Hi Linux Guys,

I am currently running a mac with a utility called 'butler'. Butler is a shortcut tool that allows me to define a shortcut for - let's say - firefox. If I press that shortcut butler opens up firefox if it is not open yet. if I switch to another application, and press that shortcut again, the current instance of firefox will come up again (no new instance is forked). I found various window managers with support for shortcuts, but none that brings the already opened applications upfront. I am aware that alt+tab exists, but is there something that can bring up my already open application by pressing a shortcut for that application?

Thanks for any hints;
wogri

Which Desktop are you using?

In KDE, right click on the window top decoration. Select "Advanced -> Window Shortcut..."

Then enter your shortcut.
This will be a shortcut for that window, not for the application.

This thread is a little bit related:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...script.-83545/

so that change would not be permanent? this is not a viable solution for me. It's interesting that it seems that no one ever thought about this. You gain so much more speed with such a productivity tool.

so I think I got it. the clue is to use:
xbindkeys + wmctrl.
a very simple xbindkeys-example would be like this:
"wmctrl -i -a $(wmctrl -l | grep Firefox | awk '{ print $1 }')"
control+shift + x

this would allow me to switch to firefox with a predefined shortcut. this can be tweaked with simple scripts to be improved to something great, of course (like shortcuts for switching between multiple instances of the same application, opening the application if it doesn't exist yet and so on).
this will be great.