Controlling GUI from Shell Script

Hi Everybody,

I'm trying to create a script that will launch firefox from a bash shell in ubuntu and perform certain tasks.
Why does it have to be a script? Because this firefox must eventually run in a server with xvfb (no gnome, no kde), so I will not have access to it through the GUI.
At this point I'm testing on a gnome desktop, so far launching firefox is no problem, additionally I've figured out how to perform all of the commands I need from the keyboard by means of tabs, control and alt key combinations.
My questions are:

  1. How do I script tabs, control-key and alt-key combinations in the first place?
  2. How do I script these so that they apply to the particular instance of firefox that was just launched?

Any help / samples will be greatly appreciated

Since nobody had any comments in 6 days I'm creating a thread with the same subject in a more specialized forum (shell scripts)

Hi rummage_bin,

I am trying to load a web page using telnet on a remote server and i am using firefox. But i am not able to get the right command to run so that i can load this page. Right now i am using SSH. Do i need to install vmware to get the GUI interface?

Thanks.