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[FritzzoD <question162577@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Question #162577 on Sikuli changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/sikuli/+question/162577

FritzzoD requested more information:
Yes, please add this feature high-priority. Poster Robert here is on the
ball when he asks this question and says "make it just so much powerful
if it could listen to keys". Indeed this, these basic features being
present, is what will get me to download Sikuli, develop in it, and
promote it.

For, do you realize that there seems to be NO cross-platform software to
do just general keyboard macro automation? --other than
http://www.ironahk.net/ and that site is full of broken links and it
would seem development has stopped. And another commercial product I
found recently, which also does similar visual recognition BTW, but that
requires running your apps thru VNC and is not free & open-source --big
drawbacks).

So I hope the developers of Sikuli are not so in love with their cute
visual recognition to forget to go back to basics when it comes to
desktop automation and include a good keyboard listener.

Yeah, it's nice that Sikuli can visually recognize buttons & such on the
screen (indeed that may certainly help to be cross-platform, as every
platform & desktop has a different windows API), but, if there is a
choice, enough work on that already! Leading alternative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoHotkey has none of that fancy stuff,
yet has been a workhorse for years, indeed is the leading open-source
solution on Windows, as starting from square-1, it has a good keyboard
listener.

And even though graphical recognition is impressive, truthfully it seems
much more important that Sikuli is using a major respectable programming
language (Python, light-years ahead of the messy one-of-a-kind hack of a
language Authhotkey uses, but, on Windows, if you want open-source
keyboard automation, that's the only real choice); and plus VERY notable
is that Sikuli is cross-platform (which almost no keyboard/macro
automation software is).

And if Sikuli just had a keyboard listener (which should be MUCH easier
that graphic recognition, and if in doubt, just copy Autohotkey), plus
(if it doesn't have these already) the ability to input & output thru
shell calls (as calling curl/wget) and save & load & manipulate the
clipboard (including WYSIWYG HTML), then you've got yourself a winner!
Hundreds of Autohotkey coders (as myself) would likely come flocking
over to Sikuli, and that's just from the Windows side.

So please don't close this question until these basic features are
added, or otherwise not until a development ticket (linked from here) is
in the works to get this done.

Thanks. And impressive job: I wouldn't be writing if I didn't think
you've got a good thing and you seem so close.

-Fellow MIT CS grad (and winner of the 6.001 programming contest, and a
few other fun MIT things :-)

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