Re: Xterm Command Typer and Form Filler
 

gxmessage + xte FTW?
I don't have time to rig it up right now, but it's really trivial.
Only suboptimal bit is launching....

Re: Xterm Command Typer and Form Filler
 

I learned about the power of macros back in the 1980s or so with version 4 something (4.23, my mind suggests!) of WordPerfect, and they certainly were handy. In a tablet they would be more handy than ever because typing is more difficult than with a full-fledged keyboard. What caused me to be less enthusiastic about this idea is that it was said to be primarily needed for typing in an xterm. I don't want it for typing in an xterm; I want it for typing in Notecase or other cool programs that we already have that could clearly be enhanced by macros.

There is, for example, an excellent web-based mind-mapping program called Mindmeister. It works pretty well on my N800, but a few key-hits are not available because they involve Ctrl keys or other keys the N800 doesn't have. So, I rarely use it on my N800. Macros would probably transform the Mindmeister experience.

Re: Xterm Command Typer and Form Filler
 

Esactly!

I guess it was bad marketing on my part! (Maybe I should start with a new thread with a different title.)

Yup!

(And, by the way, Geneven, for the past three weeks I've been using this trick, too, to autotype "sudo gainroot" in Xterm.)

Re: Xterm Command Typer and Form Filler
 

Huh, what? (OK, I can wait until you have time for me to find out what you're talking about!)

Re: Xterm Command Typer and Form Filler
 

gxmessage does dialog boxes from a script; xte pushes key events through the X server with xtest. (Naming is a bit of cleverness; it's the successor to xse (X send event) which was pre-xtest.)

Re: Xterm Command Typer and Form Filler
 

Script:Make files of the form $pagestem$page, where page ranges from 0 to $pages - 1. Each one looks like with as many strings as will fit on the screen (experiment).
This can also be converted to use a list, but then you'd have to select an entry and then click OK. I thought this was better.

As I said before, the trouble is launching it; since I can't make it always-on-top (and since it's huge), I can't just make it respawn itself; powerlaunch is going to be the quickest, most generally available way of launching it, but that's not very friendly. All the other obvious solutions rely on not having the foreground window fullscreened.

Edit: it is always-on-top... Attempt at reducing screen footprint and looping coming right up.

Re: Xterm Command Typer and Form Filler
 

I don't think the always-on-top feature would be that important if it could be launched from Personal Menu: You launch it with Personal Menu, click the character-string-generating button you want, move your cursor to the next place you want the typing, launch it again with Personal Menu, click the next button you want.

Any progress?

Re: Xterm Command Typer and Form Filler
 

Well, that only works if you're not running fullscreen... Else there's non-trivial cost to launching it. So I was thinking a persistent, always-on-top window would be best.

Oh, that attempt... Sorry to leave you in suspense; it was an utter flop. What's there is the best you're gonna get by this approach. Did you try it?

Personally, if I wanted this kinda thing, I'd be inclined to use Personal menu for regular menu stuff, and stack command-navigator full of typing shortcuts like this:

Description: Foo
Command: xte 'str Foo'

Re: Xterm Command Typer and Form Filler
 

I'd be happy to do this out of Personal Menu. By "command-navigator" do you just mean the part of Personal Menu where you add "Name of the menu entry:" and "Command to execute:" -- or do I need something in addition to PM, like the old Command Navigator?

In PM, I entered in "Name of the menu entry:" and in "Command to execute:"

From Run As Root, nothing happens. From Run In Terminal, I get With neither checked, I get a notice Execution Failed.

I don't know what xte is, but I don't see it in installed or installable applications, nor in gronmayer repositories.

So, if you'd be so kind, I could use some education. Thanks!

Re: Xterm Command Typer and Form Filler
 

I mean the old command navigator; I'm running both, so I get two menus. (One 40px, for friendly fingers, and the other (cmd-nav) packed closer.) But if you only want to run one, then you can certainly do it all in P-menu. (And you seem to be doing it right.)

xte is from Xautomation, I had thought I linked that previously. I'll go find it... [/url]http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18132&page=2]Here it is[/url]! Download the .tgz, extract it somewhere, and do what you like. ;) I copied (as root, of course) the xte binary to /usr/bin or some such. You could probably also (if not running low on space, and scared like I was at the time) just 'make install' (root, again) from the xautomation-1.02 directory. I recommend that approach, but warn that I did not try it...

The xte command doesn't need to be run as root, and as you can see, that masks some feedback, so don't run as root unless needed...


As for "what xte is", well, it's a program that stuffs keystrokes (or other events) into an X server. I think you did know what it is, after all... Now you know how to get it.