Ubuntu – How to setup AutoKey for text auto-completion

The program emacs has a Markdown plugin that you can read about here: http://jblevins.org/projects/markdown-mode/

However, emacs has a very VERY steep learning curve as to how to use it. That page documents the shortcuts that are available, but you'll have to find other resources to find out what exactly they mean

Two options: (See my blog for more details and screenshots for option 1)

First option (much simpler)

Upgrade to the python 3 port of autokey (because python 3 deals with unicode characters better than python 2)

For me, the installation worked as follows:

# Edit (April 2018). Autokey now uses python 3 by default. So try
pip3 install autokey

# Install the original autokey
sudo apt-get install autokey-gtk
# Update autokey to python 3 using pip3  
pip3 install --user autokey-py3

Then make sure you run the python3 version, which is probably at

~/.local/bin/autokey-gtk

With this method, you can enter your unicode characters as phrases

Second option (if you can't get autokey-py3 to work)

Use a python script (File -> New -> Script) together with the system's clipboard

Paste the following into the script

import sys                                                                                                                                                              
reload(sys)                                                                                                                                                             
sys.setdefaultencoding('utf8')                                                                                                                                          
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE                                                                                                                                        

def paste_character(symbol):                                                                                                                                                   
    c = Popen(['xclip', '-selection', 'clipboard'], stdin=PIPE)                                                                                                           
    c.communicate(symbol.encode('utf-8'))                                                                                                                                 
    keyboard.send_keys('<ctrl>+v')

paste_character('γ')

This works by changing the default python settings to work with unicode correctly. It then sends the chosen character to the clipboard (ensure you have xclip installed). Here I've used γ as an example). Then it sends control+v to paste the character.

Extras for second option

The second method can be improved by taking all but the last line of the script and putting it in a file (lets call it MyCopy.py). Then, in Autokey's preferences (Script Engine), tell Autokey where this file is. Then the script becomes

from MyCopy import paste_character
paste_character('γ')

Some applications don't use control+v for paste (eg terminal uses control+shift+v). But the character will still be on the clipboard.