Moving mouse and pressing keys in X using python

I have just seen a cool piece of code in python which simulates key presses and mouse clicks to automatically play a browser based game. This was on Windows but it got me thinking of how similar keyboard and mouse events could be simulated in Linux using pure python (I could wrap programs such as xvkbd or xdotool, or even write some extensions in C and hook into xlib).

Fortunately someone has already written a python X library (Xlib) which I can utilise. Here are a couple of simple programs to get an idea of how to simulate mouse and keypress events.

First up how to move the mouse. This snippet moves the moves to a set location and clicks the first mouse button (left click for my setup)


#!/usr/bin/python
from Xlib import X, display, ext

d = display.Display()
s = d.screen()
root = s.root
#move pointer to set location
root.warp_pointer(300,300)
d.sync()
#press button 1, for middle mouse button use 2, for opposite button use 3
ext.xtest.fake_input(d, X.ButtonPress,1)
d.sync()
#we want a click so we need to also relese the same button
ext.xtest.fake_input(d, X.ButtonRelease,1)
d.sync()


Now, how to simulate keypresses.

#!/usr/bin/python
from Xlib import XK, display, ext, X

d=display.Display()
#send F1 as in gnome this will bring up help screen, proves it works
keysym=XK.string_to_keysym("F1")
keycode=d.keysym_to_keycode(keysym)
#press key
ext.xtest.fake_input(d, X.KeyPress, keycode)
d.sync()
#remember to release it, otherwise help screen will continue to appear
ext.xtest.fake_input(d, X.KeyRelease, keycode)
d.sync()