mpd_what VS xdotool

mpd_what is a python script I developed to show the album art, artist, album, and song for music I am listening to with mpd, including (some) internet radio. I made this because I didn't want to have to download and install all the different radio apps for my phone just to maybe see the coverart and info of what they're playing. This script works to enhance one of my other utilities, which is:

Shameless plug: I wrote a script to grab album art, title, track, and album for music being played on mpd, even internet radio. Check it out at https://github.com/charmparticle/mpd_what

Maybe not AHK exactly, but it essentially does the same: xdotool

In a gtk-rs application, I'm running a xdotool command to get the id of the application's window. I'm running the command in a connect_show closure (after the window has been shown):

Eventually, I needed to find the ID of windows, move them, and bring them to the front—I realized I couldn't do that with gtk-rs. I needed to interact with the window manager (X11 server). So from inside my application, I ran commands that called xdotool.

Right now, I'm focusing (switching) X11 windows with a shell command (xdotool) from inside my Rust program:

Maybe xdotool [0] is what you're looking for.

[0] https://github.com/jordansissel/xdotool/

I often create screen recordings for my classes, but it's very boring and time consuming. I'm a perfectionist, and if I mistype a command I prefer to re-record everything. Moreover, every time one of the tools used in the videos gets a significant update, I feel compelled to redo the video.

I have started using xdotool [1] to create bash scripts that send mouse clicks and keystrokes to apps. Interleaving calls to xdotool with the "sleep" command [2] produce a convincing effect. If I need to redo a video to fix typos or after a program update, I just fix the bash script and restart the recording.

Alas, the only thing that is missing in my videos is the sound of keyboard clicks… But nothing is perfect!

[1] https://github.com/jordansissel/xdotool

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_(command)

If you don't want to do that, if you use Xorg, perhaps xdotool can help you.

For GUI automation and the like, I would recommend checking out xdotool and maybe sxhkd for keybinds -- though, each DE/WM tends to have some method of handling keybindings in its own way.

For stuff like that where you don't need to read window properties, I would use xdotool: https://github.com/jordansissel/xdotool