ubuntu desktop
 

hello,

When ctrl alt d or the icon on the bottom left corner is pressed, it sometimes doesn't show the desktop and instead restores hidden windows. Is there a way to access the desktop directly, without only one shortcut ? I was also wondering how useful are these hidden windows (sometimes, the icon in the application bar is bar after being idle for a while).

Thanks

help?

When ever I need to get to the desktop quickly I usually hit control + alt + Right arrow key to switch to another desktop. To get back to the previous desktop hit control + alt + left arrow key. Perhaps not quite what you were looking for, but you might find it useful.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=659848

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KeyboardShortcuts

I am indeed using compiz, but that doesn't answer my question, for I don't have the same problem. The windows don't go to the edges. See the above description.

help?

up.

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What's the meaning of hidden windows? "Icon on the bottom left" means "Show Desktop" icon? Or you mean something else?

What I meant by hidden windows is windows that are greyed out in the task bar.
And yes, the icon on the bottom left" means "Show Desktop" icon, which is the same as ctrl alt d.
Just try pressing ctrl alt d at various times during the day with multiple windows open, and you'll notice that it doesn't always work at the first time.

I tried pressing ctrl+alt+d, on Kde here, it did NOTHING, I tried 10 times, still nothing. Then I right clicked the "show desktop" icon, and clicked "show desktop settings". It launched a small dialog box, which asked me to set the keyboard shortcut for the "show desktop", I noticed that previously no shortcut had been set there, so I set "Ctrl+alt+d" and bang!! Now that short cut is working very fine here.


and secondly you can also try to "change" the shortcut key to something not used by some other application and see if that works.

Hi Bob32, When you hit ctl+alt+D it works both ways. if you have windows open on your desktop it will minimise all of them and if you have them all minimised it will restore them. the problem comes when you have a few closed and a few open when the combination can work either way. if your windows get restored, just repeat it and they will get minimised.
If you want to change the combination, you can do it with the Keyboard shortcuts app in menu. I personally use "Windows" D since, it is a key that is rarely used in Linux and is the same as for windows, which means lesser learning to do. The windows key is however called a "Super" key in Linux, I know not why.