The Alert Utility To End All Alert Utilities

Erica Sadun | 12:25 pm | November 22, 2007 | Update, Utilities, iPod touch, iPhone

Behold. For they have merged. And expanded greatly. If you want more features, speak now or forever hold your peace. The software is in the Erica Utilities directory, although I will not add it formally to the EU archive until I’ve tested this a little more and maybe clarify/add features. It is called: alert

alert [options] buttons...
Command options are (-h is the default):

PROMPTS
 -h          show this message
 -t title    Sets the alert title. (Defaults to “Alert”)
 -b body     Sets the body text. (Defaults to “”)
                 Use -b *before* -p or -i.
BUTTONS
 -o          one button OK style.
 -c          two button Confirm-Cancel style.
 -C          two button OK-Cancel style.
 -y          two button YES-NO style
 -n          no-button style. Meant for timed alerts.
                 Dismisses on tap. Returns 1 if tapped
 -B number   Sets the default button, count starts with 0
                 Use -B 99 (or any high #) for “no” default.
TEXT FIELD
 -f          add text field and print result to stdout.
 -F default  default text for text field.
                 Automatically sets -f.
 -L label    text field label (the gray text).
                 Automatically sets -f.
SPECIAL FEATURES
 -p          progress indicator
                 Automatically sets -n.
 -s seconds  Auto dismiss after s seconds
                 On time out, returns 0.
 -i imgpath  Display image in alert
                 Preferred resolution is 160×80 but this 
                 will work with nearly any picture.
NOTES:
Return values are the button number (starting with 1)
Use the $? shell variable to check those values.
Utility does not work well with more than 3 or 4 buttons