GNU Xnee 3.09 (‘Moore’) released

Posted on 2011/02/26 by sandklef

We are pleased to announce the availability of GNU Xnee 3.09

GNU Xnee is a suite of programs that can record, replay and distribute user actions under the X11 environment. Think of it as a robot that can imitate the job you just did. GNU Xnee can be used to:

Automate tests
Demonstrate programs
Distribute actions
Record and replay ‘macro’
Retype the content of a file

Getting the Software

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xnee/xnee-3.09.tar.gz
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xnee/xnee-3.09.tar.gz.sig

or one of the mirror sites as found in:

http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html

Checksums

md5sum:
c59b875a522dc71be545921c30a0c807 xnee-3.09.tar.gz

cksum:
111533042 1782493 xnee-3.09.tar.gz

New in this release

* Fixed bugs:

Reported on Savannah:
#31231: Replay in demo mode malfunctions
#28238: XI2 extension support
#28431: Separate tests needing a running X server
#32291: Xnee fails checking gtk.h
#28242: Missing makeinfo dep in configure

Reported on xnee-devel mailing list:
cnee loves Xephyr ?
lists.gnu.org/archive/html/xnee-devel/2011-02/msg00000.html

Debian bug report:
# 613237 “3.08 is available which works fine in unstable”

About calling the release “Moore”

Following the tradition to pay tribute to old heroes who have passed away this release is named after Gary Moore. I used to listen to Thin Lizzy and from there I discovered Moore. Somewhere in a box somewhere I have a shaped picture 12″ vinyl of Shapes of things. This song is written by Yardbirds member so I discovered them through Moore ….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_moore

GNU Xnee 3.07 released

Posted on 2010/10/20 by sandklef

We are pleased to announce the availability of GNU Xnee 3.07

GNU Xnee is a suite of programs that can record, replay and distribute
user actions under the X11 environment. Think of it as a robot that can
imitate the job you just did. GNU Xnee can be used to:
 Automate tests
 Demonstrate programs
 Distribute actions
 Record and replay 'macro'
 Retype the content of a file

Getting the Software
====================

 http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xnee/xnee-3.07.tar.gz
 http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/xnee/xnee-3.07.tar.gz.sig

or one of the mirror sites as found in:

 http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html

Checksums
===========

 md5sum:
 f9fca0c7475a90487c86eca2027d0fcd  xnee-3.07.tar.gz

 cksum:
 510662476 1779830 xnee-3.07.tar.gz

New in this release
===================

 * New features:
 Supports recording xnd replaying of XInput device events
 * Forced replaying of X11 core events can be done
 * Backward compatible with old session files

 * Build changes:

 --enable-man
 Checks for makeinfo once, uses result many times
 Can build guis and manual without all doc stuff

 --disable-xinput2
 By default Xnee is built with XI support

 Looks for gtk-config when configuring
 Checks for makeinfo once, uses result many times
 Can build guis and manual without all doc stuff

 * Issues
 Human printout of X Input events needs more work
 Need to make X Input code be totally ifdefed away

 * New options:
 --force-core-replay,-fcr
 Discard recorded X Input device data,
 use recorded core device data

 --disable-xinput-events
 Disable recording of XInput events

 * Fixed bugs as reported on ubuntuforums:
 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1253453&highlight=xnee

 savannah bug: #30134 "Missing xnee.xpm in gnee"
 savannah bug: #30136 "Configure misses to check for gnome.h"

 * Reported problems on N900 are fixed

 * Patches from Tuukka Pasanen, Fabian Keil

 * Experimental and undocumented features (read the source):
 * replay backend
 * xswine - new swinput backend for Xnee

Call for testers: Xnee 3.06.96 (in prep for 3.07)

Posted on 2010/09/27 by sandklef

 Support for X Input* has been added to GNU Xnee. Tests have been performed on:
     Debian Lenny
     Ubuntu 10.04
     Mameo , N900
and things (finally) seems to be working.

Building
---------------
Download:
    http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/xnee/xnee-3.06.96.tar.gz

... unpack and build: tar zxvf /home/hesa/gnu/xnee/xnee-3.06.96.tar.gz cd xnee-3.06.96/ ./configure --disable-gui --disable-gnome-applet --enable-xinput2 && make

Before releasing 3.07 it would be great to have some more tests done on other environments. If you can, here's some test cases:

Preparation:
-----------------------------
Execute:
    ./cnee/src/cnee --record --mouse --keyboard -o test-xi.xns -sk q

Move mouse, press and release some keys, ... stop recording by pressing q

Test case 1 "XI Replay":
-----------------------------
    ./cnee/src/cnee --replay -f test-xi.xns

Test case 2 "Core Replay":
-----------------------------
    ./cnee/src/cnee --replay -f test-xi.xns  --force-core-replay

Send feedback to http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-xnee  (or to me and I'll compile and anonymize your report and forward it to the list)

*) Multi-touch, multiple input devices ....

xswine: new program for the GNU Xnee suite

Posted on 2010/09/18 by sandklef

I been writing a small program, xswine, that can take a recorded GNU Xnee session file and replay that to swinput . Swinput had its share of changes and a new swinput release will see the light of day any day. The difference betwen replaying using swinput compared to replaying using Xnee itself is that swinput fakes the device events from the kernel and Xnee fakes at X11 level using XTest.

There’s a some questions that need to be solved before a proper xswine release, such as:

how to map the device id as recorded from X Input Extension to the “correct” input device as presented by swinput
timing – what do we do when we drift away from the start time, but want to keep the recorded diff between events

Currently there’s not much of the recorded X11 events that can be replayed. Here’s the current list:

X11 motion event – no
X11 button event – no
X11 key event – no
X Input device motion event – yes!!!
X Input device button event – no
X Input device key event – no

This means xswine can replay (using the kernel) recorded Multi-touch events!

But if that’s all xswine can do do, why do I bother writing a blog entry. Two reasons:

nobody reads my blog…so nobody will complain about this blog post
I want to “claim” the name xswine

So, what does xswine mean?

X – is for Xnee

swin – is for Swinput

e – dear reader of this blog (just claimed I had zero readers!), help me out … what should e stand for?

If you compile GNU Xnee and swinput (and install) from CVS HEAD you should be able to do:

sudo modprobe swmouse devs=4 && sudo chmod a+rwx /dev/swmouse*

./cnee/src/cnee --record --mouse -o whoa-mule.xns

cat whoa-mule.xns | ./xswine/xswine

Cnee records (partly) on N900/maemo

Posted on 2010/09/13 by sandklef

Some progress have been made on the work to make cnee (part of GNU Xnee) work on the N900. Earlier I reported that replaying works.

Now recording of mouse clicks (press, release) and key press and release works. But, MotionEvent cannot be recorded…. Feels like diving into the X server of N900 is the thing to do.But before that I shall report back to this: http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-developers/2010-July/027097.html

If you want to test the last cnee for maemo, here’s a binary built from CVS HEAD 2010-09-12 23.50 (ish):

http://itupw056.itu.chalmers.se/xnee/special-dist/maemo/20100913/cnee

Preparing GNU Xnee 3.06 (and testing new XI2 features)

Posted on 2010/05/24 by sandklef

It’s been a while since the RECORD problems was found. Anyhow, now they’re solved (in Xorg) and GNU Xnee is now working as it should (given you’re using CVS HEAD and the latest Xorg server). I’ll start preparing a GNU Xnee 3.06 right away.

If you’re checking out the branch: xinput2-support ( http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/xnee/?root=xnee&pathrev=xinput2-support ) you should be able to see the latest happenings when it comes to supporting XInput Extension (especially multiple input devices). I’ve just finished testing 8 (faked using swinput) faked “mouses”. Some 300 000 events were sent and all went fine so we’re actually making some progress here as well.

FOSDEM – here we go

Posted on 2010/02/05 by sandklef

… having finished a hectic period I must say that leaving for FOSDEM tomorrow morning feels great. I will team up with Daniel Stenberg, Magnus Hagander and of course some GNUs, I know that some of the people at last year’s GNU Hackers Meeting (held the days before FSCONS) will come over to FOSDEM as well . Going to be great meeting Brian Gough and Jose E. Marchesi while I am not stressed of work overload, GHM planning and FSCONS planning. Brian and Jose were organising the GNU Hackers Meeting with me. … and as always I’ll team up with the FSFE folks.

As for the presentations I will surely go and see:

Sylvain Beucler talk about GNU Savannah: 100% free software mass-hosting

a topic I find interesting for many reasons, more on that later

Daniel Stenberg talk about Rockbox: open source firmware replacement for music players

since I missed Daniel talk about this at FSCONS. As a FSCONS organiser I can’t just sit

Mirko Lindner, Jon Phillips talk about Copyleft Hardware and the Ben Nanonote

I missed Mirko’s presentation at FSCONS as well …. always on the move at FSCONS

And, of course I hope I will be able to do some business (Sandklef GNU Labs) down there. During some breaks I will prepare some presentations at “my” University next week and also prepare a Free Software presentation for a company later on in February (more on that later).

This year I’ll be traveling with Andreas Nilsson and Jeremiah Foster. Same procedure as last year…

see you there

… did you see how I managed to mention FSCONS 6 times (including that very last)