yalamber / robotjs

Node.js Desktop Automation.

RobotJS

Node.js Desktop Automation. Control the mouse, keyboard, and read the screen.

This is a work in progress so the exported functions could change at any time before the first stable release (1.0.0). Ideas?

RobotJS is configured for Mac and Linux, but this project will support Windows soon.

Installing

npm install robotjs

Examples

Get the mouse location and move it.

var robot = require("robotjs");

//Get the mouse position, returns an object with x and y. 
var mouse=robot.getMousePos();
console.log("Mouse is at x:" + mouse.x + " y:" + mouse.y);

//Move the mouse down by 100 pixels.
robot.moveMouse(mouse.x,mouse.y+100);

//Left click!
robot.mouseClick();

Type "Hello World".

var robot = require("robotjs");

//Type "Hello World".
robot.typeString("Hello World");

//Press enter. 
robot.keyTap("enter");

Get pixel color under the mouse.

var robot = require("robotjs");

//Get mouse position. 
var mouse=robot.getMousePos();

//Get pixel color in hex format. 
var hex = robot.getPixelColor(mouse.x, mouse.y);
console.log("#" + hex + " at x:" + mouse.x + " y:" + mouse.y);

Read the Wiki for more information!

Building

RobotJS uses node-gyp for building.

Install node-gyp using npm:

npm install -g node-gyp

Then confgure and build:

node-gyp configure
node-gyp build

Plans

• Control the mouse by changing the mouse position, left/right clicking, and dragging.
• Control the keyboard by pressing keys, holding keys down, and typing words.
• Read pixel color from the screen and capture the screen.
• Find image on screen, read pixels from image.
• Possibly include window management?

Progress

Module	Status	Notes
Mouse	100%	All planned features implemented.
Keyboard	100%	All planned features implemented.
Screen	10%	Screenshot, image search.

Story

I'm a huge fan of AutoHotkey, and I've used it for a very long time. AutoHotkey is great for automation and it can do a bunch of things that are very diffucult in other languages. For example, it's imagesearch and pixel related functions are hard to reproduce on Mac, espscially in scripting languages. These functions are great for automating apps that can't be automated like Netflix. This has never been a big deal since I've always used Windows at work, but for the past few years I've been using Mac exclusively.

I like AutoHotkey, but I like Node.js more. By developing RobotJS I get an AutoHotkey replacement on Mac (finally!), and I get to use my favorite language.

TLDR: There's nothing like AutoHotkey on Mac, so I'm making it.

License

MIT

Based on autopy. Maintained by Jason Stallings.