{"slug": "ydotool", "name": "ydotool", "category": "productivity", "category_name": "Productivity", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 3.087, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-26", "latest": "2026-07-19", "why": "I used ydotool [1] in Sway years ago, worked perfectly fine.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I used ydotool [1] in Sway years ago, worked perfectly fine.", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/reimunotmoe/ydotool", "official_url": "https://github.com/ReimuNotMoe/ydotool", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["ydotool"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 759669072, "item_id": 47479317, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479317", "by": "flexagoon", "date": "2026-03-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ydotool exists", "excerpt": "ydotool exists https://github.com/ReimuNotMoe/ydotool", "context": "", "use_case": "Input automation on Wayland", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Hate: Programming Wayland Applications"}, {"id": 756530705, "item_id": 47283169, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47283169", "by": "godelski", "date": "2026-03-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use ydotool and my phone and laptop can easily be a keyboard", "excerpt": "This is really cool and I'd love to see TVs ship with it. There's a lack of innovation these days and I think the only way to bring it back is to recognize that computers are environments and people need to be able to build on them. With TVs becoming more powerful this could be a big win. Make it easy so my aging tech illiterate parents can use it (looks like it does the job, at least as well as any other) but also h", "context": "", "use_case": "remote keyboard input for TV", "switched_from": "", "story": "Plasma Bigscreen \u2013 10-foot interface for KDE plasma"}, {"id": 755644066, "item_id": 47227754, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47227754", "by": "godelski", "date": "2026-03-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "check out ydotool", "excerpt": "I'm not too big of a fan of KDE content but totally get why people use it. I do want to suggest you install termux, and do it from fdroid rather than the play store. I'm guessing you're on Wayland, so check out ydotool. (If still on x s/x/y) there's a lot of cool things to do with tools like that. Basic one is use your phone as a keyboard (like KDE connect can do, but I found it more reliable and KDEC doesn't play we", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS Foundation"}, {"id": 737044208, "item_id": 46065263, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46065263", "by": "Fnoord", "date": "2025-11-26", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used ydotool [1] in Sway years ago, worked perfectly fine.", "excerpt": "Wayland is fantastic, but it requires some external tools for some non-default (seemingly 'simple') utilization. Therein lies double work, devs scratching their itch in whatever programming language they prefer, sure. The most popular one isn't always the best. And all of that is the nature of the bazaar. But the way I regard it, the bazaar can make use of curators who make a cathedral and sell that (anyone can, in t", "context": "", "use_case": "input automation on Wayland", "switched_from": "", "story": "Exploring the Fragmentation of Wayland, an xdotool adventure"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["input automation on wayland", "text injection", "keyboard automation on linux", "remote keyboard input for tv"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48963879", "title": "Transcribe.cpp", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48202129", "title": "Key, in sight [Creative uses of keyboard shortcuts and macros]", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47478298", "title": "I Hate: Programming Wayland Applications", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47282736", "title": "Plasma Bigscreen \u2013 10-foot interface for KDE plasma", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47214645", "title": "Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS Foundation", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45942109", "title": "Exploring the Fragmentation of Wayland, an xdotool adventure", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 783466785, "item_id": 48966674, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966674", "by": "boomskats", "date": "2026-07-19", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The first two work 'well enough' though, and are fairly tunable.", "excerpt": "I have a personal fork of hyprvoice[0] which I use almost everywhere now (w/ the big cohere-transcribe running on a local vLLM instance). It does a similar thing, but that's not why I'm mentioning it; I think it's worth looking at because it's a clean reference for the few elegant ways you can implement text injection in modern Linux (wayland). It supports ydotool[1], wtype[2] and \"clipboard fallback with clipboard r", "context": "", "use_case": "text injection", "switched_from": "", "story": "Transcribe.cpp"}, {"id": 772190240, "item_id": 48261890, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48261890", "by": "ahaferburg", "date": "2026-05-24", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "kmonad+bash+ydotool+systemd", "excerpt": "Will check out keyd and wtype, thank you for the pointers! If you don't mind, could you go into a little more detail on your journey? What do you use it for? What roadblocks did you encounter that made you try out different tools? On Windows I was a happy Autohotkey user. For the same functionality I'm using kmonad+bash+ydotool+systemd now. I use it to make CapsLock a modifier key. Mostly for navigation, e. g. Caps+H", "context": "", "use_case": "Keyboard automation on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Key, in sight [Creative uses of keyboard shortcuts and macros]"}, {"id": 759669072, "item_id": 47479317, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479317", "by": "flexagoon", "date": "2026-03-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ydotool exists", "excerpt": "ydotool exists https://github.com/ReimuNotMoe/ydotool", "context": "", "use_case": "Input automation on Wayland", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Hate: Programming Wayland Applications"}, {"id": 756530705, "item_id": 47283169, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47283169", "by": "godelski", "date": "2026-03-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use ydotool and my phone and laptop can easily be a keyboard", "excerpt": "This is really cool and I'd love to see TVs ship with it. There's a lack of innovation these days and I think the only way to bring it back is to recognize that computers are environments and people need to be able to build on them. With TVs becoming more powerful this could be a big win. Make it easy so my aging tech illiterate parents can use it (looks like it does the job, at least as well as any other) but also h", "context": "", "use_case": "remote keyboard input for TV", "switched_from": "", "story": "Plasma Bigscreen \u2013 10-foot interface for KDE plasma"}, {"id": 755644066, "item_id": 47227754, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47227754", "by": "godelski", "date": "2026-03-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "check out ydotool", "excerpt": "I'm not too big of a fan of KDE content but totally get why people use it. I do want to suggest you install termux, and do it from fdroid rather than the play store. I'm guessing you're on Wayland, so check out ydotool. (If still on x s/x/y) there's a lot of cool things to do with tools like that. Basic one is use your phone as a keyboard (like KDE connect can do, but I found it more reliable and KDEC doesn't play we", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS Foundation"}, {"id": 737044208, "item_id": 46065263, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46065263", "by": "Fnoord", "date": "2025-11-26", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used ydotool [1] in Sway years ago, worked perfectly fine.", "excerpt": "Wayland is fantastic, but it requires some external tools for some non-default (seemingly 'simple') utilization. Therein lies double work, devs scratching their itch in whatever programming language they prefer, sure. The most popular one isn't always the best. And all of that is the nature of the bazaar. But the way I regard it, the bazaar can make use of curators who make a cathedral and sell that (anyone can, in t", "context": "", "use_case": "input automation on Wayland", "switched_from": "", "story": "Exploring the Fragmentation of Wayland, an xdotool adventure"}]}