Sikuli (GUI Automation Using Screenshots) Moves To Launchpad, Finally Works On Linux

Sikuli is a visual technology to search and automate graphical user interfaces (GUI) using images (screenshots) which we've covered not so long ago but which at the time of our post didn't work on Linux (but did work on Windows and Mac OS X).

Sikuli Script automates anything you see on the screen without internal API's support. You can programmatically control a web page, a desktop application running on Windows/Linux/Mac OS X, or even an iphone application running in an emulator.

Basically, you can use Sikuli to automate tasks using screenshots, like taking screenshots of buttons which you need Sikuli to press, etc. To understand what Sikuli really is, take a look at this video (everything is done automatically, by using a very simple Sikuli script):

(Choosing a terminal app for my demo was probably not the best choice, but I wanted to underline the fact that you can use screenshots and also enter text, simulate key pressing like the ENTER key, etc.)

Installing Sikuli in Linux

The latest version of Sikuli finally works on Linux (with some tweaking). To get Sikuli to work, you must install some packages. In Ubuntu, paste this in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install libcxxtools6 libcxxtools-dev libhighgui1 libhighgui-dev libcv1

To use Sikuli, simply download it (make sure you download the Linux version and that you hava Java installed), extract the downloaded archive and run the sikuli-ide.sh file inside the Sikuli-IDE folder.


Like we've told you in the title, Sikuli recently moved to Launchpad. Tsung-Hsiang, one of the Sikuli developers:

We want a place to report and discuss bugs, ask and answer questions, and also download and track the development of Sikuli.

We compared Github and Launchpad, and at last chose Launchpad over Github because Launchpad has almost everything we need, except a wiki for writing documents. But we already had a wiki in our Trac system, so this was not a big problem.

You can read an interview with Tsung-Hsiang, on the Launchpad blog.


To learn how to use Sikuli, visit it's documentation page.

For a somewhat similar application (but which does not use screenshots), see AutoKey.

Sikuli Lets You Program Your Computer Using Screenshots [Windows, Linux, Mac OS X]

Sikuli is a really interesting cross-platform (works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) application which automates tasks using screenshots. That means that you can basically program your computer to perform certain actions using scripts made of screenshots. You can also send certain keyboard keys, enter text and so on. Here is an example of a Sikuli script:

Sikuli Script automates anything you see on the screen without internal API's support. You can programmatically control a web page, a desktop application running on Windows/Linux/Mac OS X, or even an iphone application running in an emulator.

Sikuli seems like an amazing idea, however I've read that on Windows it worked for some while other had issues with it; the developers posted Mac OSX screenshots so I think Mac users will not have any issues getting it to work. I for one have tried it in Linux but it doesn't want perform any actions I program it to do. But maybe I did something wrong so I invite you to test it and share your opinion. Please note that to run Sikuli in Linux, you need to install Java6 and libcv1 (for Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install libcv1).


If you haven't quite understand what Sikuli is about, take a look at the following screencast:

Download Sikuli

[via downloadsquad]

DoThisNow Automates Tasks In Gnome

DoThisNow is a Linux (w/ Gnome) application which allows you to run tasks at a certain time, like very 5 minutes, on a week day, on a given date, etc. The tasks include: setting a wallpaper, setting the Pidgin status, taking a screenshot, launch application or file, open URL in browser, display a message, run a shell command or play a sound.

As you can see, DoThisNow looks like a bit more advanced CRON, and also comes with a GUI, another useful thing being that you can run graphical applications.

There are a lot of things you can put DoThisNow to do so if you need something done automatically, give DoThisNow a try.

Download DoThisNow (Ubuntu .deb packages and source files).

[via ubucentrum]

Create A Wallpaper Based On Your last.fm Music Profile

Windows

For Windows, there is an application for this called Gijsco’s Last.fm Desktop Generator and you can download it from HERE. Using it is very simple so I won't cover this part.

Linux

You must use Wallpaperfm.py, a Python script that generates desktop wallpapers from your last.fm music profile. It runs on Linux but should run just as well on Mac and Windows.

To generate a wallpaper using Wallpaperfm is very simple. All you have to do is open a terminal and paste the following commands:

cd
mkdir wallpaperfm
cd wallpaperfm
wget http://ledazibao.free.fr/wallpaperfm/wallpaperfm.py
chmod a+x wallpaperfm.py

You can change the folder where wallpaperfm.py is downloaded and your image is created in the commands above.

To generate your wallpaper:

./wallpaperfm.py -u YOURLASTFMUSERNAME

Obviously, you must change YOURLASTFMUSERNAME with your last.fm username.

This will create an image like this:

But that's not all wallpaperfm can do. The script can generate 3 different wallpapers. Select the one you want between 'tile', 'glass' and 'collage' with '-m' or '--Mode'. For instance, running:

./wallpaperfm.py -u YOURLASTFMUSERNAME -m collage

Will generate an image like this:

You can also tweak the canavas size, resolution, time period and many others. For info about all this, visit Wallpaperfm website.

Automatic NASA Astronomy Wallpaper [Linux]

(more examples: here, here, here)

If you enjoyed the real-time Earth wallpaper, you're going to like this one too: this is also a script (but a more advanced one) which changes automatically changes your wallpaper with a random picture from NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive.

The script automatically downloads the image and sets it as your wallpaper so after running the script, you don't have to do anything else.

For the script to automatically change your wallpaper every time you power-up your computer and boot into Linux, go to System > Administration > Startup Applications, click "Add", in the "Name" field enter whatever you want and in the "Command" field, enter the full path to the downloaded script (link at the end of the post).

Make sure you make the script executable, or else it will not work. For that, use the following command:

chmod +x 112717-random-nasa-wallpaper.pl

If you want to run the script every hour for instance, you can do it using cron. If you're not very comfortable with it, you can use Gnome-Schedule, a graphical user interface for cron:

Download Random NASA Wallpaper script