windowToggler

I was initially using Yakuake, a drop-down terminal emulator based on KDE. One of the features I particularly enjoyed was the ability to press F12 to quickly show or hide the terminal. This was a convenient feature as it allowed me to quickly access the terminal, run a command, and then hide it again, all without needing to switch windows or use the mouse. However, for reasons of my own, I decided to switch to Kitty terminal. After switching to Kitty, I found that I missed the F12 show/hide feature from Yakuake. As a KDE user, I was used to this feature and found it inconvenient to use Kitty without it. So, I decided to implement a tool to do that.

This is a C program that interacts with the X11 window system to find, list, and toggle visibility of windows based on their class name. It also has the ability to start a new process if a window of the specified class is not found.

Features

• Find Window: The program can find a window by its class name in the X11 window system.
• List Windows: The program can list all windows along with their class names.
• Toggle Window: The program can toggle the visibility of a window (hide if it's visible, show if it's hidden).
• Start Process: If a window of the specified class is not found, the program can start a new process.

Usage

The program is run from the command line with the following syntax:

windowToggler <window_class> [<path_to_process> [process_args...]]

• <window_class>: The class name of the window to find and toggle. Use "list" to list all windows.
• <path_to_process>: (Optional) The path to the process to start if a window of the specified class is not found.
• process_args: (Optional) Any arguments to pass to the process being started.

Example

To toggle a window with the class name "kitty" and start Kitty if it's not already running, you would use:

./windowToggler kitty kitty --single-instance --detach

To toggle a Slack and start if it's not already running, you would use:

./windowToggler Slack slack

KDE Plasma hotkeys like Yakuake

Steps to Create a Custom Global Shortcut Using Krunner Open System Settings:

• Access System Settings from the application launcher or by searching for it.

Navigate to Shortcuts:

• Go to "Shortcuts" in the System Settings window. Create a Custom Shortcut:
• Select "Custom Shortcuts" from the left sidebar.
• Click the "+" button at the bottom and choose "Global Shortcut" -> "Command/URL". Configure the Shortcut:
• In the "Trigger" tab, set your desired hotkey by clicking on "None" and pressing the key combination you want to use.
• In the "Action" tab, set the Command/URL to the following:
• • ~/path/to/windowToggler kitty kitty --single-instance --detach

Dependencies

This program uses the X11 library for interacting with the X11 window system. Make sure to install the X11 development package (libx11-dev on Debian-based systems) before compiling.

Compilation

You can compile the program using gcc:

gcc -o -O2 windowToggler main.c -lX11

This will create an executable named windowToggler.

Note

This program is intended for use on Unix-like operating systems with the X11 window system. It has not been tested on other platforms.