<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ... > But the problem is that in Linux you can't even send a keystroke to > a running GUI application!
Actually, if the app is running under X11 you may try to fake out a keystroke event (with low level calls, but ctypes might let you use it from Python). Of course, the app WILL be told that the keystroke is fake, through a special flag if it cares to check for it, for security reasons; but if the app doesn't specifically defend itself in this way. See, for example, http://xmacro.sourceforge.net/ -- I guess that xmacroplay could pretty easily be adapted, or maybe even used as is with an os.popen. > I want to find a solution in Linux, with the help of experts > (if they don't use only Windows...) for two reasons: > - the reduced availability in Windows of "free" or "open" applications > - the more severe security problems in Windows. > Concerning the second point, you can correctly argue that this is, > at least partly, due to the wider market share of Windows but IMHO > Linux is more robust in this field, and ...at the present times the > situation is like that! Don't neglect MacOSX -- it's quite secure, there are many open and free applications, AND it has a decent architecture for the kind of tasks you want to do (mostly intended for Apple's own Applescript language, but all the interfaces are open and easily available to Python, which is quite well supported on the Mac). It also has an excellent italian newsgroup, it.comp.macintosh -- quite high volume (as it discusses ANYthing Apple, from iPod shuffles to golden oldies to rumors about new servers &c, with a lot of volume on the audio and video applications that macs do so well) but worth it. However, all the specific use cases you describe are best handled by either fully emulating or directly integrating with a browser; faking keystrokes is definitely too low-level an approach. Python is very good at dealing with the web (it IS, apparently, the favourite language of Tim Berners Lee --- he came give a keynote at a Python conference), including recording and replaying cookies and anything else you may need to make a "special purpose browser" for automation purposes. Twisted is an asynchronous framework for very well-performing, lightweight clients and servers -- or, Python's standard library can suffice if you're not in a terrible hurry;-). Alternatively, Firefox and other Mozilla Foundation apps are designed to be automated via XPCOM, essentially a cross-platform equivalent of Microsoft's good old COM, and there are Python interfaces to it (some future Firefox version might perhaps integrate a Python engine, just like it integrates a Javascript engine today, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting;-). Alex -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
