Virtual Desktop Switcher

shan_nathan · 01-02-2008, 11:24 PM

Dear all,

I am using suse linux 10.1. One of my system was used to for NMS monitoring In NMS In my Linux Box we are running the application in "2" of virtual desktops. and we need to change the desktops manually. Is there any script to change the vir.Desktop's automatically every 2 minutes.

Thanks in advance
Shan

Uncle_Theodore · 01-02-2008, 11:40 PM

I think man chvt is what you want.

shan_nathan · 01-04-2008, 11:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle_Theodore

I think man chvt is what you want.

Hi,

I could not find anything on " chvt "
Because i am using KDE and i am using two desktop's "multiple desktop" option and i want to switch over between that two Desktop only.

Shan

SciYro · 01-05-2008, 11:54 AM

chvt is for switching between virtual terminals, and has nothing to do with desktops.

Virtual desktops are not a feature of X, and implemented by the window managers. As such, there is no way a separate program can ask that the desktops be changed without going thru the window manager. By going thru the window manager, your script would be tied to that specific window manager. I have no idea how the KDE window manager works, or if it will allow external programs to request desktop changes. Your best bet to finding a answer is to look thru the KDE's window manager documentation, especially the parts relating to any installed programs to see if one of them can "talk" to the running window manager and request such a change.

jozyba · 01-05-2008, 01:50 PM

Suse has a utility called wmctrl that will work with KDE. So for instance if you wanted to automatically toggle between desktop 1 and desktop 4 every 120 seconds you could run this script in the background:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

VIEW_1=0    #First desktop
VIEW_2=3    #Fourth desktop

while true; do
    CURRENT_DESKTOP=$(wmctrl -d | awk '/\*/{print $1}')
    case $CURRENT_DESKTOP in
         $VIEW_1)    wmctrl -s $VIEW_2; sleep 120 ;;
         $VIEW_2)    wmctrl -s $VIEW_1; sleep 120 ;;
               *)    wmctrl -s $VIEW_1; sleep 120 ;;
    esac
done

gnashley · 01-05-2008, 02:44 PM

If you can't find the original sources for wmctrl, you can get them here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/...l/wmctrl-1.07/

It has other interesting features as well.

jay73 · 01-06-2008, 12:55 AM

I am wondering whether devil's pie couldn't be used for this.
http://burtonini.com/blog/computers/devilspie

gnashley · 01-06-2008, 01:32 AM

I think devils pie won't work for this job. It appears to work with individual windows. wmctrl is the only one I know of that will let you switch virtual desktops from the command line, though I suspect that some other desktop switchers may be able to do so.
The OP doesn't state which window manager he is using so it's hard to tell. But there are switchers which will work with various window managers which might do the job, like the ones that are made for fluxbox, blackbox, or aewm. Still, wmctrl is probably the easoest and most versatile way to go.

shan_nathan · 01-09-2008, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jozyba

Suse has a utility called wmctrl that will work with KDE. So for instance if you wanted to automatically toggle between desktop 1 and desktop 4 every 120 seconds you could run this script in the background:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

VIEW_1=0    #First desktop
VIEW_2=3    #Fourth desktop

while true; do
    CURRENT_DESKTOP=$(wmctrl -d | awk '/\*/{print $1}')
    case $CURRENT_DESKTOP in
         $VIEW_1)    wmctrl -s $VIEW_2; sleep 120 ;;
         $VIEW_2)    wmctrl -s $VIEW_1; sleep 120 ;;
               *)    wmctrl -s $VIEW_1; sleep 120 ;;
    esac
done

Hi,
It's working Great. Thanks . Can you tell me this thing. Right now if i ran that script then i want to work in that machine means first i have to stop that process the i have to restart that process. There is any way to modify that script like this way , If a user interact means, script has to wait then after that there is no interaction for sometime means again that process should continue. Is there any possiblity for that.

Thanks in advance
Shan

jozyba · 01-09-2008, 05:31 PM

The simplest way would be to adjust the script like this:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

VIEW_1=0    #First desktop
VIEW_2=3    #Fourth desktop

CURRENT_DESKTOP=$VIEW_2

while true; do
    case $CURRENT_DESKTOP in
         $VIEW_1)    wmctrl -s $VIEW_2; sleep 120 ;;
         $VIEW_2)    wmctrl -s $VIEW_1; sleep 120 ;;
               *)                       sleep 120 ;;
    esac
    CURRENT_DESKTOP=$(wmctrl -d | awk '/\*/{print $1}')
done

Now the script will toggle between the two views every 120 seconds, but if you manually switch to a different desktop the script will sleep until you finish your work and manually switch back to one of the two "view" desktops; then it will resume.

The problem with this is that if you happen to want to pause the script on one of the two "view" desktops the script will ignore you and just carry on toggling.

I'll leave that problem for you to solve...