MODULE Getopt::GUI::Long - a drop in Getopt::Long replacement supporting an optional GUI SYNOPSIS use Getopt::GUI::Long; # pass useful config options to Configure Getopt::GUI::Long::Configure(qw(display_help no_ignore_case capture_output)); GetOptions(\%opts, ["GUI:separator", "Important Flags:"], ["f|some-flag=s", "A flag based on a string"], ["o|other-flag", "A boloean"], ); # or use references instead of a hash (less tested, however): GetOptions(["some-flag=s", "perform some flag based on a value"] => \$flag, ["other-flag=s", "perform some flag based on a value"] => \$other); # displays auto-help given the input above: % opttest -h Usage: opttest [OPTIONS] Other Arguments OPTIONS: Important Flags: -f STRING A flag based on a string -o A boloean Help Options: -h Display help options -- short flags preferred --help Display help options -- long flags preferred --help-full Display all help options -- short and long # or long help: % opttest --help Usage: opttest [OPTIONS] Other Arguments OPTIONS: Important Flags: --some-flag=STRING A flag based on a string --other-flag A boloean Help Options: -h Display help options -- short flags preferred --help Display help options -- long flags preferred --help-full Display all help options -- short and long # or a GUI screen: (see http://net-policy.sourceforge.net/images/getopt_example.png ) DESCRIPTION This module is a wrapper around Getopt::Long that extends the value of the original Getopt::Long module to: 1) add a simple graphical user interface option screen if no arguments are passed to the program. Thus, the arguments to actually use are built based on the results of the user interface. If arguments were passed to the program, the user interface is not shown and the program executes as it normally would and acts just as if Getopt::Long::GetOptions had been called instead. 2) provide an auto-help mechanism such that -h and --help are handled automatically. In fact, calling your program with -h will default to showing the user a list of short-style arguments when one exists for the option. Similarly --help will show the user a list of long-style when possible. --help-full will list all potential arguments for an option (short and long both). It's designed to make the creation of graphical shells trivial without the programmer having to think about it much as well as providing automatic good-looking usage output without the programmer needing to write usage() functions. EXAMPLE SCREEN SHOTS http://www.dnssec-tools.org/ has a bunch of screen shot links on the front page where the GUI interface from it is entirely created through the Getopt::GUI::Long interface.