Xfce Forum

markling

Member

Registered: 2012-01-19

Posts: 37

All app windows minimised + *disappeared* on all workspaces!

I've no idea how it happened, or even when it happened, but all the app windows disappeared from all my workspaces and now it seems I can't get them back without laborious reconstruction of my working environment. Is there a shortcut to put them all back where they came from?

Xfce workspaces, by the way, are brilliant. The Workspace Switcher is marvellous. It's drag-and-drop and keyboard navigation is superb. I have *lots* of workspaces. I have lots of windows open on lots of workspaces. Let's just say it's tens of workspaces. I have a lot of projects on the go at any one time, with various branches. Xfce workspaces makes it possible. That and lots of ram.

So I popped away from my computer a short while ago, and when I popped back I found every window minimised on every desktop. They also all disappeared from the workspace manager. The only place I can see them is in the Windows Buttons desktop plugin.

There seem to be only two ways to restore them and neither is desirable. One is to use Alt-tab to cycle the missing windows back into being. But this means visiting every workspace, one-by-one, and bringing every window back on every workspace, one-by-one.

The other is selecting each window, one-by-one, in the Window Buttons desktop plugin, and right-clicking and selecting 'unminimise'. There's a problem with that though, because that unminimses them not back to where they were but back to whatever workspace I happen to be on. And since I do not know precisely which windows were on which workspaces when I organised them, I will have to reconstruct my workspaces piecemeal with a degree of painstaking care that is best reserved for more important things like defusing bombs and making cathedrals out of matchsticks. That's clearly not feasible.

The Windows Buttons plugin does have an option to 'Restore Minimised Windows to the Current Workspace'. But it seems to do that even when the option is not ticked.

The Windows Buttons plugin also has an option to group windows, which would be marvellous if it included the option to group them by workspace. It seems only able to group by type. I tried just unminimising all 27 Thunar windows and it brought them all into the current workspace. If only it would restore a whole workspace, or all workspaces, as they were.

The Workspace Switcher would be even more marvellous than it already is if it allowed you to drag and drop all the windows on a workspace to another workspace, or even to ctrl-select them.

Much Thanks

nPHYN1T3

Member

Registered: 2020-01-07

Posts: 31

Re: All app windows minimised + *disappeared* on all workspaces!

So when I read this I thought it would be the panels window buttons plug in but you've covered that. So my first question is when you "went away" and came back had the screen blanked? locked? Gone for ice cream? Which is to say I run 6 screens and several workspaces and have never seen such a behavior which makes me wonder if lightlocker isn't the culprate since I don't run it and I believe it's the default.

So if the screen locked in the time being what locked it? If it was locked by something have you tried disabling it and reproducing the issue? If it was the issue can you move to something else? I used gnome-screensaver for a while but nothing is perfect for me but lightlocker is just horrid so I am back to plain 'ol xscreensaver these days.

I may be ignorant of a few things here but I was also under the misguided notion for years that saving your sessions would also "memorize" all the running applications, where on the screens, which workspace etc but it's never seemed to do that. I ended up writing a script with wmctrl to automate my machine logging in, going to sleep and waking to kill, relaunch, place things on the correct screens/workspaces.

I was thinking the script idea is a pita to most and not super helpful if your work is very dynamic. Mine is pretty static where in code is workspace 1, 2 is audio/DAW, 3 network / server admin etc. All the windows pretty much go in the same place. However if your work is super dynamic you could maybe work out something with wmctrl -lG and dump that into a file. Make that script run with you lock your workstation or screensaver kicks in then have it restore everything based on the dump each time you come back. Hell of a lot more dynamic that what I have.

Last edited by nPHYN1T3 (2020-02-06 19:20:32)