-fg COLOR

Sets the message text color to COLOR.

-file FILENAME

Causes the named file to be used as the message source. If a dash (-) is used in place of FILENAME, the message will be read from stdin.

-fn | -font FONT

Specifies the message font, using GTK's font specification system. For example, -font "serif italic 14". (GTK's font system is not compatible with xmessage. See the Compatibility section, below, for a workaround.)

-geometry GEOMETRY

Sets the window's size. Example:

-geometry 400x200

Either dimension may be given alone (-geometry 400 or -geometry x200); the other is then chosen to fit the message.

-help

Displays basic usage information then exits.

-iconic

Opens the gxmessage window in its iconized (minimized) state.

-print

Writes the LABEL of the selected button to stdout.

-timeout SECONDS

Automatically closes the gxmessage window with an exit code of 0 if no button is pressed within SECONDS seconds. (The -entry and -entrytext options cause -timeout to be ignored.)

-title TITLE

Sets the gxmessage window's title to TITLE.

Options

The following options are specific to gxmessage and are not compatible with xmessage.

-borderless

Opens the gxmessage window without the usual window frame.

-encoding CHARSET

Specifies the encoding of the message text. By default, the message text is assumed to match the encoding of the current locale.

-entry

Adds a text entry box to the gxmessage window. When the window closes, any text in the entry box will be copied to stdout. This option can't be used at the same time as the -print option.

-entrytext TEXT

Same as -entry, but sets the default entry box contents to TEXT.

-noescape

Prevents the window closing if the ESC key is pressed.

-version

Displays the program's version number and Copyright details, then exits.

-wrap

Causes lines to wrap rather than exceed the width of the window.

Options

The following options were supported under GTK2 and GTK3, but no longer have any effect. This is due to changes in modern desktop environments.

-center, -nearmouse, -nofocus, -ontop, -sticky, -name NAME

Exit status

If a button is pressed, the program returns the value assigned to that button. The default "okay" button returns 0.

If a timeout event occurs, the program returns 0.

If an error occurs, or if the window is closed without a button-press or timeout event, the program exits with code 1. Pressing the ESC key also causes the program to exit with code 1.

Compatibility with xmessage

Fall back to xmessage if gxmessage isn't available:

#!/bin/sh
if command -v gxmessage >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    XMESSAGE=gxmessage
else
    XMESSAGE=xmessage
fi
"$XMESSAGE" "hello, world"

If you specify fonts, check which program you're using:

font="monospace 14"
[ "$XMESSAGE" = xmessage ] && font="fixed"
$XMESSAGE ${font:+-fn "$font"} "hello, world"

Don't use double-dashed command line options:

$XMESSAGE "hello, world" -buttons good
$XMESSAGE "hello, world" --buttons bad

Don't use the gxmessage-specific options:

-entry, -entrytext, -borderless, -wrap,
-encoding, -nofocus, -noescape, -ontop,
-sticky, -version, -h, -?

Copyright notice

Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2026 Timothy Richard Musson

Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.