Ubuntu – Assign keyboard shortcut to program

While there isn't really a shortcut to what you asked, there are workarounds, the easiest being hitting F6 twice. The first time will take you to the URL-bar, the second will go back to the page (works in Firefox 3.6.16, didn't try Firefox 4 yet).

I know this it not really satisfying but you'll get used to it fast.

See http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Keyboard%20shortcuts#w_current-page.

Another thing mentioned on http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Accessibility#w_html-access-keys and the "proper" way is

HTML Access Keys On some web pages, keyboard shortcuts are assigned to different elements on the page. To move the cursor directly to one of these elements, press Shift+Alt+AccessKey. Which key AccessKey is depends on the website. It is determined by the website author, not Firefox.

It's declared like this <input type="text" size="40" value="Feld" accesskey="f"> so if you have this problem on a particular site just grep for accesskey in "Site Information" (STRG + I on german keyboard layout).

The command to get a fixed string into the clipboard is very easy, it's simply

xsel -ib <<< 'Your string goes here'

or if you want to read the string from a file

xsel -ib < your-file.txt

or from a command output

your-command | xsel -ib

Directly writing a fixed string by emulating keypresses is not much more complex though

xvkbd -file - <<< 'Your string goes here'

or if you want to read the string from a file

xvkbd -file your-file.txt

or from a command output

your-command | xvkbd -file -

You can simply create a custom shortcut in the System Settings → Keyboard → Shortcuts configuration and assign a command to the key combination you wish.

But take care that the shortcut interpreter is not Bash or a similar shell, so our <<< ("here string" syntax) or | pipes will not work. To solve this anyway, we simply enclose our shell command with bash -c "INSERT COMMAND HERE". Just pay attention that you don't use double quotes inside the command then.

Here are the commands how you would have to enter them into the shortcut settings:

• Copy "my string" to clipboard:

  bash -c "xsel -ib <<< 'my string'"
  

• Copy content of my-file.txt to clipboard:

  bash -c "xsel -ib < my-file.txt"
  

• Copy output of my-command to clipboard:

  bash -c "my-command | xsel -ib"
  

• Directly paste/write "my string":

  bash -c "xvkbd -file - <<< 'my string'"
  

• Directly paste/write content of my-file.txt:

  bash -c "xvkbd -file my-file.txt"
  

• Directly paste/write output of my-command:

  bash -c "my-command | xvkbd -file -"
  

Please note that neither xselnor xvkbd are installed by default, so you probably need to install them first using this command:

sudo apt-get install xsel xvkbd