I first started using Linux through Debian yesterday, and so far so good. However, something that's pretty essential to how I use my computer is the various shortcuts AutoHotKey provided in Windows.

In AutoHotKey, I had a script that would play a short MP3 file, located in my files, every 20 minutes, which was an alarm-notice for me; I had various text-replacement tools, that enabled me to enter long strings of text wherever I happened to be typing by just typing an arbitrary code-phrase and pressing Space; and I had macros that would do things like run a Java-file from the Command Prompt just by pressing F9.

I've seen that there are programmes available called "sxhdk" and "xdotool". But trying to find tutorials for these is proving to be very difficult. The YouTube guides are bad, honestly, intentionally or unintentionally assuming a lot of prior experience and knowledge from the viewer, rushing through things, and just generally made by people who have little to know teaching-sense nor inclination for it. I've had little better luck trying to find manuals for these programmes on the internet otherwise.

I'm aware of how tempting it is for people with knowledge of IT to just hurl esoteric terms at learners in order to baffle them rather than to help them and to implicitly tell them to "figure it out yourself, or go and submit to Microsoft or Apple. I'm not telling you anything!"--it's the whole 'knowledge is power' complex that's existed since the dawn of time and isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

I hope there are sympathetic people here regardless.

Hello _galen & welcome to LQ.

I'm not the last word, but I have never heard of a linux equivalent to what you describe. You're coming to linux from windows because it's secure & doesn't get hacked, or it doesn't crash. And it's free.

Copy & paste we have. Just about everything else, we don't. Many screens lock and require your password to unlock them. Everything has permissions. I can do anything in my own directory, and to things I own. I can read most (but not all) things and run some programs. The idea of letting a keyboard shortcut run some random script or program is NOT secure.

OTOH, scripting is very powerful. You can write your own scripts to do stuff.

EDIT: In nearly all systems, Alt_F2 allows you to enter any command. You can create a desktop shortcut to any command.

https://github.com/autokey/autokey, https://github.com/phil294/AHK_X11

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@business_kid Thanks for that brief, it gave me some perspective.

Thank you very much, that looks much more promising, and the manuals look to be good also.