Lib.rs

Easy to use uinput wrapper for Rust.

Much faster (lower latency) than any other library for input emulation on Linux.

Allows you to send keyboard and mouse events by creating a virtual device in Linux.

uinput is a basic Linux library, so this works on any distro and on X11 or Wayland.

High-resolution events are sent for the mouse wheel, allowing smoother scrolling and better precision.

Lib is safe by design, resources are released automatically when VirtualDevice's destructor is called. Dependencies are up-to-date in contrast to other uinput libs for Rust.

Installation

To use it without sudo add the current user to input group (replace user with your username):

sudo usermod -a -G input user
sudo reboot

Libraries required

On Ubuntu and Debian:

sudo apt install libudev-dev libevdev-dev libhidapi-dev

Add to Cargo.toml

mouse-keyboard-input = "0.9.1"

To use the latest development version:

mouse-keyboard-input = { git = "https://github.com/positiveway/mouse-keyboard-input", branch = "main" }

armv7 build on linux

Build script can be found in /scripts/build_armv7.sh

cd ./scripts
sudo chmod +x ./build_armv7.sh #make script executable
./build_armv7.sh

For this to work arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc needs to be installed

For Ubuntu:

sudo apt install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi

Reboot is required after installing the package

For more details read official discussion

How to use

Functions

click(button_or_key) - click mouse button or type a key
press(button_or_key)
release(button_or_key)

smooth_move_mouse(x, y) - gradually move mouse from the current position on screen by (x, y) pixels. this method is preferred

move_mouse(x, y) - move mouse instantly
move_mouse_x(value) - move mouse instantly
move_mouse_y(value)- move mouse instantly

smooth_scroll(x, y) - gradually scroll. this method is preferred

scroll_x(value) - instantly scroll horizontally
scroll_y(value) - instantly scroll vertically

List of buttons

Mouse

BTN_LEFT - left mouse button
BTN_RIGHT - right mouse button
BTN_MIDDLE - middle mouse button

Keyboard

Key codes can be found in /src/key_codes.rs

Example:

KEY_A
KEY_LEFTSHIFT
KEY_LEFTMETA (Meta means Windows button on Linux)

Code examples

Mouse

use mouse_keyboard_input::VirtualDevice;
use mouse_keyboard_input::key_codes::*;
use std::thread;
use std::time::Duration;

fn main() {
    let mut device = VirtualDevice::default().unwrap();

    for _ in 1..3 {
        thread::sleep(Duration::from_secs(1));

        // gradually scroll down by 100
        device.smooth_scroll(0, -100).unwrap();
        // gradually move cursor 250 pixels up and 250 pixels to the right from the current position
        device.smooth_move_mouse(250, 250).unwrap();
        //click the left mouse button
        device.click(BTN_RIGHT).unwrap();
    }

    for _ in 1..2 {
        thread::sleep(Duration::from_secs(1));

        // scroll down by 100
        device.scroll_y(-100).unwrap();
        // instantly move cursor 250 pixels up and 250 pixels to the right from the current position
        device.move_mouse(250, 250).unwrap();
        //click the left mouse button
        device.click(BTN_RIGHT).unwrap();
    }
}

Keyboard

use mouse_keyboard_input::VirtualDevice;
use mouse_keyboard_input::key_codes::*;
use std::thread;
use std::time::Duration;

fn main() {
    let mut device = VirtualDevice::default().unwrap();

    thread::sleep(Duration::from_secs(2));

    // type hello
    for key in [KEY_H, KEY_E, KEY_L, KEY_L, KEY_O] {
        device.click(key).unwrap();
    }
}

Sending events from multiple threads is also supported. See /examples/channels.rs

Contributors

Based on github.com/meh/rust-uinput