NAME¶

xlax - X window system program to send keyboard input to multiple windows

SYNOPSIS¶

xlax [-find] [-prefix string] [-toolkit options]

DESCRIPTION¶

Xlax is an X Window System program that will send keyboard input it receives to multiple selected windows. When run, Xlax will bring up its main window. There will be six buttons on it, "Quit", "Add Windows", "Find xlax:", "Send String", "Paste", and "Kill Window."

"Quit" will terminate xlax and "Add windows" will change the cursor to a cross-hair and allow the user to select any window on the screen by pressing a mouse button. The user will be able to continue selecting windows until either the xlax window or a window that has already been selected, is selected.

When a window is selected, its name will appear in the xlax window. Clicking the mouse on the window name will toggle whether that window should receive input. When the user types anywhere in the xlax window, those keystrokes will be sent to all selected windows.

"Kill Window" will allow the user to select a window and remove it from xlax's list (note: the user must click on the actual window, not the name that appears in xlax).

There is a window to the right of each name, which may display text assigned to this window name. When "Send String" is selected, the specific string associated with each window will be sent to those windows. Clicking the first mouse button in this area will bring up a popup window that allows you to change the assigned text. Up to 150 characters are allowed. The software records all characters including backspace and carriage return, so there is no editing this field -- if you make a mistake, click on "Clear" to start over.

The "Paste" button sends the currently (or most recently) selected text to all active windows.

The "Find xlax:" button searches all X11 windows for those with a class hint that begins with "xlax:" (or alternately, a string specified by the user with the -prefix option). These windows are added automatically, and their sendstring is automatically set to whatever follows "xlax:" (or the alternate prefix value).

This tool tends to be useful for system administration tasks that require almost the same thing to be done in several different windows, but require some human intervention (e.g. some tape backups or building multiple servers). The string area is useful for machine or platform specific strings (such as machine names or machine type).

EXAMPLES¶

This starts up three xterms, and then xlax automatically finds them.

example% xterm -xrm 'XTerm*allowSendEvents: true' -name xlax:string1 &
[1] 555
example% xterm -xrm 'XTerm*allowSendEvents: true' -name xlax:string2 &
[2] 556
example% xterm -xrm 'XTerm*allowSendEvents: true' -name xlax:string3 &
[3] 557
example% xlax -find

If you want more than one xlax, to automatically find different windows, specify a different prefix:

example% xterm -xrm 'XTerm*allowSendEvents: true' -name foo:string1 &
[1] 555
example% xterm -xrm 'XTerm*allowSendEvents: true' -name foo:string2 &
[2] 556
example% xterm -xrm 'XTerm*allowSendEvents: true' -name bar:string3 &
[3] 557
example% xterm -xrm 'XTerm*allowSendEvents: true' -name bar:string3 &
[4] 558
example% xlax -prefix foo: -find &
[5] 559
example% xlax -prefix bar: -find &
[6] 560

ENVIRONMENT¶

DISPLAY

To get default host and display number.

CAVEATS¶

For xlax to work on an xterm, "allowSendEvents" must be enabled on the xterm. Note that this means that anyone can send keystrokes to that xterm, so this should not be run in an insecure or unmonitored environment.

BUGS¶

Probably something, but nothing that comes to mind.

SEE ALSO¶

xterm(1)

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright 1992, Frank Adelstein.