custom window tile shortcuts in XFCE 4.10?

imthenachoman · 2016-08-30 01:18:55

Hello. I am using Debian 8.5 (Jessie) and have XFCE 4.10 installed.

Right now the Window Manager keyboard short actions are limited to:

Tile window to the top
Tile window to the bottom
Tile window to the left
Tile window to the right

I was wondering if there is anyway to add additional options like:

Tile window to the top left
Tile window to the bottom left
Tile window to the top right
Tile window to the bottom right

I know XFCE 4.12 has the options but I was wondering if I could add them with XFCE 4.10?

ToZ · 2016-08-30 03:02:44

Unfortunately no. Corner tiling was implemented in version 4.11.3.

imthenachoman · 2016-08-30 10:22:57

ToZ wrote:

Unfortunately no. Corner tiling was implemented in version 4.11.3.

Could I add those diffs to 4.10 and recompile just the files I need?

ToZ · 2016-08-30 13:11:56

You could try, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of running a stable distribution? Plus there is no guarantee that doing it this way would not introduce some other sort of bug.

.

Another option would be to use xdotool to resize and move the active window to a given corner. Assign this command to a keyboard shortcut and you would get a sort of "corner tiling" (I say "sort of" because the current implementation of tiling in xfwm saves the pre-tiled window dimensions and restores them when you move a tiled window. This method would only tile).

To use this method, first align 4 windows in each of the corners and adjust them to fit. On my 1366x768 screen (adjusting for a 24 pixel top panel) this becomes:
Height/width of all windows:
- width = 681
- height = 351
- Top-Left coordinates:
- x = 0
- y = 20
- Top-Right coordinates:
- x = 683
- y = 20
- Bottom-Left coorindates:
- x = 0
- y = 396
- Bottom-right coordinates:
- x = 683
- y = 396

Therefore, to tile to:
- top left = "xdotool getactivewindow windowsize 681 351 windowmove 0 20"
- top right = "xdotool getactivewindow windowsize 681 351 windowmove 683 20"
- bottom left = "xdotool getactivewindow windowsize 681 351 windowmove 0 396"
- bottom right = "xdotool getactivewindow windowsize 681 351 windowmove 683 396"

Then you can assign these commands to shortcut keys.

imthenachoman · 2016-08-31 04:25:13

ToZ wrote:

Another option would be to use xdotool to resize and move the active window to a given corner. Assign this command to a keyboard shortcut and you would get a sort of "corner tiling" (I say "sort of" because the current implementation of tiling in xfwm saves the pre-tiled window dimensions and restores them when you move a tiled window. This method would only tile).

I love you. smile

Thanks. This sounds fantastic. Will try it out.

Misko_2083 · 2016-08-31 07:43:30

I've made a script to tile, based on this script https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=6841

Here's the script:

#!/bin/bash

# Get active window
method="getactivewindow"

# Select window
#method="selectwindow"

function is_desktop {
	xwininfo -id "$*" | grep '"Desktop"'
	return "$?"
}

function get_desktop_dim {
	#desktop dimensions
	if (( ${#DIM[@]} == 0 )) ; then
		DIM=(`wmctrl -d | egrep "^0" | sed 's/.*DG: \([0-9]*x[0-9]*\).*/\1/g' | sed 's/x/ /g'`)
	fi
	half_w=`expr ${DIM[0]} / 2`
        half_h=`expr ${DIM[1]} / 2`
}


function win_top_left {
	get_desktop_dim
	wid1=`xdotool $method 2>/dev/null`

	is_desktop "$wid1" && return

	commands="windowsize $wid1 $half_w $half_h"
	commands="$commands windowmove $wid1 0 0"
	commands="$commands windowactivate $wid1"

	wmctrl -i -r $wid1 -b remove,maximized_vert,maximized_horz

	echo "$commands" | xdotool -
}

function win_top_right {
	get_desktop_dim
	wid2=`xdotool $method 2>/dev/null`

	is_desktop "$wid2" && return

	commands="windowsize $wid2 $half_w $half_h"
	commands="$commands windowmove $wid2 $half_w 0"
	commands="$commands windowactivate $wid2"

	wmctrl -i -r $wid2 -b remove,maximized_vert,maximized_horz

	echo "$commands" | xdotool -
}

function win_bottom_left {
	get_desktop_dim
	wid3=`xdotool $method 2>/dev/null`

	is_desktop "$wid3" && return

	commands="windowsize $wid3 $half_w $half_h"
	commands="$commands windowmove $wid3 1 $half_h"
	commands="$commands windowactivate $wid3"

	wmctrl -i -r $wid3 -b remove,maximized_vert,maximized_horz

	echo "$commands" | xdotool -
}

function win_bottom_right {
	get_desktop_dim
	wid4=`xdotool $method 2>/dev/null`

	is_desktop "$wid4" && return

	commands="windowsize $wid4 $half_w $half_h"
	commands="$commands windowmove $wid4 $half_w $half_h"
	commands="$commands windowactivate $wid4"

	wmctrl -i -r $wid4 -b remove,maximized_vert,maximized_horz

	echo "$commands" | xdotool -
}

for command in ${@} ; do
	if [[ "$command" == "topleft" ]] ; then
		win_top_left
	elif [[ "$command" == "topright" ]] ; then
		win_top_right
	elif [[ "$command" == "bottomleft" ]] ; then
		win_bottom_left
	elif [[ "$command" == "bottomright" ]] ; then
		win_bottom_right
	fi
done

2 Methods of launching I can think of:
1. As toz said, shortcut keys
Usage example:

# top left
/path/to/script.sh topleft
# top right
/path/to/script.sh topright
# bottom left
/path/to/script.sh bottomleft
# bottom right
/path/to/script.sh bottomright

2. By using the next python script (cb-hotcorners), which launches commands on screen hot corners. This way the active window will follow the mouse pointer as you move the pointer to the window corners. wink
Script requires: wmctrl, xdotool & python-xlib
Script starts with: cb-hotcorners --daemon

#!/usr/bin/env python
# cb-hotcorners:
# A script for adding hot corners to Openbox.
# Written for CrunchBang Linux <http://crunchbang.org/>
# by Philip Newborough <corenominal@corenominal.org>
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# License:
#            DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
#                    Version 2, December 2004
#
# Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar <sam@hocevar.net>
#
# Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified
# copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long
# as the name is changed.
#
#            DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
#   TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
#
#  0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

from Xlib import display
from Xlib.ext.xtest import fake_input
from Xlib import X
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE, STDOUT
import sys, time, os, ConfigParser, re

check_intervall = 0.2

p = Popen(['xdotool','getdisplaygeometry'], stdout=PIPE, stderr=STDOUT)
Dimensions = p.communicate()
Dimensions = Dimensions[0].replace('\n', '')
Dimensions = Dimensions.split(' ')
width = int(Dimensions[0])
height = int(Dimensions[1])
hw = width / 2
rt = width - 1
bt = height - 1

def print_usage():
	print "cb-hotcorners: usage:"
	print "  --help          show this message and exit"
	print "  --kill          attempt to kill any running instances"
	print "  --daemon        run daemon and listen for cursor triggers"
	print ""
	exit()

if len(sys.argv) < 2 or sys.argv[1] == "--help":
	print_usage()

elif sys.argv[1] == "--kill":
	print "Attempting to kill any running instances..."
	os.system('pkill -9 -f cb-hotcorners')
	exit()

elif sys.argv[1] == "--daemon":
	Config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
	cfgdir = os.getenv("HOME")+"/.config/cb-hotcorners"
	rcfile = cfgdir+"/cb-hotcornersrc"
	bounce = 40
	disp = display.Display()
	root=display.Display().screen().root

	def mousepos():
		data = root.query_pointer()._data
		return data["root_x"], data["root_y"], data["mask"]

	def mousemove(x, y):
		fake_input(disp, X.MotionNotify, x=x, y=y)
		disp.sync()

	try:
		cfgfile = open(rcfile)
	except IOError as e:
		if not os.path.exists(cfgdir):
			os.makedirs(cfgdir)
		cfgfile = open(rcfile,'w')
		Config.add_section('Hot Corners')
		Config.set('Hot Corners','top_left_corner_command', 'gmrun')
		Config.set('Hot Corners','top_right_corner_command', '')
		Config.set('Hot Corners','bottom_left_corner_command', '')
		Config.set('Hot Corners','bottom_right_corner_command', '')
		Config.write(cfgfile)
		cfgfile.close()

	while True:
		Config.read(rcfile)
		time.sleep(check_intervall)
		pos = mousepos()
		
		if pos[0] == 0 and pos[1] == 0:	
			if Config.get('Hot Corners','top_left_corner_command') != '':
				time.sleep(0.2)
				pos = mousepos()
				if pos[0] == 0 and pos[1] == 0:
					mousemove(pos[0] + bounce, pos[1] + bounce)
					os.system('(' + Config.get('Hot Corners','top_left_corner_command') + ') &')
					mousemove(pos[0] + bounce, pos[1] + bounce)
					time.sleep(2)
		
		elif pos[0] == rt and pos[1] == 0:
			if Config.get('Hot Corners','top_right_corner_command') != '':
				time.sleep(0.2)
				pos = mousepos()
				if pos[0] == rt and pos[1] == 0 :
					mousemove(pos[0] - bounce, pos[1] + bounce)
					os.system('(' + Config.get('Hot Corners','top_right_corner_command') + ') &')
					mousemove(pos[0] - bounce, pos[1] + bounce)
					time.sleep(2)

		elif pos[0] == 0 and pos[1] == bt:
			if Config.get('Hot Corners','bottom_left_corner_command') != '':
				time.sleep(0.2)
				pos = mousepos()
				if pos[0] == 0 and pos[1] == bt:
					mousemove(pos[0] + bounce, pos[1] - bounce)
					os.system('(' + Config.get('Hot Corners','bottom_left_corner_command') + ') &')
					mousemove(pos[0] + bounce, pos[1] - bounce)
					time.sleep(2)

		elif pos[0] == rt and pos[1] == bt:
			if Config.get('Hot Corners','bottom_right_corner_command') != '':
				time.sleep(0.2)
				pos = mousepos()
				if pos[0] == rt and pos[1] == bt:
					mousemove(pos[0] - bounce, pos[1] - bounce)
					os.system('(' + Config.get('Hot Corners','bottom_right_corner_command') + ') &')
					mousemove(pos[0] - bounce, pos[1] - bounce)
					time.sleep(2)

else:
	print_usage()

Configuration file for this script is /home/your_username/.config/cb-hotcorner/cb-hotcornersrc
This is how to set the configuration file (just change the path and script name)

[Hot Corners]
top_left_corner_command = /path/to/tile.sh topleft
top_right_corner_command = /path/to/tile.sh topright
bottom_left_corner_command = path/to/tile.sh bottomleft
bottom_right_corner_command = path/to/tile.sh bottomright

Cheers smile

ToZ · 2016-08-31 10:27:18

Nice. Thanks.

imthenachoman · 2016-08-31 11:41:50

Misko_2083 wrote:

I've made a script to tile, based on this script https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=6841

Wow! This is awesome. Thank you so much!

Xfce Forum

Sub domains

#1 2016-08-30 01:18:55

custom window tile shortcuts in XFCE 4.10?

#2 2016-08-30 03:02:44

Re: custom window tile shortcuts in XFCE 4.10?

#3 2016-08-30 10:22:57

Re: custom window tile shortcuts in XFCE 4.10?

#4 2016-08-30 13:11:56

Re: custom window tile shortcuts in XFCE 4.10?

#5 2016-08-31 04:25:13

Re: custom window tile shortcuts in XFCE 4.10?

#6 2016-08-31 07:43:30

Re: custom window tile shortcuts in XFCE 4.10?

#7 2016-08-31 10:27:18

Re: custom window tile shortcuts in XFCE 4.10?

#8 2016-08-31 11:41:50

Re: custom window tile shortcuts in XFCE 4.10?

Board footer