In KDE, how can I create a custom keyboard shortcut that prints the current date?

Question

I often need to print the current date in lots of different programs. Right now, I always type it per hand which is error prone. I'm using KDE 4.8, and it has customisable keyboard shortcuts. For example, it is possible to create keyboard shortcuts that print out a predefined string. But is it somehow possible to print out the output of some executable to the keyboard?

Answer 1

I don't use KDE (I use Gnome), but this may help:

You'll need a program called xte from the xautomation package.

Create a bash script with this in it:

#!/bin/bash
xte "str `date +%D`"

Save it and make it executable.

Create a keyboard shortcut in KDE that launches your script.

Now all you have to do is type your keyboard shortcut in any program and it will type out the date for you!

EDIT: If you have trouble getting this to work (like I had), try adding a short delay before the script runs xte:

#!/bin/bash
sleep 0.3
xte "str `date +%D`"