Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

• 1) I learned the keyboard shortcuts to switch desktop workspaces are Alt+number. Is there a shortcut to send a window to another desktop?

• 2) Alt+Tab switches between all windows/apps/anything opened, not only last 2, like I got used to. Is there and option to change the Alt+Tab function or another keyboard shortcut to switch between only last 2 opened windows?

Damian

Assuming you are running Fossapup as mentioned in another post...

By default jwm comes with only a few predefined keyboard shortcuts. You can edit them using JWMDesk Manager.

To send a window to another desktop you can set a shortcut sendl or sendr with a modifier of your choice.
Limitation is you can not send it to a specified desktop number, only left, right and, if pager is configured with rows, top* up or bottom* down work.

To switch between 2 open windows you can set a shortcut prev again with a modifier of your choice.

Setting jwm keyboard shortcuts you have to be careful not to overwrite other shortcuts from programs.
For example F12 was used to bring up jwm's root menu in some Puppies. F12 is also used by mtpaint to show the layers dock.

More Options: https://joewing.net/projects/jwm/config-2.3.html#keys

[edit]*) corrected directions for up and down

@szept

The previous idea is the most complete, BUT as he said, the fastest is the JWM manager (u can see more here)

In fossa put (or almost any other puppy is:)

Right click on screen
Desktop
Destop settings (in fossa pup is called JWM DESK MANAGER ... )
Shortcuts

There you can see the created shortcuts and.... CREATE YOUR OWNS

Push... ADD NEW SHORTCUT

Choose the key and the mask (letters to push)

write the name of the executable in this format: "exec: LINK TO THE FILE"

And that all

(I include this steps in an only image, ITS ON VANILLADPUP but for sure is similar in your puppy)

HAVE A NICE DAY .- some pup mates.- http://www.smokey01.com/radky/PupMates.html (a lot of options and configurations must be in every puppy, but I recomend you PUPSHUTDOWN... you have all the shutdown options..... SAVE TO RAM included) ITS A must.... for me

szept wrote: Sat Feb 04, 2023 9:44 pm

1) I learned the keyboard shortcuts to switch desktop workspaces are Alt+number. Is there a shortcut to send a window to another desktop?

As @HerrBert already explained, there is no JWM shortcut to send a window to a specific desktop. You could create such a shortcut with the help of a tool like wmctrl but it is far easier to use JWM's "Send To" menu, either from the tasklist or from the window menu (that's the one that opens when you right click on a window's title bar)

2) Alt+Tab switches between all windows/apps/anything opened, not only last 2, like I got used to. Is there and option to change the Alt+Tab function or another keyboard shortcut to switch between only last 2 opened windows?

Possible with a JWM keyboard shortcut. You could use prevstacked and nextstacked , but you would have to assign it to 2 separate keys, i.e. you can't have it as a toggle, and it would not be confined to the last 2 active windows if you are not careful. A bit tricky to use. To toggle just between the active window and the window activated before and then assign this toggle to Alt+Tab you would again need wmctrl.

[EDIT] It's very likely that your FossaPup64-9.5 already uses prevstacked and nextstacked , assigned to shortcuts Alt+Shift+Tab and Alt+Tab, so my suggestion wouldn't help. That leaves only wmctrl as a solution.

geany /root/.jwm/jwmrc-personal can be edited directly to assign keyboard shortcuts in most pups.

@gychang Thanks a lot for your answer.

It was not an answer to my question, but it solved this.

Now with your help I can change the number of virtual desktops, and now I'm working with five as I want.

Cheers.

glad to be of help, once u modified to your liking, good idea to copy to /root/.jwm/jwmrc-personal.bak since using the gui jwmdesktop setting may revert back to your old default file.

@szept

Please to help you and help us help you.

Always tell us the exact Puppy version you are using.

Really this info is even better:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=218

HerrBert wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 9:17 am

Assuming you are running Fossapup as mentioned in another post...

Apologies guys... I was going to put in into my signature, but once going through profile options I forgot...

Thanks a lot for your help guys! Need to carefully read and analyze all that. Cheers

Does anyone use Alt+Tab and Shift+Alt+Tab on a regular basis? Cycles through the windows of the current desktop. I now realize that I never do, maybe because I'm never sure where it takes me. Also does Shift+Alt+Tab require some inconvenient finger acrobatics.
Therefore I find @szept 's idea (or was it Microsoft's idea?) to switch back and forth between 2 windows with only 1 key quite charming. I'm testing it now and so far I like it.

@MochiMoppel
I do sometimes use a shortcut for the jwm prev command. But for switching from a third to a seventh window and back it is quite inconvenient.
To avoid finger acrobatics i have set Super_L as modifier (mod4).

Therefore I find @szept 's idea (or was it Microsoft's idea?) to switch back and forth between 2 windows with only 1 key quite charming. I'm testing it now and so far I like it.

I also like the idea of switching back and forth between 2 windows.
My attempt using xdotool:

<Key mask="4" key="Tab">exec:PREV=$(xprop -root 32c ' $1' _NET_CLIENT_LIST_STACKING); xdotool windowactivate ${PREV##* }</Key>

MochiMoppel wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 9:10 am

Does anyone use Alt+Tab and Shift+Alt+Tab on a regular basis? Cycles through the windows of the current desktop. I now realize that I never do, maybe because I'm never sure where it takes me. Also does Shift+Alt+Tab require some inconvenient finger acrobatics.
Therefore I find @szept 's idea (or was it Microsoft's idea?) to switch back and forth between 2 windows with only 1 key quite charming. I'm testing it now and so far I like it.

I use it all the time, much faster than dragging the cursor to a window. Usually just Alt-Tab, since I rarely have more than 3 or 4 apps open in a virtual desktop. Rarely do I need Shift-Alt-Tab...

HerrBert wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 12:46 pm

I do sometimes use a shortcut for the jwm prev command.

But that's something different. That cycles only through the tabs in the tasklist.

I also like the idea of switching back and forth between 2 windows.
My attempt using xdotool:

Code: Select all

<Key mask="4" key="Tab">exec:PREV=$(xprop -root 32c ' $1' _NET_CLIENT_LIST_STACKING); xdotool windowactivate ${PREV##* }</Key>

Your attempt is more "by the book" than mine . Both do the same thing. I use Alt+Tab as shortcut:

<Key key="Tab" mask="A">exec:set $(xprop -root _NET_CLIENT_LIST_STACKING); wmctrl -ia $6</Key>

All solutions, including JWM's prevstacked may not have the expected effect when windows come into play which have their layer set to "above". In this case the 2nd ID of the stack may not be the one of the previously activated window.

MochiMoppel wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 9:10 am

Does anyone use Alt+Tab on a regular basis?

I use it a looooot on Lubuntu and Windows - that's why I miss it so much on Puppy ;(
I guess i could use the desktop change, where on 1 I leave one window and the other one on desktop 2. It's a bit more hussle, but it will do the work I guess=]

Everytime I run my live-usb Puppy on a different PC, the Keyboard Layout changes from Polish to default English. It remains Polish if I restart Puppy on same PC, but changes when I swap PC - I have to change it each time. Someone told me to do the following as a quicker way than all the mouse-click through setup.

williams2 wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 11:23 pm

You can configure your keymmaps in the menu.
You can select keymaps like this:
setxkbmap us
or like this:
setxkbmap 'us(alt-intl),pl(phonetic)' -option grp:lctrl_lshift_toggle

Is that too for the JWM keyboard shortcuts?

Thanks again for help guys

szept wrote: Fri Feb 17, 2023 4:55 pm

MochiMoppel wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 9:10 am

Does anyone use Alt+Tab on a regular basis?

I use it a looooot on Lubuntu and Windows - that's why I miss it so much on Puppy

What I meant was: Does anyone use Alt+Tab in Puppy as currently configured? You obviously don't. But to give you back the functionality you miss @HerrBert and me proposed a fix. Did you try? Does it work for you?

MochiMoppel wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 2:28 am

What I meant was: Does anyone use Alt+Tab in Puppy as currently configured? You obviously don't.

Rite, that makes sense now:)
Well, I use Alt+Tab in Puppy, but not once, how I use it on Lubuntu or Windows, but many times... until I get to the desired window. Unless I skip it by mistake, then I keep pressing... What a waste of time!

Haven't try the hotkeys yet, but I will - thanks!

HerrBert wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 12:46 pm

I also like the idea of switching back and forth between 2 windows.
My attempt using xdotool:

Code: Select all

<Key mask="4" key="Tab">exec:PREV=$(xprop -root 32c ' $1' _NET_CLIENT_LIST_STACKING); xdotool windowactivate ${PREV##* }</Key>

Do I have to install xdotool to do this? Isn't this possible to do via "JWM keyboard shortcuts"?

szept wrote: Tue Mar 07, 2023 5:50 pm

HerrBert wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 12:46 pm

I also like the idea of switching back and forth between 2 windows.
My attempt using xdotool:

Code: Select all

<Key mask="4" key="Tab">exec:PREV=$(xprop -root 32c ' $1' _NET_CLIENT_LIST_STACKING); xdotool windowactivate ${PREV##* }</Key>

Do I have to install xdotool to do this? Isn't this possible to do via "JWM keyboard shortcuts"?

Yes, you have to install xdotool to do this. The code i posted is the JWM keyboard shortcut that runs xdotool command.

HerrBert wrote: Tue Mar 07, 2023 6:35 pm

szept wrote: Tue Mar 07, 2023 5:50 pm

HerrBert wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 12:46 pm

I also like the idea of switching back and forth between 2 windows.

Do I have to install xdotool to do this? Isn't this possible to do via "JWM keyboard shortcuts"?

Yes, you have to install xdotool to do this. The code i posted is the JWM keyboard shortcut that runs xdotool command.

For me, No, I don't have to install xdtool in my pups, yet A+Tab will switch between 2 windows in a virtual desktop. Add to /root/.jwm/jwmrc-personal:

<Key mask="A" key="Tab">next</Key>

and jwm -restart on terminal or reboot.

@szept HerrBert and me proposed you two JWM shortcuts. HerrBert's requires xdotool and mine requires wmctrl. AFAIK none of these tools is installed in your FossaPup64-9.5. This distro is outdated in many respects and I recommend that you update to the successor F96-CE. This will have wmctrl included.

@gychang Your proposal is not what the OP asked for. It will not work if the desktop contains more than 2 windows

MochiMoppel wrote: Wed Mar 08, 2023 12:54 am

@gychang Your proposal is not what the OP asked for. It will not work if the desktop contains more than 2 windows

Not sure what the OP is, but I have 3 rox files in the picture, one with red border is focused one and I can rotate the focus in sequence to all 3 by Alt-Tab... I thought this was one of the questions??

gychang wrote: Wed Mar 08, 2023 2:04 am

Not sure what the OP is, but I have 3 rox files in the picture, one with red border is focused one and I can rotate the focus in sequence to all 3 by Alt-Tab... I thought this was one of the questions??

The second question of the OP (=Original poster = szept ) was how to "switch between only last 2 opened windows", not how to cycle through all windows. If you have a chance to get your hands on MS Windows I recommend that you try Alt+Tab. You will understand what he means. The solution in MS Windows is pretty clever because it allows to switch back and forth between 2 windows while also allowing to cycle through all windows.

MochiMoppel wrote: Wed Mar 08, 2023 6:25 am

gychang wrote: Wed Mar 08, 2023 2:04 am

Not sure what the OP is, but I have 3 rox files in the picture, one with red border is focused one and I can rotate the focus in sequence to all 3 by Alt-Tab... I thought this was one of the questions??

The second question of the OP (=Original poster = szept ) was how to "switch between only last 2 opened windows", not how to cycle through all windows. If you have a chance to get your hands on MS Windows I recommend that you try Alt+Tab. You will understand what he means. The solution in MS Windows is pretty clever because it allows to switch back and forth between 2 windows while also allowing to cycle through all windows.

thanks for your input.

MochiMoppel wrote: Wed Mar 08, 2023 12:54 am

(...) I recommend that you update to the successor F96-CE. This will have wmctrl included.

F96-CE? Why this is not on the official Pyppy website?

Btw., when I was checking the Puppy Download list, I clicked on "Barry Kauler" and I've found out he's doing something called EasyOS. Can anyone tell me in few words what's that? I mean, what are the differences comparing to Puppy. Is it worth trying by a linux-neewbie?

EASY OS = EASY, FAST, SIMPLE. (for more info.... https://easyos.org/about/how-and-why-ea ... erent.html )

szept wrote: Wed Mar 08, 2023 9:26 pm

MochiMoppel wrote: Wed Mar 08, 2023 12:54 am

(...) I recommend that you update to the successor F96-CE. This will have wmctrl included.

F96-CE? Why this is not on the official Pyppy website?

Btw., when I was checking the Puppy Download list, I clicked on "Barry Kauler" and I've found out he's doing something called EasyOS. Can anyone tell me in few words what's that? I mean, what are the differences comparing to Puppy. Is it worth trying by a linux-neewbie?