Ubuntu – How to make show desktop work only on the current workspace

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I am an active user of workspaces in Ubuntu. Until recently, pressing Ctrl+Alt+D (show desktop) acted only on the current workspace.

For example, one might want to minimize the applications in the current workspace, open a file, and then bring some of them back. The current implementation works on all workspaces uniformly which is counter-intuitive to me. The reason for the existence of workspaces is the separation of logic — one can have a browser open in one workspace, a text editor in another, a terminal in a third.

The current functionality goes against this idea. Is there a way to restrict the action of the show desktop command to a single workspace only?

Best Answer

There is a bug report about this for 12.04. The bug's status is Fix Committed, meaning the fix will only be available in the next release.

In the meantime I can only recommend gnome3. There ControlSuperd works as expected.
In case you want to give it a try:

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Restart, and at the login, choose GNOME (first in the list):

enter image description here

Where to find the show desktop keybinding:
open dconf-editor and navigate to schema org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings.
You should find a key named show-desktop with its current value.

A patched `compiz-core` which fixes this bug is available from PPA

As mentioned, this is a Compiz bug which will not be officially fixed until 12.04.2 (expected January 2013.)
But one of the compiz-core developers has made a PPA with a fixed version of Compiz that solves this bug.
- If you are unfamiliar with PPAs, you may want to read What are PPAs... and Are PPAs safe...

To install from the PPA:

Open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T
Add the PPA with sudo apt-add-repository ppa:bsantos/ppa
Run sudo apt-get update
Update Compiz with sudo apt-get install compiz

Note: Installing this workaround will not break any future updates to compiz; between now and the release of 12.04.2, any official compiz updates may make the old (faulty) Super+W behavior return for a few days until the developer fixes it and releases the updated version to his PPA.

Demonstration:

Terminal, Software Center, Firefox and Nautilus are open in separate workspaces:

enter image description here

After installing the fixed PPA version, Super+W shows all four:

enter image description here

Ubuntu – Make wmctrl ignore other-than-current workspace’s windows

If you're using Compiz (run wmctrl -m if not sure), wmctrl only sees 1 desktop (2nd field of wmctrl -l, ie 0) but you can use the geometry (-G) option to know what window is on what virtual desktop. All windows in your current desktop will have an x-position between 0 and your screen's width. Same for the y-position between 0 and your screen's height. So you can use something like that

#!/bin/bash

SCREEN_W=$(xwininfo -root | sed -n 's/^  Width: \(.*\)$/\1/p')
SCREEN_H=$(xwininfo -root | sed -n 's/^  Height: \(.*\)$/\1/p')

NAME='Navigator.Firefox'

wmctrl -xlG | awk -v W="$SCREEN_W" -v H="$SCREEN_H" -v NAME="$NAME" '$7==NAME && $3>=0 && $3<W && $4>=0 && $4<H {print $1}' | while read WINS; do wmctrl -ia "$WINS"; done

exit 0

You can hardcode your screen's width and height if you will, and NAME if you want a one-liner. Im not sure how you want to handle multiple windows matching NAME. That will focus them all.

For metacity, desktop number of windows can be found using wmctrl -l and grepping the 2nd field.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to make Super+W show open windows from all workspaces

A patched compiz-core which fixes this bug is available from PPA

Ubuntu – Make wmctrl ignore other-than-current workspace’s windows

Related Question

A patched `compiz-core` which fixes this bug is available from PPA