Arrow key/Enter menu

Here is a pure bash script solution in form of the select_option function, relying solely on ANSI escape sequences and the built-in read.

Works on Bash 4.2.45 on OSX. The funky parts that might not work equally well in all environments from all I know are the get_cursor_row(), key_input() (to detect up/down keys) and the cursor_to() functions.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Renders a text based list of options that can be selected by the
# user using up, down and enter keys and returns the chosen option.
#
#   Arguments   : list of options, maximum of 256
#                 "opt1" "opt2" ...
#   Return value: selected index (0 for opt1, 1 for opt2 ...)
function select_option {

    # little helpers for terminal print control and key input
    ESC=$( printf "\033")
    cursor_blink_on()  { printf "$ESC[?25h"; }
    cursor_blink_off() { printf "$ESC[?25l"; }
    cursor_to()        { printf "$ESC[$1;${2:-1}H"; }
    print_option()     { printf "   $1 "; }
    print_selected()   { printf "  $ESC[7m $1 $ESC[27m"; }
    get_cursor_row()   { IFS=';' read -sdR -p $'\E[6n' ROW COL; echo ${ROW#*[}; }
    key_input()        { read -s -n3 key 2>/dev/null >&2
                         if [[ $key = $ESC[A ]]; then echo up;    fi
                         if [[ $key = $ESC[B ]]; then echo down;  fi
                         if [[ $key = ""     ]]; then echo enter; fi; }

    # initially print empty new lines (scroll down if at bottom of screen)
    for opt; do printf "\n"; done

    # determine current screen position for overwriting the options
    local lastrow=`get_cursor_row`
    local startrow=$(($lastrow - $#))

    # ensure cursor and input echoing back on upon a ctrl+c during read -s
    trap "cursor_blink_on; stty echo; printf '\n'; exit" 2
    cursor_blink_off

    local selected=0
    while true; do
        # print options by overwriting the last lines
        local idx=0
        for opt; do
            cursor_to $(($startrow + $idx))
            if [ $idx -eq $selected ]; then
                print_selected "$opt"
            else
                print_option "$opt"
            fi
            ((idx++))
        done

        # user key control
        case `key_input` in
            enter) break;;
            up)    ((selected--));
                   if [ $selected -lt 0 ]; then selected=$(($# - 1)); fi;;
            down)  ((selected++));
                   if [ $selected -ge $# ]; then selected=0; fi;;
        esac
    done

    # cursor position back to normal
    cursor_to $lastrow
    printf "\n"
    cursor_blink_on

    return $selected
}

Here is an example usage:

echo "Select one option using up/down keys and enter to confirm:"
echo

options=("one" "two" "three")

select_option "${options[@]}"
choice=$?

echo "Choosen index = $choice"
echo "        value = ${options[$choice]}"

Output looks like below, with the currently selected option highlighted using inverse ansi coloring (hard to convey here in markdown). This can be adapted in the print_selected() function if desired.

Select one option using up/down keys and enter to confirm:

  [one] 
   two 
   three 

Update: Here is a little extension select_opt wrapping the above select_option function to make it easy to use in a case statement:

function select_opt {
    select_option "$@" 1>&2
    local result=$?
    echo $result
    return $result
}

Example usage with 3 literal options:

case `select_opt "Yes" "No" "Cancel"` in
    0) echo "selected Yes";;
    1) echo "selected No";;
    2) echo "selected Cancel";;
esac

You can also mix if there are some known entries (Yes and No in this case), and leverage the exit code $? for the wildcard case:

options=("Yes" "No" "${array[@]}") # join arrays to add some variable array
case `select_opt "${options[@]}"` in
    0) echo "selected Yes";;
    1) echo "selected No";;
    *) echo "selected ${options[$?]}";;
esac

dialog is a great tool for what you are trying to achieve. Here's the example of a simple 3-choices menu:

dialog --menu "Choose one:" 10 30 3 \
    1 Red \
    2 Green \
    3 Blue

The syntax is the following:

dialog --menu <text> <height> <width> <menu-height> [<tag><item>]

The selection will be sent to stderr. Here's a sample script using 3 colors.

#!/bin/bash
TMPFILE=$(mktemp)

dialog --menu "Choose one:" 10 30 3 \
    1 Red \
    2 Green \
    3 Blue 2>$TMPFILE

RESULT=$(cat $TMPFILE)

case $RESULT in
    1) echo "Red";;
    2) echo "Green";;
    3) echo "Blue";;
    *) echo "Unknown color";;
esac

rm $TMPFILE

On Debian, you can install dialog through the package of the same name.