Linux – How to get accurate window information (dimensions, etc.) in Linux (X)

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How can I get accurate window information in Linux? I know that I can use wmctrl to get a window's size, but the actual size of the window can vary due to window decorations. I need the following information and methods:

* precise window dimensions
* precise available screen space (excluding panels like gnome-panel)
* the ability to set a window to be a certain size, including decorations

What would be the best way to do this?

Thanks in advance!

Best Answer

There are some command line programs that might help:

xwininfo: It gets you the size of the window excluding the decoration and the position absolute (to the screen) and relative (to the area for windows)
xdpyinfo: This gives far more information about your screen-device, than you ever want to know about. But it has somewhere in the output something like screen: #0 followed by dimension: 1024x768.

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Linux – How to use command line and wmctrl to make a window larger than the screen to get a huge screenshot

Just tested with import and a window extended beyond / bigger than the screen size; and it seems import will capture an image of the same size as the big window size -- unfortunately all pixels beyond the screen size, and all pixels covered by other windows, will be black.

So maybe the only way is to use xrandr to enlarge screen size (as in 'screen pannning') - or to use something else that will provide larger screen size: for instance, "How can I take browser screenshots at a higher resolution than my browser supports? - Super User" notes:

Use Xephyr to create a nested X session

(Xephyr is apparently in sudo apt-get install xserver-xephyr in Ubuntu)

Hope this helps,
Cheers!

Edit: yup, xrandr works with the usual printscreen for me (also with import, just needs enough space for a terminal to fit, so it doesn't overlap the target window), just note the Virtual size in xorg.conf (see "xrandr: screen cannot be larger than" ...)

Linux – Abort drag-and-drop from a busy program

In fact, it is possible to do this (at least with recent versions of X).

You can do this by pressing the XF86Ungrab key, introduced in this commit.

By default, this keysym is not bound to any physical key or key combination (it was disabled in 2012 after it was reported as a security hole, since it allows anyone to bypass lock screens by breaking their grabs). On some other setups it is bound to a shortcut that uses the number pad. Obviously, that won't work on laptops that lack a keypad.

But you can still activate the keysym using xdotool:

setxkbmap -option grab:break_actions
xdotool key XF86Ungrab

This works with X.org version 2:1.11.4-0ubuntu10.8 on Ubuntu Precise.

Best Answer

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