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almahdi

Member

Registered: 2020-07-04

Posts: 125

Any way to prevent an opened, running but minimized app get switched

Is there a way to prevent or skip certain opened, running but minimized app from getting focused (get foreground) when walking through apps focus switching by a mouse wheel scrolling or keyboard shortcut ?

Last edited by almahdi (2023-01-03 14:24:54)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: Any way to prevent an opened, running but minimized app get switched

What you want to do is set a window property to "skip pager". xdotool has an option to do this. Something like:

xdotool getactivewindow windowstate --toggle SKIP_PAGER

...this basically sets the currently active window state to skip pager. If you assign this command to a keyboard shortcut, then you can turn this state on and off for any given currently active (focused) window.

If you are looking at doing this permanently for a specific application, then devilspie or devilspie2 can help.

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almahdi

Member

Registered: 2020-07-04

Posts: 125

Re: Any way to prevent an opened, running but minimized app get switched

still couldn't do to help get it done
Need arose as:

Audio app / player is running minimizedly while a bunch of working on desktop
So when the work intensively require switching between current focused app and another minimized one, the mouse wheel is rolling on the panel bar to walk through the apps in order to restore a certain minimized one so mouse would point to that restored app to focus on it immediately..

So but then the annoying and disappointing behavior happening, it restored the player and focusing on it

Please Help really sincerely how the definitive solution !

Last edited by almahdi (2023-01-03 16:02:30)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: Any way to prevent an opened, running but minimized app get switched

The above should have worked. Did you:
- create a keyboard shortcut for that command
- press the keyboard shortcut when the audio app was the active window
- test using Alt+tab to see that it is no longer shown there?

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almahdi

Member

Registered: 2020-07-04

Posts: 125

Re: Any way to prevent an opened, running but minimized app get switched

So when the work intensively require switching between current focused app and another minimized one, the mouse wheel is rolling on the panel bar to walk through the apps in order to restore a certain minimized one

So that answer works for switch focusing, not work to fulfil the request

The gist of quote demanding need:
When The mouse wheel is rolling on the panel bar to walk through the apps in order to restore a certain minimized app, it must always skip/ignore a predetermined particular app

it's clearly another story

Nor work the found argument below which's exact opposite behavior of demand, that'd be replacing SKIP_PAGER with:

SKIP_TASKBAR
makes all open, running apps readily on desktop won't be able to get minimized

it must have argument/command in place of SKIP_PAGER, some words sort of:

SKIP_RESTORE
or
SKIP_RESTORE_OF_TASKBAR

Hint: do
$ xdotool getactivewindow windowstate
to get all possible commands/arguments

Last edited by almahdi (2023-01-03 22:54:59)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: Any way to prevent an opened, running but minimized app get switched

I'm not sure I understand. If you want it to not show up on the panel (window buttons plugin or any other dock), then you could use:

xdotool getactivewindow windowstate --toggle SKIP_TASKBAR

However, to be able to bring the program visible again, you will need to use Alt-Tab.

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Skaperen

Member

From: right by Jesus, our Saviour

Registered: 2013-06-15

Posts: 862

Re: Any way to prevent an opened, running but minimized app get switched

i keep my very active apps in different workspaces and have bound my numeric keypad numbers as shortcuts to run "wmctrl -s 5" with whatever number to switch to that workspace.  that gets me to specific active apps rather quickly.  i also like to open those apps to fullscreen, or in some cases, almost so leaving the panel visible.  i also have the workspace switcher plugin visible on the panel as an alternative way to switch.