Always wanted AutoHotKey (AHK) on Linux? Or a program that implemented the features of Texter or TextExpander?

Autokey is a small, customisable, free , text replacement program for Linux.

It’s a small little program that sits in the system tray and expands pre-defined phrases into longer strings when you hit a certain hotkey.

Installing AutoKey

To install AutoKey, follow the instructions before (found here)

  1. Open Software Sources (System->Administration->Software Sources)
  2. Navigate to the “Third Party Sources” tab.
  3. Click “Add”
  4. Enter the APT line below that corresponds to your Ubuntu version that starts with “deb”.
  5. Click “Add Source”
  6. Click “Close”
  7. It will prompt you to reload your software cache. Click “Reload”.
  8. Now install the package “autokey” from Synaptic, or using the command below:
  9. sudo apt-get install autokey

Alternatively, you can head over to the downloads page, download the source tarball and compile the program yourself.

After installation, you can find the program in the Accessories menu under Applications.


[Image credit: Lifehacker]

Features

Here are a list of features that the website lists:

  • KDE and GTK versions available, making AutoKey integrate well into any desktop environment
  • Write Python scripts to automate virtually any task that can be accomplished via the keyboard
  • Build-in code editor (using QScintilla in KDE or GtkSourceView2 in GTK)
  • Create phrases (blocks of text) to be pasted into any program on demand (uses the X selection)
  • Create collections of phrases/scripts in folders, and assign a hotkey or abbreviation to the folder to display a popup menu
  • Regular expressions can be used to filter windows by their title, to exclude hotkeys/abbreviations from triggering in certain applications
  • Scripts, phrases and folders can be attached to the tray icon menu, allowing you to select them without assigning a hotkey or abbreviation
  • AutoKey can track your usage patterns and present the most frequently used items at the top of the popup menu

By default, you have to type the phrase and press Enter to activate AutoKey, though you can easily change this in the configuration dialog (accessible through the tray icon).

Before you start using it, the Wiki is a good read,  and you can find lots of screenshots on this page.

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