I am a new Linux user and have settled on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS in Wayland. In Windows, I used AutoHotKey to automate the keyboard to type repetitive text strings with a hotkey e.g. pressing Alt+E to type my@email.com

I believe the solution in Linux is to install an application like dotool or ydotool and then create a custom shortcut command. The problem is I cannot get dotool and ydotool to work. I’ll document the issues I’m having with ydotool as there seems to be more awareness and support for this application.

I am following the instillation instructions here:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1413829/how-can-i-install-and-use-the-latest-ydotool-keyboard-automation-tool-working-o

Everything seems to go fine until I get to this step and get the following error:

sudo systemctl enable ydotoold

Failed to enable unit: Unit file ydotoold.service does not exist.

I came across this issue which suggests it could be a permissions issue on /dev/uinput and tried to the solution provided in that post but I still can’t enable ydotoold after a reboot.

Running this command works:

ydotoold --version

v1.0.4-38-g708e96f

But I am stuck here and not sure how to troubleshoot or progress further. Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

  • bigpEE@lemmy.world
    2·
    3 days ago

    I think ydotoold has an equivalent to sleep built in. A good while back I wrote a quick ydotoold command to automate something like 100 keypresses with delays in between. Let me know in 12 hours if you haven’t gotten that figured out and I can find you the commands

    • DarkSpectrum@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      3 days ago

      Thanks, unfortunately ydotool has removed their sleep command stating ‘this should be your shell’s job’. I tried using the standard shell sleep command and used the semicolon to chain commands. Maybe thats not how to use the command field of the custom shortcut.