@bobfrankston/cmsgbox

Cross-platform dialog utility for Node.js using Python and tkinter with TypeScript support.

Features

• Cross-platform: Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS
• Professional dialogs: Custom tkinter implementations with better UX
• Automatic fallbacks: Gracefully degrades to command-line input if GUI unavailable
• Self-healing: Automatically installs missing tkinter dependencies
• TypeScript support: Full type definitions and modern async/await API
• RMFC compatible: Drop-in replacement for existing RMFC usage

Installation

npm install @bobfrankston/cmsgbox

Quick Start

import { showMessage, showInput } from '@bobfrankston/cmsgbox';

// Simple message dialog
await showMessage("Hello World", "Greeting");

// Input dialog with default value
const name = await showInput("Enter your name:", "Input", "John Doe");
if (name) {
  console.log(`Hello, ${name}!`);
}

API

showMessage(message, title?)

Displays a message dialog with OK/Cancel buttons.

showInput(message, title?, defaultText?)

Displays an input dialog and returns the user's input or undefined if canceled.

MessageBox class

Object-oriented API for dialog management.

messageBox(options)

Unified function using options object:

const result = await messageBox({
    message: "Enter your name:",
    title: "Input Dialog",
    input: true,
    defaultText: "John Doe"
});

Architecture

This package uses Python and tkinter for cross-platform dialog display:

• Windows: Custom tkinter dialogs with native Windows look
• Linux: Custom tkinter dialogs with native Linux theming
• macOS: Custom tkinter dialogs with native macOS styling
• Fallback: Command-line input when GUI unavailable

Compatibility

• Node.js: >= 22.0.0
• Python: 3.x (auto-detected, falls back to python3 then python)
• tkinter: Auto-installed if missing

Building

npm run build

Testing

npm test

Migration from RMFC

This package is fully compatible with RMFC command-line interface:

# RMFC style (still works)
python pyutils/msgbox.py -input -title "Name" "Enter your name:"

# Enhanced JSON style (recommended)
python pyutils/msgbox.py -json '{"type": "input", "title": "Name", "message": "Enter your name:"}'

License

MIT