xdotool VS x11rb

Have a look at this: https://github.com/jordansissel/xdotool

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

Use an external tool, like 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.

You might be able to use audacity in the background by setting up an application launcher in the gnome panel that executes xdotool, which can send keyboard signals (like R for record) to running applications: https://github.com/jordansissel/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)

xdotool worked ... but I didn't want to depend on external command-line tools, so I decided to look for X11 bindings for Rust. The best library I could find was x11rb. It had very little documentation and almost no one used it (it was difficult to find people who could help me with it). Fortunately, it had a detailed tutorial. Still, it was a struggle to make things works sometimes.

I'm using x11rb, X11 Rust Bindings. I modified some code from this tutorial so that I'm listening to key presses from parent_win (screen.root) rather than win:

In the end, I decided to use x11rb: https://github.com/psychon/x11rb. This way I don't have to run external commands.

I'm trying to move a window (the GNOME terminal) with x11rb. I followed this tutorial. But the move_window function doesn't move the window.

I'm using x11rb to interact with a window created with gtk-rs. window_id is the ID of the window created with gtk-rs. window_id_2 is the ID of the window created with x11rb (for testing purposes).

I also checked x11rb, but I think it's too low level (and too complicated).

There is a comparison page in x11rb but it seems to be outdated w.r.t rust-xcb and the unsafe claims, so would appreciate other perspectives.

Do you have a source for that or any specifics on how it "can't handle" the usecases? There's already work in Rust around fully supporting X11 (for example https://github.com/bread-graphics/breadx or https://github.com/psychon/x11rb)

I was thinking about specializing x11rb which is a great library for interfacing with X11, to my specific single threaded use case.

So if firefox is an application you can find you can query the WM_CLASS property, like this. Other applications might not set that and you'd have to use some other property or information to deduce that this given window(which is just a u32) is actually applicationA. A tip is to start the application, use xprop and see what properties it sets. call_wrapper.rs contains a lot of code about querying different properties. The x11rb example simple_window.rs has a few examples of the other side of that showing how an application can set its on properties.