can echo be used for popups in shell scripts run by cron?

dr_zayus69 · 04-12-2005, 01:55 PM

hi. here is the situation. My dentist office never calls me to remind me of my appoints so i thought i could write a simple shell script that would test the output of the date command and see if it is the day i have an appointment and remind me if the statement is true. I'd have cron run it everyday so my question is if i used echo to print something like "you have an appointment" will it pop up a terminal to print the reminder or will i have to find some way else to send the reminder?

ahh · 04-12-2005, 02:02 PM

You could run

Code:

xterm -hold -e echo "Dentist :-("

from a script

dr_zayus69 · 04-12-2005, 02:11 PM

thanks i never would have thought about it like that.

AdaHacker · 04-12-2005, 04:07 PM

If you want an actual message box, you could use xmessage:

Code:

xmessage 'Destist :-('

Or, if you're a KDE person, there's also the somewhat nicer looking version:

Code:

kdialog --msgbox 'Dentist :-('

Or you could just use some actual organizer software ;-)

dr_zayus69 · 04-12-2005, 06:30 PM

thanks i'll try that out as well. I'd rather try the script instead of a scheduler program because im trying to learn bash scripting anways. I like to use linux cuz i do the work myself and don't just have to click everything like in windows.