Hello!

I’m still using X11, and one of the things that’s keeping me there is that I make heavy use of a launch-or-focus script, so that I hit a certain hotkey and no matter what a browser/chat/editor/terminal/file-manager/etc. shows up focused on my current desktop.

In the world of Wayland, this isn’t so easy. If this can be recreated at all, I think it’ll have to be made to rely on some sort of interface to Kwin.

I don’t think it’s possible now, but might it be in the future?

Here’s my script, let’s see if the lemmy interface mangles it (EDIT: yes, the last character should be an ampersand, not &):

#!/bin/zsh -ex

# -- Usage --
# ./toggle_window.zsh LAUNCH_CMD [ WM_CLASS [ CHECK_CMD ] ]

# -- Defaults --
# WM_CLASS and CHECK_CMD each default to the value of LAUNCH_CMD

# -- Examples --
# ./toggle_window.zsh dolphin
# ./toggle_window.zsh wezterm-gui org.wezfurlong.wezterm
# ./toggle_window.zsh firefox firefox firefox-bin
# ./toggle_window.zsh \
#   'flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=telegram-desktop --file-forwarding org.telegram.desktop' \
#   telegram-desktop telegram-deskto
# Yes, "telegram-deskto" without a final p. Hmm.

# -- Dependencies --
# - procps (pgrep)
# - wmctrl
# - x11-utils (xprop)
# - xdotool

# -- TODO --
# - wayland

launch_cmd=(${(z)1})
wm_class=${2:-$1}
check_cmd=${3:-$1}

if [[ $(xprop -id $(xdotool getactivewindow) WM_CLASS) =~ \"$wm_class\" ]] {
  xdotool getactivewindow windowminimize
} else {
  wmctrl -xR $wm_class || true
}

pgrep -u $USER -x $check_cmd || exec $launch_cmd &
  • tubbadu
    8•1 year ago

    There is a way! I wrote this tool exactly for this purpose, and works on both x11/wayland: https://codeberg.org/tubbadu/ktoggle

    it writes a kwin script on a temporary file, installs it, runs it and uninstalls it. All using DBUS communication.
    it works quite well (there is just rarely an unexpected behavior I didn’t find the time to fix yet), I use it daily for lots of apps like telegram, whatsapp, qalculate and a note taking app

    once compiled and installed you can just assign to a hotkey the command

    ktoggle --class org.telegram.desktop --name telegram-desktop --program telegram-desktop

    and you’re done! read the readme to see an explanation of all available flags

    (note: this is a work in progress, I have little time to maintain it, so don’t expect it to be perfect!)

    hope this helps!

      • tubbadu
        5•1 year ago

        It was the best way I found to do it, because I couldn’t find a proper way to run a kwin script with an argument (the program name and class), so I decided to just modify the script and then install and run it, and uninstall at the end. “Install” only takes a blink, although it may be made faster, for example implementing a sort of “caching” of the last used script in order to avoid removing and reinstalling the same script, perhaps one day I’ll try to implement it. My first attempt at it was done using KWindowSystem api, but something didn’t work so I had to give up and just install the scripts. perhaps I can try again with PlasmaWindowManagement, I may be luckier