Arch Linux

avidseeker

Member

Registered: 2022-09-06

Posts: 68

Website

[SOLVED] Openbox GoToDesktop allow skipping over empty desktops?

I'm in desktop#1. There is a window in desktop#7. Mapping W-Left and W-Right to GoToDesktop left/right makes it iterate over the empty desktops 2-6.

In the documentation, there seems to be a different between next/previous and left/right but I applied the config, and they behave the same.

How can I starting from desktop#1 skip over to desktop#7 when there are no active desktops in between?

Last edited by avidseeker (2026-01-07 21:42:46)

mesaprotector

Member

Registered: 2024-03-03

Posts: 197

Re: [SOLVED] Openbox GoToDesktop allow skipping over empty desktops?

You could use wmctrl -l or something similar to check if there's any window on desktop 2, 3, 4 and so on. I don't believe there is a way to do this with solely Openbox action syntax.

One way to write a script would start by parsing wmctrl -d (or xprop -root) to get the current desktop number, parsing wmctrl -l to get all desktops that have windows on them, and then finding the next higher/next lower desktop by numeric sort.

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 73,365

Re: [SOLVED] Openbox GoToDesktop allow skipping over empty desktops?

left/right only makes sense for https://specifications.freedesktop.org/ … #id-1.4.14 but that doesn't seem to be documented for the openbox config.
The openbox wiki however shows how to set this using xprop, https://openbox.org/help/Openbox-session
Whether this makes the shortcuts behave: no idea.

Haven't tried but pretty confident that the fluxbox action patterns would allow you to focus the next window that's not on the current desktop…

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

avidseeker

Member

Registered: 2022-09-06

Posts: 68

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Openbox GoToDesktop allow skipping over empty desktops?

Thank you. Wmctrl was the program I was looking for.