Gfilui

Before you tell me "there are tons of guides on this already" know that I actually have a select menu made and it is working.

However there is one thing that is driving me nuts. The way I have this menu coded currently this is what occurs:

1) User picks an option
2) Menu reloads
3) Option has an asterick next to it to show it is selected.

Problem:

The user has to select each option one at a time after the menu reloads after each selection. As you can imagine this is slow and make the terminal window messy.

What I want:

The user should be able to type 1-4 or 1,4,7 to select multiple options.

What I don't want:

A Whiptail or Dialog. I actually did make one as well and it is flawless. However I would prefer not to use it if I can help it or use it as a fallback. I think it would be more user friendly (not to mention easier on the eyes) to not use one.

Code:

# #
### CSGO Plugin selection ###
# #

options=(
 "SurfTimer - 2.02 - Core of this server."
 "AutoFileLoader - Caches all material, model, and sound files for players to download."
 "Chat-Procesor - Chat Processing Plugin"
 "Dynamic - PreReq for many plugins to work properly."
 "FixAngles - Fixes 'wrong angle on material' error that gets spammed in console when using store items"
 "Mapchooser_Extended - Map Vote System. See maplist.cfg/mapcycle.cfg.")
....


menu() 
 echo "Avaliable options:"
 for i in $!options[@]; do
 printf "%3d%s) %sn" $((i+1)) "$choices[i]:- " "$options[i]"
 done
 [[ "$msg" ]] && echo "$msg"; :


prompt="Check an option (again to uncheck, ENTER when done): "
while menu && read -rp "$prompt" num && [[ "$num" ]]; do
 [[ "$num" != *[![:digit:]]* ]] &&
 (( num > 0 && num <= $#options[@] )) ||
 msg="Invalid option: $num"; continue; 
 ((num--)); msg="$options[num] was $choices[num]:+unchecked"
 [[ "$choices[num]" ]] && choices[num]="" || choices[num]="+"
done

printf "You selected"; msg=" nothing"
for i in $!options[@]; do
 [[ "$choices[i]" ]] && printf " %s" "$options[i]"; msg=""; 
done

I'd do it as follows:

menu() 
 clear
 echo "Available options:"
 for i in $!options[@]; do
 printf "%3d%s) %sn" $((i+1)) "$choices[i]:- " "$options[i]"
 done


prompt="Check an option (again to uncheck, ENTER when done): "
while menu && read -rp "$prompt" num && [[ "$num" ]]; do
 [[ "$num" =~ "-" ]] && num=$(seq $(sed -E 's/(d*)-(d*)/1 2/' <<<"$num"))
 for i in $num; do
 ((i--))
 [[ "$choices[i]" ]] && choices[i]="" || choices[i]="*"
 done
done

This tests if $num contains a hyphen and builds the range if necessary, then simply loops over the content of $num so that users can give multiple options at once with e.g. 1 2 4 or 1-4 (but not a combination of those!). It also clears the terminal every time before the menu is printed.