Wmacro

Wmacro is a macro recorder and automation tool for Wayland. Record, edit, and replay mouse and keyboard events, then humanize the playback so it feels like a real person at the desk. It runs natively on Wayland through the xdg-desktop-portal ScreenCast capture path, so it works on Hyprland, KDE Plasma, GNOME, Wayfire, and other compositors.

Features

Recording

Mouse: movement, clicks, drag and drop, and scrolling
Touchpad: movement, clicks, and drag and drop
Keyboard: all keys
Record, pause, and resume
Play, pause, and resume
Adjustable playback speed from 0.1x to 10.0x
Adjustable repeat count and manual delay insertion
Humanized playback with a hybrid synthetic path engine, path wobble, endpoint jitter, and curve adjustments

Scripting and flow control

Variables ($name) referenced by coordinates, durations, text, and expressions; missing variables read as 0
Calculate expressions: decimal arithmetic (+ - * / %), text concatenation (.), comparisons, a ternary operator, string literals, and function calls (abs, round, floor, ceil, min, max, clamp)
If Compare: branch on variable values with =, !=, <, >, <=, >=
If Pixel Color: branch on a pixel color at a captured coordinate
If Color Found: branch on the largest connected color region appearing within a region
If Image Found: match a target image on screen and store its position into variables
Loop / EndLoop and Else / EndIf blocks
Goto and Label with safe index-0 handling
Execute other macros from within a macro
Set / Get Clipboard: read and write the Wayland and X11 selections, including the wlroots XWayland clipboard-mirror workaround so XWayland apps (most browsers) can paste
Custom .wmr script files: a parseable text format with a full parser and serializer, saved and loaded by the GUI

Editor

Full GUI editor for creating and modifying macros
Drag and drop command reordering, selection, copy, cut, paste, duplicate
Undo and redo (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y)
Find and replace across command fields (case-insensitive)
Inline value editing: click a command's detail text to edit it in place
Live preview tooltips describing each command in full
Block analysis: foldable If / Loop blocks with orphan-block detection
Type text action for fast text input
Open File action with arguments and optional PolicyKit elevation

Appearance and customization

13 built-in themes (light and dark)
Custom themes in ~/.config/wmacro/themes/
Customizable system hotkeys (record, play, abort, step, capture)

Requirements

Runtime

A Wayland compositor with an xdg-desktop-portal ScreenCast implementation (Hyprland, KDE Plasma, GNOME, Wayfire, and wlroots-based compositors)
The uinput kernel module loaded (modprobe uinput), with read and write access to /dev/uinput
xdg-desktop-portal with the ScreenCast interface available (the primary capture path goes portal → PipeWire → DMABuf → GBM CPU readback)
slurp and grim (optional fallback for region selection and capture when the portal path is unavailable)
pkexec (PolicyKit) for the "Run as administrator" option on the Open File command
A running wmacro-daemon with the user in the wmacro group

Build

Rust toolchain (rust, cargo)
C compiler toolchain (base-devel on Arch)
pkg-config with development headers for: wayland-client, libxkbcommon, gbm, pipewire / libspa, dbus (via ashpd), and udev

Installation

Arch Linux (AUR)

Stable release:

paru -S wmacro

or

yay -S wmacro

Development version:

paru -S wmacro-git

or

yay -S wmacro-git

The package installs the daemon as a systemd service, a wmacro user, a udev rule granting /dev/uinput access, and a modules-load entry that loads the uinput kernel module at boot. After installation, complete the daemon setup.

Building from Source

If you prefer to build manually or are on a different distribution, you can compile wmacro from source with cargo.

Clone the repository and build the project:

git clone https://github.com/uint82/wmacro.git
cd wmacro
cargo build --release --workspace

Run the daemon (requires root privileges to access input devices):
```
sudo ./target/release/wmacro-daemon
```
In a separate terminal, run the GUI:
```
./target/release/wmacro-gui
```

Daemon setup

The daemon injects and reads input through uinput and evdev, and the GUI talks to it over a unix socket in /run/wmacro. For AUR installs, the package already ships the sysusers config (daemon user and groups), the udev rule, and the modules-load entry, so only two steps are needed:

Add your user to the wmacro group:
```
sudo usermod -aG wmacro $USER
```
Log out and log back in (or reboot, which also loads the uinput module), then enable and start the daemon:
```
sudo systemctl enable --now wmacro-daemon
```

If the daemon cannot open the input devices, it will log:

Ensure you are in the 'wmacro' group and the uinput module is loaded.

Usage and hotkeys

Record with the record hotkey, play with the play hotkey. Everything is visible in the GUI: the command list, the toolbox, and the status bar. System hotkeys are configurable in Settings > Hotkeys, with these defaults:

Action	Default
Record / pause	`F7`
Abort recording	`F8`
Play / pause	`F9`
Abort playback	`F10`
Step through playback	`Shift + K`
Capture coordinate	`F2`

Editor keybindings (active when the command list has focus):

Action	Keys
Select all commands	`Ctrl+A`
Copy selected	`Ctrl+C`
Cut selected	`Ctrl+X`
Paste	`Ctrl+V`
Duplicate selection	`Ctrl+D`
Undo / redo	`Ctrl+Z` / `Ctrl+Shift+Z` / `Ctrl+Y`
Move selection / extend selection	`↑` / `Shift+↑`
Move rows up / down	`Alt+↑` / `Alt+↓`
Edit selected command	`Enter`
Delete selected	`Delete` / `Backspace`
Find in macro	`Ctrl+Shift+F`
Find and replace	`Ctrl+Shift+H`
Find: next / previous match	`Enter` / `Shift+Enter`
Close find bar	`Esc`

Global and dialog shortcuts:

Action	Keys
Toggle toolbox	`Ctrl+B`
Focus toolbox search	`Ctrl+F`
Confirm dialog input	`Enter`
Close dialog / dismiss alerts	`Esc`

Screenshots

Gruvbox Dark	Gruvbox Light

Custom themes

To create a custom theme, place a .json file in ~/.config/wmacro/themes/ using the structure below. Colors must be provided in 6-character hex format (e.g., #FFFFFF).

{
  "name": "My Custom Theme",
  "is_dark": true,
  "bg_base": "#1e1e2e",
  "bg_surface": "#181825",
  "bg_element": "#313244",
  "bg_element_alt": "#45475a",
  "border": "#cba6f7",
  "text_primary": "#cdd6f4",
  "text_muted": "#a6adc8",
  "accent_primary": "#cba6f7",
  "accent_primary_fg": "#11111b",
  "accent_danger": "#f38ba8",
  "accent_danger_fg": "#11111b",
  "accent_success": "#a6e3a1",
  "accent_success_fg": "#11111b",
  "col_delay": "#f9e2af",
  "col_move": "#89b4fa",
  "col_click": "#f38ba8",
  "col_keyboard": "#cba6f7",
  "col_if": "#94e2d5",
  "col_else": "#94e2d5",
  "col_end_if": "#94e2d5",
  "col_loop": "#f5c2e7",
  "col_end_loop": "#f5c2e7",
  "col_label": "#b4befe",
  "col_goto": "#b4befe",
  "col_type_text": "#a6e3a1",
  "col_import_saved_macro": "#f38ba8",
  "col_var": "#e6b9a8",
  "col_calc": "#a8c1e6",
  "col_clipboard": "#8fd0b8"
}

Roadmap

Variables, expressions, and advanced conditions (v0.3.0)
Alternative scripting backends for macros (e.g., Python or an embedded Rust DSL)
Additional IDE themes and layout customizations
More Wayland compositor coverage

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
"Ensure you are in the 'wmacro' group and the uinput module is loaded."	Add yourself to the `wmacro` group, reboot (or run `modprobe uinput`), then restart the daemon
Screen capture returns nothing	Make sure `xdg-desktop-portal` and a ScreenCast implementation (e.g., `xdg-desktop-portal-hyprland`) are installed and running
XWayland apps paste stale clipboard text	A clipboard mirror fight with wlroots compositors can need one extra paste attempt; the daemon re-asserts the X11 selection automatically
GUI shows "backend unavailable"	The portal session may need one grant; check the daemon logs and your portal configuration

Contributing

Contributions are always welcome! If you have a feature request, bug report, or want to submit a pull request, please check the issues page on GitHub.

When submitting PRs, please ensure your code builds cleanly and follows the existing Rust conventions.

License

This project is licensed under the GPL-3.0-only License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
assets		assets
core_types		core_types
daemon		daemon
gui		gui
scripts		scripts
.gitignore		.gitignore
Cargo.lock		Cargo.lock
Cargo.toml		Cargo.toml
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md

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Wmacro

Table of Contents

Features

Recording

Scripting and flow control

Editor

Appearance and customization

Requirements

Runtime

Build

Installation

Arch Linux (AUR)

Stable release:

Development version:

Building from Source

Daemon setup

Usage and hotkeys

Screenshots

Custom themes

Roadmap

Troubleshooting

Contributing

License

About

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Wmacro

Table of Contents

Features

Recording

Scripting and flow control

Editor

Appearance and customization

Requirements

Runtime

Build

Installation

Arch Linux (AUR)

Stable release:

Development version:

Building from Source

Daemon setup

Usage and hotkeys

Screenshots

Custom themes

Roadmap

Troubleshooting

Contributing

License

About

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