Gnome (Ubuntu): how to bring a program window to the front using a command line from the terminal?

Question

I have a certain work environment with dozens of open Windows. How can I bring to the front a window with a known name/title programatically or using the command line?

Solution 1

I used to use wmctrl -a <name>, which works fine, but recently switched to xdotool, e.g.:

xdotool search --name <name-or-regex-for-name> windowraise

It has many other features too.

To install:

sudo apt-get install xdotool

Solution 2

Well, after sudo apt-get install wmctrl-ing, you can play with this bash script:

#! /bin/bash

WINTITLE="Mail/News" # Main Thunderbird window has this in titlebar
PROGNAME="mozilla-thunderbird" # This is the name of the binary for t-bird

# Use wmctrl to list all windows, count how many contain WINTITLE,
# and test if that count is non-zero:

if [ `wmctrl -l | grep -c "$WINTITLE"` != 0 ]
then
wmctrl -a "$WINTITLE" # If it exists, bring t-bird window to front
else
$PROGNAME & # Otherwise, just launch t-bird
fi
exit 0

Which I found here

Comments

[Dennis Williamson]

No need for the brackets and backticks: if ! wmctrl -l | grep -q "$WINTITLE"

[vlad-ardelean]

wmctrl has a -i option, which supports working with the window with its hex identifier. And so you can do this wmctrl -lp|grep 'whatever incomplete name'|cut -d' ' -f1|xargs wmctrl -ai - which would do something similar

[jozxyqk]

xdotool windowraise brings the window to the front but does not give focus to the window or switch to the desktop with the window. instead, windowactivate will do all three.