Get an expose view of the workspaces in Xfce – skippy-xd, bl-hotcorner

Odysseus · 2026-01-22 17:08:03

This is how to get in Xfce an expose view of all the workspaces with their opened windows, or an expose view of all the windows opened in the current workspace.

Being a layman in computers I painfully succeeded into enabling all this, made a memento, and thought it could be useful to someone.

I used my MX Linux system: MX-25.1_x64 Infinity Nov 9 2025 (Xfce 4.20.1).

EXPOSE VIEW – SKIPPY-XD

Skippy-xd is a software initially provided by richardgv, which was unmaintained and has been revived by felixfung.

The new site:

https://github.com/felixfung/skippy-xd

The readme:

https://github.com/felixfung/skippy-xd/ … /README.md

The How-to-Use:

https://github.com/felixfung/skippy-xd/wiki/How-to-Use

There is a package in the MX repositories:

APT-Sources: https://mirrors.ircam.fr/pub/mx/packages/mx/repo trixie/main amd64 Packages

philippe@Odysseus:~
$ apt show skippy-xd
Package: skippy-xd
Version: 2025.08.16-1~mx25
Priority: optional
Section: x11
Maintainer: Timothy E. Harris <maintainer@mxrepo.com>
Original-Maintainer: Liviu Andronic <landronimirc@gmail.com>
Installed-Size: 236 kB
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.38), libgif7 (>= 5.1), libjpeg62-turbo (>= 1.3.1), libpng16-16t64 (>= 1.6.46),>
Homepage: https://github.com/felixfung/skippy-xd
Download-Size: 82,5 kB
APT-Manual-Installed: yes
APT-Sources: https://mirrors.ircam.fr/pub/mx/packages/mx/repo trixie/main amd64 Packages
Description: standalone composited Exposé-like window picker for X11
 Skippy-XD is a program that provides Exposé-like features found on the Mac
 OS X operating system. It is a standalone application for providing a window
 picker with live previews (including live video) on Linux desktops that run
 an X server with compositing support. Thus it is not part of the window
 manager, and the compositing is not being used all the time.
 .
 If you work with many windows, your desktop may begin to get cluttered.  You
 can use Skippy-XD to quickly and conveniently find the right window that you
 are looking for. It allows you to press a hotkey and see miniature versions
 of all your active windows at once.
 .
 To use Skippy-XD, you need Xfce (xfwm4) or a NetWM compliant window
 manager (LXDE, Openbox-based window managers, etc.).

Install the package:

sudo apt install skippy-xd

In Session and Startup, create a line with the command:

skippy-xd --start-daemon

Download the default configuration file there:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Skippy?action=A … rc-default

The text of the file is:

# Copy this to ~/.skippy-xd.rc and edit it to your liking
#
# Notes:
#
# - keysym can be anything XStringToKeysym can handle
#   (like F11, KP_Enter or implementation specific keysyms)
#
# - colors can be anything XAllocNamedColor can handle
#   (like "black" or "#000000")
#
# - distance is a relative number, and is scaled according to the scale
#   factor applied to windows
#
# - fonts are Xft font descriptions
#
# - booleans are "true" or anything but "true" (-> false)
#
# - opacity is an integer in the range of 0-255
#
# - brighness is a floating point number (with 0.0 as neutral)
#
# - if the update frequency is a negative value, the mini-windows will only
#   be updated when they're explicitly rendered (like, when they gain or
#   lose focus).
#
# - the 'shadowText' option can be a color or 'none', in which case the
#   drop-shadow effect is disabled
#

[general]
keysym = F11
distance = 50
useNetWMFullscreen = true
ignoreSkipTaskbar = true
updateFreq = 10.0
lazyTrans = false

[xinerama]
showAll = false

[normal]
tint = black
tintOpacity = 0
opacity = 200

[highlight]
tint = #101020
tintOpacity = 64
opacity = 255

[tooltip]
show = true
border = #e0e0e0
background = #404040
opacity = 128
text = #e0e0e0
textShadow = black
font = fixed-11:weight=bold

Copy it as skippy-xd.rc in:

/home/USER_NAME/.config/skippy-xd/

In Keyboard / Applications Shortcuts, create 2 shortcuts for:

—— View of all the opened windows of the current workspace:

skippy-xd --expose Ctrl-Down Arrow

—— View of all the workspaces with their opened windows:

skippy-xd --paging Ctrl-Up Arrow

HOT CORNERS – BL-HOTCORNERS-PYTHON3

The hot corners enable you to trigger a command by bringing the pointer to a corner of the screen.

The script written by Philip Newborough has been converted to python3 and completed and is provided by capn-damo there:

https://github.com/capn-damo/scripts/bl … rs-python3

Warning: one can fell upon the ancient version of the same script for python2.7. It could not work for me, even after creating a link from python2.7 to python3.13 in /usr/bin (by default there already is a link from python3 to python3.13).

Are required the packages (to be installed if not already present):

python3 python3-xlib wmctrl xdotool

Copy the script in /usr/bin and give it authorisation to be executed.

Run:

bl-hotcorners-python3 --daemon &

This creates a configuration file:

/home/USER_NAME/.config/bl-hotcorners/bl-hotcornersrc

In this file, change the settings for:

top_left_corner_command = skippy-xd --paging
top_right_corner_command = skippy-xd --expose
bottom_left_corner_command =
bottom_right_corner_command =

In Session and Startup, create a line with the command:

bl-hotcorners-python3 --daemon

Now by bringing the pointer to the top left corner, you get the paging view (all the workspaces), and to the top right corner the expose view (all the windows of the current workspace).

———————————————————————————————————————
Added later 15 h 26 min 54 s:

EDIT ——— WITH USE, it appears that the display of the windows in Skippy-xd is uncertain and unpredictable because sometimes the workspace picture is displayed without the windows inside it.

The script bl-hotcorners-python3 for the hot corners, on the contrary, work perfectly well.

I have though change the parameter corner_delay in the config file /home/philippe/.config/bl-hotcorners/ to zero so that the view of the workspaces may appear at once.

The hot corners may be used with the command xfdesktop --windowlist which makes a list (a list here and not pictures) of all the workspaces and the windows to appear under the pointer (one may also create a keyboard shortcut for this).

Last edited by Odysseus (2026-01-23 08:37:25)

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Get an expose view of the workspaces in Xfce – skippy-xd, bl-hotcorner

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