Is there a keyboard shortcut for switching focus from one monitor to the next in Unity?
Basically, if I am working on my web-browser on my right screen, how can I switch to my terminal on my left screen?
Ubuntu – keyboard shortcut for multiple monitors
focusmultiple-monitorsshortcut-keysunity
Related Solutions
I managed to figure this out for myself on Ubuntu 10.10 (Gnome in my case). There doesn't appear to be a built-in shortcut, but there is a useful utility called DualscreenMouseUtils:
- Download dualscreen-mouse-utils archive from here
- Extract the archive:
tar -zxvf - Build the util:
make mouse-switchscreen - Copy the created executable to a bin directory, e.g. /usr/local/bin
- Set up a keyboard shortcut using your window manager that runs the executable whenever the shortcut is used.
First set the world "Terminal" to appear in the window title of your gnome-terminal. To do this, when you are in gnome-terminal go to Edit → Profile Preferences, select Title and Command tab and be sure that the field Initial title contain the word "Terminal":
Second, add a new custom keyboard shortcut for the following command:
bash -c "[[ \"$(cat /proc/$(xdotool getwindowpid $(xdotool getwindowfocus))/comm)\" != \"gnome-terminal\" ]] && wmctrl -a Terminal || xdotool key Alt+grave"
To do this, go to System Settings → Keyboard, Shortcuts tab, select Custom Shortcut and add a new custom shortcut:
As you can see, I chose as shortcut F8 key which is working great in this case for me.
Note: wmctrl and xdotool must to be installed in order to use them. If you don't have them installed, you can install them from terminal using:
sudo apt-get install wmctrl xdotool
Best Answer
If you don't have terminal on your right screen, too, you can simply alt+tab to terminal and focus will move accordingly.
That said, you might want to check out this related post on Ubuntu shortcuts.