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Comment by nilslindemann | Hacker News Reader

Fine, I will switch when your OS has Autohotkey, Total Commander, and allows me to log in as Administrator.

AHK is a pretty Windows ecosystem-specific crutch and everything it does is done in different ways in other systems. TC can be run on Wine absolutely everywhere, I used to do this on Linux for a number of years and it's perfect including plugins, although there are plenty of good FMs out there (e.g. DoubleCommander is a near-direct replacement) so feel free to try them if you just need a way to manage your files and not your specific setup in particular. Log in as Administrator... uh what? Not sure what you mean. Not requiring admin password on system-wide actions? Sure, it's trivial everywhere.

> everything it does is done in different ways in other systems.

You are not the first Linux user claiming that to me, but it is not true. you never actually tried, admit it.

> TC can be run on Wine absolutely everywhere

I just tried again on Linux Mint. The folder tabs overlay the path to the current dir and the window can just be full screen. Those are the bugs detected after a minute of usage.

> DoubleCommander is a near-direct replacement

Okay, I was just able to install that, and it seems to have what I need. So thats a valid Point, Linux has something comparable to Total Commander.

> Log in as Administrator (...) Sure, it's trivial

Yes it is, I just did that. I give you that.

Well, since you never even said what AHK feature you need it's impossible to suggest anything. Yes I used to use AHK years ago, but GUI automation is fairly alien and roundabout way of doing things on Mac and Linux. That's why I can't think of anything special about it. GUI-blind input automation and macros? There's maybe a dozen different utilities for this on every OS. If you have something specific in mind, you can say it.

> GUI automation is fairly alien and roundabout way of doing things on Mac and Linux.

That's a nice claim you just made up there, out of thin air.

> If you have something specific in mind, you can say it.

I need something to hack together a solution and then go on. I don't want to

* Create GitHub issues and hope and then wait.

* Learn how this GUI was written and fix it by modifying and compiling the source.

What I need is the ability to:

* Activate windows

* Detect the active window

* Move and rescale the active window

* Move the mouse relative to the active window

* Move the mouse absolutely to the screen (if the relative method is broken)

* Sometimes move the mouse relative to itself

* Press mouse buttons, including WheelUp, and WheelDown (and that is sent to the active window)

* press keyboard button combinations (and that is sent to the active window)

* Send text (yep, many tools can do that)

* activate menu entries in the active window

* Get the text of active menu entries in the active window

* Find icons in the active window by providing an image, rarely used, when all above attempts fail.

* Finally, define shortcuts that do combined actions of the above.

I won't walk with you through every concrete possible application, but I give an example for Scid, which is also a Linux tool. Both on Windows and Linux, it happens that the save game dialog is partly moved outside the view rectangle of my screen. No idea why that is so. I need to drag the save dialog to the middle of the screen first. AutoHotkey to the rescue:

    #HotIf exe_active("scid")  ; `exe_active` is a shortcut
    
        ^s:: {
            Send("^+s")
            WinWait("Scid: Partie speichern...")
            WinMove(19, 95, 660, 651)  ; place it over the board.
        }
        
        ; ...
    
    #HotIf

Another example. Every window manager I tested, which has "snap window to border in order to place it on half the screen" does not restore the window to full screen when I press the button left of the "close window" button. Instead, they place the window in a random position. It is not "click the middle button twice to switch between full screen and snapped position", which is the common use case. Thanks to AutoHotkey, there is a fix available on Windows: https://github.com/RamonUnch/AltSnap Edit: Okay, thats not AutoHotkey but raw C. But still that would be a use case for AutoHotkey.

I hope I’ve managed to clarify my point regarding the need for an AutoHotkey on Linux. There are simply too many bugs, idiots, and unimplemented features to get back into the flow quickly without AutoHotkey.

Just when sending this text, noticing that this site does not properly handle markdown bullet list, I found another great use case for Autohotkey, when pressing the Enter key on Hacker News ...

Window manipulation is trivial, most window managers are even natively programmable or at least support complex rulesets that don't need scripting for such basic tasks, I'm automating KWin in a similar manner for example.

There's a myriad of tools for blind input macros.

DE manipulation is generally done with DBus and CLI tools.

UI element manipulation (menus, icons, widgets) is done through a11y, with things like accerciser, dogtail, etc. AT-SPI makes it unified.

Providing an image... do you mean OCR? Use SikuliX, however that's just a Rube Goldberg machine like way to do things if you ask me. Not if deep UI automation to fix things is any better, though.

And of course you can script all that in any industry standard scripting language instead of janky DSLs.

>Just when sending this text, noticing that this site does not properly handle markdown bullet list, I found another great use case for Autohotkey, when pressing the Enter key on Hacker News ...

I think that's easier done with a userscript.

Thank you, dick from the internet, for these links, which are not as relevant as you think they are. I will prefer my yanky, well-documented DSL. I think you are right with the userscript.

xdotool and wmctrl is what you need

Interesting, but isn't Wayland the future? Edit: I see it links to alternatives to that, like ydotool and dotool. But these do not seem to be active, well documented projects. Far away from the usability of AutoHotkey.

Double Commander is pretty good: https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/

It's cross-platform, so could switch file manager on Windows first to make it easier to switch to Linux later.

It is not listed in the Linux Mint App Installer. The Portables downloaded from Sourcefoge do not work. Can it filter-as-you-type the file list? Does it have chainable script button bars? Is there a poweful rename tool? Can it look pretty (example: https://i.imgur.com/tLt5B1m.png)?

> It is not listed in the Linux Mint App Installer. The Portables downloaded from Sourcefoge do not work.

It's packaged in Debian and Ubuntu as "doublecmd-qt" and "doublecmd-gtk", so Linux Mint ought to have it as well.

> Can it filter-as-you-type the file list?

Yes.

> Does it have chainable script button bars?

I don't know what that is.

> Is there a poweful rename tool?

There's a Multi-Rename Tool, yes.

> Can it look pretty

You'll have to be the judge of that. It looks good to me. It uses the Lazarus component library, so it can be built with either Qt or GTK (or native win32 on Windows) and uses whatever themes and configuration applies to those.

> It's packaged in Debian and Ubuntu as "doublecmd-qt" and "doublecmd-gtk"

Ah, I found it now. I must have misspelled it, just saw the language files earlier. Yes, this seems to be a valid alternative to Total Commander. It has what I need, including script buttons, very nice. There are still a few bugs, like the buttons are currently all light grey. I will see if I can resolve that. Thanks for this tip.

The couple times I tried it froze or crashed while doing ordinary things like copying files.

Oh, I also need a way to compile CodeBrowser 4.9 [1]

[1] https://github.com/nilslindemann/Code_Browser_49

If you need Autohotkey you can still run that under wine (if you are ahk on windows applications), you can run total commander under wine. You can log in as admin I think its time to make the switch

If they’re running auto hotkey they’re also likely gamers, likely needing to run games that either can’t emulate or lose performance when running via proton or wine. AKA, this advice, like most “switch to Linux” advice, is tone deaf.

Not sure why you think it's gaming related but fine, I just don't think AHK can do anything special. OP sounds rather like he's trying to find gotchas and justify staying on Windows, not genuinely find the replacement, which is also a thing in these discussions (see his adjacent post with a vague dismissal, I personally used a heavy TC setup under Wine and it was indistinguishable even 15 years ago). All these features are either readily available or the apps themselves are Wine-ified with no performance loss, I have tried that and I don't think you have. All you need to switch to Linux or Mac is overcoming some friction which is of course inevitable, but utility software like this is definitely not a hard blocker.

The points I made were valid blocks for using Linux exclusively. Like the other dude answering, I wonder if you ever used Autohotkey to unfuck annoyances in software. I bet you have no clue at all. Regarding your other improvement suggestions, yes, it is actually easy to log in as administrator, and yes, DoubleCommander is a great alternative. You people are right about that. No, Total Commander does not run smooth under Wine, at least on Linux Mint. No, there is no good replacement for AutHotkey. You people are wrong about that. <Homer Simpson Voice>so far</Homer Simpson Voice>.

> wonder if you ever used Autohotkey to unfuck annoyances in software.

Sure I did, but what particular annoyances in what software that you want to take with you into another ecosystem? I just don't get it, as you're being vague about it. Every environment has its own ways to solve your actual goals, and has its own quirks that need entirely different workarounds, not necessarily AHK.

See my answer to user orbital-decay above.

I have extensively used AHK for workarounds with annoying software. Generally, it's probably the worst class in terms of a workaround if you had something specific in mind with a bit of effort you could solve this now with AI tooling to write your something that does that specific behaivour anyways.

The only valid holdup for Linux at this point is kernel anticheats and some larger commercial software that is deeply engrained in the windows ecosystem eg most desktop offline CAD software. But once again AI is going to help you get that running under wine. I am already working on a series of wine patches and a custom runner to allow me to run ProE/Creo under wine without issues.

Game performance under wine with Linux is near native. I have zero issues playing games that are "allowed" to run under wine.

I tested these things and the results were not so great. Also, if I need to emulate my OS under wine, then I can as well just use it directly.

The only Linux Software I miss on Windows is Timeshift. Thats not enough.

Edit: I just have set up root login on Linux Mint. Okay, thats actually not much more difficult than on Windows.

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