Well, Benson, I'm getting there. All that stuff for just one little file? I took your advice and moved everything but xte out of /usr/bin/. After a while I'll delete it.

So far I would swear that xte's output is partially random. Your basic idea is being vindicated to my satisfaction. Next I have to get better at xte. I mean it though, xte seems to have a mind of its own. I put in a command or whatever you call it that follows xte in "Command to execute:" in PM. The string has uppercase and lowercase letters, but xte will type only the capital letters. Later I try adding a keystroke for a return. That doesn't work, but after I remove it and go back to exactly the command that I previously had, it starts typing both upper- and lower-case letters.

Then I put in a different command (a key shift), but instead of doing what I want, xte goes crazy and keeps typing spaces -- it would type spaces no matter what was open; it seemed there was no way to stop it except by shutting down.

Then I go back to what I last had, but now it refuses to type anything but uppercase again. (Actually, what it does is ignore all lower-case input while outputting a lower-case letter for each upper-case character in the requested string!)

So, I have more work to do on xte, but it looks like you got me on the track I was asking for.

As Arnold would say, I'll be back.