Linux – How to make a launch command set focus to an already running app instance in ubuntu / linux

application-launchcommand linelinuxUbuntu

I'm using a program called easystroke to invoke commands from mouse gestures – typically to launch an application. 'gnome-terminal', for example. If I already have a gnome-terminal window open, and I invoke the gnome-terminal gesture, I'd like to be setting focus to the already running instance, rather than spawn a new instance, which is of course what happens now. (I am actually more interested in this for my gmail chrome app shortcut, and other larger apps.)

I'm very new to ubuntu and linux in general, but I was hoping there might be a nifty command I could wrap around my launch command that would produce this behavior. (I'm imagining some kind of singleton app list keeper program that consumes my command line, checks if it's already in the list, transfers focus to the running process if it is (and if that process is still running), or else spawns a new process and then adds it to its list using the the command line as a key.)

Best Answer

I've written a small program called jumpapp for exactly this purpose. It lets you use one command to opens a new application the first time you run it, and to switch to the already open window any time you run it after that. As a bonus, if you have multiple windows open for the application, repeatedly running the command will cycle through all the application's windows.

Usage: jumpapp [OPTION]... COMMAND [ARG]...

Jump to (focus) the first open window for an application, if it's running.
Otherwise, launch COMMAND (with opitonal ARGs) to start the application.

Under-the-hood, jumpapp locates application windows using two methods: 1) it gets all running pids for COMMAND and looks for windows with a matching _NET_WM_PID, and 2) it looks for windows with a WM_CLASS that matches COMMAND.

If you want to try it out, it's easy to install from source, or you can install it from my PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkropat/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install jumpapp

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Making gvim ‘instance-only’

I want to make gvim be 'instance-only', i.e., know of an option or something that opens the file as a tab on my already-open gvim instance instead of opening a new one.

Allow me to just clarify something here ... in vim, tabs are not what people would expect them to be. In most programs they are an "instance" of a file (one tab/one file), but in vim they are merely a "viewpoint" into which you can have several vim windows, each one holding whatever you put in it.

Vim, when opening a file, opens it in a buffer. One buffer for every file. You can view the list of opened buffers with

:ls

Example to clarify: suppose I have a gvim window open with one file, module1.c. Supposing I'm on a terminal, what command do I have to enter in order to make 'module2.c' open in the same window that now has module1.c?

Again, we have a terminology problem. For the sake of discussion, I'll assume you mean "window" as in a windows window, and not a vim internal window. If you wish to open a file in an already opened gvim instance try

gvim first_file.dat
gvim --remote-tab second_file.dat

This can easily be shortened by putting it in a .bat file (if you're on windows), and then you don't have to type the "--..." part over and over again.

PS: I'm aware that there's a -p option that allows me to open multiple files in multiple tabs. But what I'm looking for is a way to open a new tab from OUTSIDE gvim AFTER it is running already.

Interesting, I didn't know about that one :)

How to do it? Is it even possible?

Tell if that is what you were looking for.

Command-Line – Option to Open Chrome in New Window and Move Focus

try this one

start chrome /new-window www.google.com

opens google.com in a new instance of chrome.

Best Answer

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Command-Line – Option to Open Chrome in New Window and Move Focus

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