Hello Everybody!

I am currently using KDE and I am looking for a tool that can automate mouse movements and keyboard input in a desktop manager. This is basically a Macro feature for the desktop.

Thanks,
Terry

The traditional way is to use xmacro, but xmacro is rather difficult to use, there's limited documentation, and doesn't have a lot of flexibility.

But you're in luck. There are now a couple of new macro recording programs available. One is JW Record-Playback, a new gui macro application written in Python.

The second one (I just discovered) is xnee, the gnu macro program. It can be used from the command line or with one of several gui frontends.

I haven't yet used either of the last two personally, but they seem easy enough to use. Check them out and let us know what you think.

Unless you've upgraded to KDE4, you can use DCOP.
It won't move the mouse cursor for you, but it can probably do every action you normally execute with the mouse:
handling of windows, choosing actions from program menus, etc.

DCOP have been removed from KDE4, which is one of the main reasons I haven't yet upgraded...

Some of my old bookmarks include these links:
http://hoopajoo.net/projects/xautomation.html
http://sweb.cz/tripie/utils/wmctrl/

I haven't tried any of those, but perhaps they can fit the bill.

The replacement for DCOP is DBUS and is also part of the freedesktop.org effort to standardize services across desktop environments. So, it is also available in GNOME, or will be. It does not seem to offer much yet. But if you use KDE 3.*, DCOP is the way to go. I use it all the time. To discover what is offered by each program you want to automate, try the kdcop program. It will let you browse the available functions. Of course, this only works with KDE programs.

I've looked for similar (scripting) tools for other desktop environments, but KDE seems to be the only desktop that addresses this need. Unfortunately, as was said, KDE 4 removes DCOP, and DBUS is just not ready to replace it yet.

It depends on what he wants to do. Dcop is a nice idea and concept, it can do some neat things on your desktop. But at application level, very few programs actually use it for something useful. So it depends on the program that you want to control or what do you exactly want to do.

Hello Everybody!
I'm using centos5 and gnome. I have installed some packages not from official sites. Now some GUI tools cann't run. I known it is because my custom installing. Did Linux have some tools like windows's rollback?

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