Xfce Forum

ybznek

Member

Registered: 2013-05-07

Posts: 3

Event on workspace change

Hi,
Is there any way to run script after workspace change?
I want to suspend processes on some workspace, but I cannot hook this event.
I was looking for event in dbus, but I didn't see any workspace event.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,486

Re: Event on workspace change

I don't believe that there is a built-in method that you can hook into. However, you can write your own script that watches for workspace changes then perform whatever actions you require. For example, something like (wmctrl required):

#!/bin/bash
CURRENT_WORKSPACE=$(wmctrl -d | grep \* | cut -d' ' -f1)
while true
do
   sleep 1
   NEW_WORKSPACE=$(wmctrl -d | grep \* | cut -d' ' -f1)
   if [ $CURRENT_WORKSPACE -ne $NEW_WORKSPACE ]; then 
      echo "A workspace change has occurred. $CURRENT_WORKSPACE -> $NEW_WORKSPACE"
      CURRENT_WORKSPACE=$NEW_WORKSPACE
   fi
done

Since the inadvertant running of multiple instances of a script like this will cause you trouble, I like adding a file locking mechanism to scripts of this kind so that only one instance runs. It would look like this:

#!/bin/bash

# make sure that only one instance of this script is running per user
lockfile=/tmp/.wchg.$USER.lockfile
if ( set -o noclobber; echo "locked" > "$lockfile") 2> /dev/null; then
   trap 'rm -f "$lockfile"; exit $?' INT TERM EXIT
   echo "wsp_notifyDEBUG: Locking succeeded" >&2

   CURRENT_WORKSPACE=$(wmctrl -d | grep \* | cut -d' ' -f1)
   while true
   do
      sleep 1
      NEW_WORKSPACE=$(wmctrl -d | grep \* | cut -d' ' -f1)
      if [ $CURRENT_WORKSPACE -ne $NEW_WORKSPACE ]; then 
         echo "A workspace change has occurred. $CURRENT_WORKSPACE -> $NEW_WORKSPACE"
         CURRENT_WORKSPACE=$NEW_WORKSPACE
      fi
   done

# can't create lockfile - notify user and quit
else
   echo "wsp_notifyDEBUG: Lock failed, check for existing process and/or lock file and delete - exiting." >&2
   exit 1
fi			

exit 0

CURRENT_WORKSPACE is the workspace that you are moving from and NEW_WORKSPACE is the workspace that you are moving to. Add your code in the block with the echo "A workspace has changed" command.

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