Thanks to some early testing and feedback from the previous xdotool release, I've put together a new release that fixes a few minor problems.

Download: xdotool-1.20100302.2708.tar.gz

As usual, if you find problems or have feature requests, please file bugs or send an email to the list.

Changelist since previous announcement:

1.20100302.*:
  - Some test fixes suggested by Daniel Kahn Gillmor
  - Don't use isatty(0) anymore as it isn't totally reliable in determining if
    we should try to read from stdin.

1.20100301.*:
  - Minor libxdo patch to avoid exporting unnecessary symbols (Daniel Kahn Gillmor)
  - Minor Makefile fix to only link libxdo (and not xdotool) against libX11 and
    libXtst (also Daniel Kahn Gillmor)
  - Some test cleanup patches by Daniel Kahn Gillmor
  - Fixed the 'type hello' test that would fail sometimes when run in Xephyr.
  - Fix a minor bug in xdo_window_setclass that incorrectly aborts when
    XGetClassHint fails.

It's time for another xdotool release.

Lots of big fixes and changes in the latest release of xdotool. Many of the improvements in this release incorporate feedback I've received on this list and in bugs filed. Please enjoy :)

Download: http://semicomplete.googlecode.com/files/xdotool-1.20100227.2679.tar.gz

Full changelist since previously-announced release:

1.20100227.*:
  - Bump major version since there were lots of libxdo changes (now libxdo.so.1)
  - Support '--pid NUM' for searching for windows by pid:
    Fixes http://code.google.com/p/semicomplete/issues/detail?id=10
    Example: xdotool search --pid 12345
    Example: xdotool search --pid 12345 "hello world"
  - Add 'xdotool getwindowpid' command to get the pid that owns a window.
  - Add --window to xdotool mousemove, click, mousedown, and mouseup
  - Add --screen to xdotool mousemove
  - The --clearmodifiers flag now clears mouse buttons, too.
    Part of http://code.google.com/p/semicomplete/issues/detail?id=6
  - The --clearmodifiers flag now clears caps lock.
    Fixes http://code.google.com/p/semicomplete/issues/detail?id=4
  - Have 'make install' create all required directories
    Fixes http://code.google.com/p/semicomplete/issues/detail?id=17
  - Support multiple screens in searches. Default is to search all screens.
    Fixes http://code.google.com/p/semicomplete/issues/detail?id=11
    Example: 'xdotool search --screen N' specifies a single screen to search.
  - Support reading a list of xdotool commands via stdin or a file. Usages:
    * read from stdin:
      xdotool -
    * read from stdin (use isatty(0) to detect redirection):
      xdotool < somefile
    * An executable script also works when it has this at the top:
      #!/path/to/xdotool

0.20100118.*:
  - Slight change in how we present versions. Now versions have major, date,
    and svn revision. The main addition was to add the major which maps to the
    libxdo library abi version (libxdo.so.0).
  - Add 'xdotool version' for querying version
  - libxdo now has xdo_version function for fetching the library version.
  - Allow typing keys that are not mapped to any keyboard button.
    For example, you can type the euro symbol like this, even if you don't have
    a key on your keyboard that can do it:
      xdotool key EuroSign
    http://code.google.com/p/semicomplete/issues/detail?id=16
  - Fixed some pod errors in the manpage

A new release of xdotool is available. This release has only minor changes based on changes needed to help Debian and other folks package this. Speaking of which: thanks to Daniel Kahn Gillmor and Wen-Yen Chuang for helping maintain the Debian packages for xdotool and keynav and for working with me on these changes.

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

The changelist follows:

20091231.02:
  No functional changes.
  - fix linking problems and just use $(CC) for build and linking
  - Make the tests headless (requires Xvfb and GNOME)
  - Make the t/run.sh test runner exit-code friendly

20091231.01:
  No xdotool changes.
  libxdo changes:
    * Rename keysymcharmap -> keysym_charmap
    * Expose keysym_charmap and symbol_map as xdo_keysym_charmap()
      and xdo_symbol_map()

xdotool-20091231.02

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

The changelist from the previous announced release is as follows:

20090815:
* Incorporate patch from Henning Bekel which adds a new ability to change
  window properties such as window name, icon name, class, role, etc.  New
  command: xdotool set_window
* Add --maxdepth to 'xdotool search' to limit the traversal depth

Looking at svn logs for xdotool shows that the project is now just over 2 years old. Crazy!

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

The changelist from the previous announced release is as follows:

20090710:
  * You can clear keyboard modifiers during typing now with --clearmodifiers
    When used, this flag causes physical keyboard modifiers (alt, control, etc)
    that are currently active to be ignored during typing.
    This is supported in: xdotool key, keyup, keydown, and type.
    
    Example: 
      xdotool type 'hello world' results in 'HELLO WORLD' while holding shift.
      xdotool type --clearmodifiers 'hello world' results in 'hello world'
        regardless of you holding shift.

    The 'reset' only happens at the beginning of typing and the modifiers are
    restored at the end. If you press a modifier key *during* typing it will 
    act as if --clearmodifiers was not present.
    (http://code.google.com/p/semicomplete/issues/detail?id=6)

  * You can now specify literal keycodes for any key command.
    Example: xdotool key 38   (types 'a' with my keyboard)
    (requested via mailing list)

  * Regression fix: 'xdotool type' now properly obeys capitalization, again.
  * Bug fix: 'xdotool key --window' now works properly

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