Is there a way to use inputbox and enter multiple lines?

Question

I want to have a simple way to enter messages for employees to see upon logging in. It doesn't have to be date specific, although that would be nice, but I can't find a way to use dialog to allow me to enter multiple lines of text before I cat to the file.

Little help?

#!/bin/sh
DIALOG=${DIALOG=dialog}
tempfile=`tempfile 2>/dev/null` || tempfile=/tmp/test$$
trap "rm -f $tempfile" 0 1 2 5 15

$DIALOG --title "Bulletin Board Entry" --clear \
        --inputbox "Enter Today's Very Important\n
employee information below:" 16 51 2> $tempfile

retval=$?

case $retval in
  0)
    echo "Input string is `cat $tempfile`";;
  1)
    echo "Cancel pressed.";;
  255)
    if test -s $tempfile ; then
  cat $tempfile
else
  echo "ESC pressed."
fi
;;
esac

Answer 1

Use --editbox emptyfile instead of --inputbox. Unfortunately this won't allow you to pass /dev/null instead of emptyfile, so you'll actually have to create an empty (temporary) file. Or a file containing a message template.

Answer 2

As an alternative to dialog, you could simply fire up an editor with the temporary file. That way, every user might even be able to use his or her preferred $EDITOR, instead of the feature-limited dialog. Many applications do this kind of thing when they want user input. Version control systems in particular come to my mind here.