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:
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!
Reading through the comments, it seems like you’ve got ydotool working, but it may not have all the capabilities you want. I created a tool that seems like it could do everything you need, it has a couple of prerequisites, but it runs as a python script and doesn’t require super user to work.
If you wanted to give it a go, I’d be happy to help as much as I can; I use it daily on Debian 12 with Wayland, so I’m pretty confident it should work for you on Ubuntu. Admittedly, it’s still rough around the edges, but it can definitely handle mapping ‘Alt + E’ to type an email address.
https://gitlab.com/sincere-untimely-yesterday-group/custom-input-remapping/-/tree/7d64cfd2cb70c5acc19ba7536b91f9558e69b9ce/