[texhax] controlling pdf reader (was Re: beamer and "Read out loud")

[Tom Schneider]

James:

> OK. You didn't reply yet as to what platform you're using.

I'm on OS X these days, but to me it's just another Unix OS so I don't
like Mac specific solutions.

> But with Linux, all you need do is:
> 
> (i) Install xdotool which you can grab from:
> 
>    http://www.semicomplete.com/projects/xdotool

They claim it works on Macs too ...

> The description from its manual page reads:
> 
> xdotool lets you programatically (or manually) simulate keyboard input and 
> mouse activity, move and resize windows, etc. It does this
>        using X11's XTEST extension and other Xlib functions.
> 
> 
> (ii) Add the following perl to your atchange script:
> 
> my $wid= (`xdotool search --title "Adobe Reader"`)[0]; chomp $wid;
> system("xdotool key --window $wid ctrl+r");
> 
> The first line will get the window used by AR. Note xdotool may return 
> more than one window so we grab the first one and get rid of the line 
> separator. The second line then sends the reload short-cut to the target 
> window.
> 
> I've tested it at my end (OpenSUSE 10.3+KDE+AR9.3.2) and
> it works quite nicely, but I've yet to fully explore
> xdotool so I can't comment on any foibles it might have.

Thanks for the tip!

Tom

  Thomas D. Schneider, Ph.D.
  National Institutes of Health
  schneidt at mail.nih.gov
  toms at alum.mit.edu (permanent)
  http://alum.mit.edu/www/toms (permanent)