Hop on over to the xdotool project page and download the new version.

The changelist from the previous announced release is as follows:

20090612:
  * Fixed bug where shift modifier was not reset when 'xdotool type' used.
  http://code.google.com/p/semicomplete/issues/detail?id=5

Hop on over to the xdotool project page and download the new version.

The changelist from the previous announced release is as follows:

20090609:
  * Add '--delay ' to xdotool type. Sets the delay between keys.
  * Add '--window ' to xdotool type, key, keyup, and keydown.
    This feature (key events with --window ) only works if the
    application does not reject X events that have 'send_event' set to true.

    Special notes:
    * Firefox appears to ignore all input when it does not have focus.
    * xterm ignores sendevent by default, ctrl+leftclick menu will let you
      enable it.
    * gnome-terminal appears to accept send_event input by default

As far as feature requests come, for xdotool, one of the more common ones is to have the ability to send key or mouse events to a specific window, not just the active one. XTEST (what xdotool uses for key/mouse currently) doesn't let you specify a window to send events. XSendEvent(3) lets you send hand-crafted events to a specific window, but most applications ignore these sent events.

The XEvent struct has a member 'send_event' which is true if the event came from an XSendEvent call and false otherwise. Programs like firefox and xterm (by default) ignore many events that have 'send_event' set to true.

Enter LD_PRELOAD.

Writing a custom shared library that overrides the default XNextEvent and XPeekEvent functions allows us to force 'send_event' to always be false, so an application with this library loaded will happily handle keyboard/mouse events generated with XSendEvent. I already have a helpful project that lets me write such a shared library: liboverride.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <X11/Xlib.h>

void hack_send_event(XEvent *ev) {
  switch (ev->type) {
    case KeyPress: case KeyRelease: case ButtonPress: case ButtonRelease:
      ev->xany.send_event = False;
      break;
  }
}

override(`XNextEvent', `
  {
    real_func(display, event_return);
    hack_send_event(event_return);
    return;
  }
')

This small bit of liboverride code will give me a shared library I can preload with LD_PRELOAD. Doing so will ensure that send_event is false for any key or mouse button events.

Works well. Now that we have a reliable way to allow XSendEvent I think it's worth putting this into xdotool.

A new release of xdotool is available. It fixes two bugs that were moderately annoying.

20090126:
  * Change the default behavior of 'getwindowfocus' to get the first
    ancestor-or-self window that has WM_CLASS set. WM_CLASS will be set on
    (all?) top-level windows and it's possible that the currently focused window
    according to X is not a top-level window. To use the previous behavior, use
    'getwindowfocus -f'
  * Make 'xdotool key at' work correctly. 'at' is usually Shift+2, for example.
    Now all shifted characters should work, but I've only tested on a US
    keyboard.
  * Minor Makefile fixes for package maintainers.

I've tested it in GNOME and Ion-3 with success.

Download: xdotool-20090126.tar.gz

Press 'f' when keynav is active and instantly jump to my firefox window.

# in .keynavrc
f sh "activate-firefox.sh", end

Now, in activate-firefox.sh:

#!/bin/sh
# activate-firefox.sh
xdotool windowactivate $(xdotool search -title -- '- Mozilla Firefox')

Extend that and press 'g' to jump to gmail, assuming that tab is open. (Requires my firefox tabsearch plugin)

# in .keynavrc
g sh "activate-gmail.sh"

Now, in activate-gmail.sh:

#!/bin/sh
# activate-gmail.sh

./activate-firefox.sh
xdotool key ctrl+apostrophe
xdotool type gmail
xdotool key Return

Hop on over to the xdotool project page and download the new version.

I've also put up an HTML version of the manpage: xdotool.xhtml.

The changelist from the previous announced release is as follows:

20080606:
  * Correctly report an error if xdotool is invoked with an invalid command.
  * Fix invalid error code reporting from 'windowraise'

Hop on over to the xdotool project page and download the new version.

The changelist from the previous announced release is as follows:

20080603:
  * Daniel Kahn Gillmor reported a problem with return codes from xdotool. All
    commands return proper exit status now (0 == success, nonzero == error)
  * I tested on 3 window managers: Gnome2 2.20.0, OpenBox 3.4, ion-3rc-20070608
    - Gnome2 and OpenBox pass all tests.
    - ion-3 fails on any desktop-related methods (ion-3 lacks the support).

Hop on over to the xdotool project page and download the new version.

The changelist from the previous announced release is as follows:

20080601:
  * Add new commands:
    - windowactivate: Activate a window. If the window is on another desktop, we
        will switch to that desktop and then activate the window.
    - set_num_desktops number: Changes the number of desktops or workspaces.
    - get_num_desktops: Output the current number of desktops.
    - set_desktop desktop_number: Change the current view to the specified
        desktop.
    - get_desktop: Output the current desktop in view.
    - set_desktop_for_window window_id desktop_number: Move a window to a
        different desktop.
    - get_desktop_for_window window_id: Output the desktop currently containing
        the given window.

    windowactivate tested and confirmed working in: ion-3 and Gnome2 (metacity)
    The rest of the new commands have only been tested in Gnome2. They do not
    work in ion-3 due to lacking support for EWMH in ion.
  * Rewrote the man page in perlpod format.

I spent a while tonight reading up on extended window manager hints. It's not a very well thought-through standard, but many window managers implement it nonetheless.

Tonight I added 7 new commands to xdotool (not yet in a release):

• get and set the number of desktops
• get and set the currently active desktop
• get and set the desktop for a specific window (set == move it to a new desktop)
• activate a window

The first 3 should be pretty straight forward. For fun, I told Gnome2 to create 50 workspaces, and it didn't barf. The taskbar pager looked a little funny as it was sprawling with little desktop views, but it works :)

The last is window activation. It will jump you to the window and give it focus. If the window is on a different desktop, it jumps to that desktop and then activates the window. I've tested exactly that behavior (firefox lives on a separate desktop or workspace) in Gnome2 and ion-3, and it works.

Example: Jump to firefox:

./xdotool windowactivate $(./xdotool search -title "Mozilla Firefox")

Example: Trying to do bad things in Gnome2

% ./xdotool set_num_desktops 5000
% ./xdotool get_num_desktops
36

Example: Move firefox to another desktop

# Find firefox's X Window ID
% MOZWIN=$(./xdotool search --title "Mozilla Firefox")

# Find the desktop containing firefox.
% ./xdotool get_desktop_for_window $MOZWIN
0

# How many desktops do we have?
% ./xdotool get_num_desktops
5

# Move firefox to desktop 3 (index starts at 0)
% ./xdotool set_desktop_for_window $MOZWIN 3

# Show me that firefox has moved to desktop 3
% ./xdotool get_desktop_for_window $MOZWIN
3

# Show me the current desktop
% ./xdotool get_desktop
0

# Activate firefox's window (taking us to Firefox's desktop)
% ./xdotool windowactivate $MOZWIN

# Show that we're now on the same desktop as firefox
% ./xdotool get_desktop
3

I'll put out a new release after I have a chance to tidy up the code a bit.

Hop on over to the xdotool project page and download the new version. This is the first version being served totally from googlecode, let me know if you have problems.

The changelist from the previous announced release is as follows:

20080521:
  * Import patches from keynav's xdotool branch (From Lukas Mai) which make
    xdotool compile happily when building with -Wall and -pedantic (and others)
  * Finally convert to using Window type for (hopefully) everything instead of
    incorrectly typecasting Window to int sometimes.
  * Confirmed that the one (but mostly useless) test passes.