Is there a keyboard shortcut for minimizing all windows except the active one?

Question

When opening programs like GIMP, I find having background windows open distracting because GIMP has three separate windows associated with it.

It's a burden to have to go to every other non-Gimp window manually to minimize it. What I need is a keyboard shortcut in Ubuntu that matches Windows' Super + Home shortcut. One that minimizes all windows except the active one.

Is it possible to achieve this behavior in Ubuntu?

Answer 1

It is possible to achieve this with a python script. The script requires python-wnck and python-gtk to be installed in order to work, although I think these are installed by default anyway.

Copy and paste this into a text editor and save in a sensible place (eg. as minimise.py in your home folder):

#!/usr/bin/env python
import wnck
import gtk

screen = wnck.screen_get_default()

while gtk.events_pending():
    gtk.main_iteration()

windows = screen.get_windows()
active = screen.get_active_window()

for w in windows:
    if not w == active:
        w.minimize()

You can then set up the keyboard shortcut by opening Keyboard Shortcuts.

Click on Add to create a new shortcut.

Use the command bash -c 'python ~/minimise.py' (this is assuming you saved it as minimise.py in your home folder).

You can then assign your preferred keyboard combination to this action.

The script will minimise all non-active windows. I don't think this is very useful for your use case because you will want to have all of the Gimp windows open. You can use a slightly different script to minimise all windows that aren't from the current application instead:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import wnck
import gtk

screen = wnck.screen_get_default()

while gtk.events_pending():
    gtk.main_iteration()

windows = screen.get_windows()
active_app = screen.get_active_window().get_application()

for w in windows:
    if not w.get_application() == active_app:
        w.minimize()

Answer 2

Here's a pretty simple approach using wmctrl

wmctrl -k on; wmctrl -R :ACTIVE:

The first command shows the desktop (i.e. minimizes all windows) and the second command raises the "active" window which is whatever was active before the minimizing. I put this in a one-line bash script and then set a keyboard shortcut to that script.

edit: restore all windows using:

wmctrl -l | cut -d' ' -f 1 | xargs -n1 wmctrl -i -a

Answer 3

bash script using xdotool:

currentwindowid=$(xdotool getactivewindow)
currentdesktopid=$(xdotool get_desktop)

for w in $(xdotool search --all --maxdepth 3 --desktop $currentdesktopid --name ".*"); do
  if [ $w -ne $currentwindowid ] ; then
    xdotool windowminimize "$w"
  fi
done

it minimizes only windows on the current desktop.

To minimize windows on all desktops:

currentwindowid=$(xdotool getactivewindow)

for w in $(xdotool search --all --maxdepth 3 --name ".*"); do
  if [ $w -ne $currentwindowid ] ; then
    xdotool windowminimize "$w"
  fi
done

Answer 4

Since python-wnck is no longer in the apt repository (Kubuntu 18.04 Bionic), below is the modified python code (from the answer above by @Aditya and @dv3500ea).

From python3 onwards wnck is part of the GObject Introspection API (source). So, syntax for importing wnck (and Gtk objects) has changed.

#!/usr/bin/env python

# import necessary objects
import gi
gi.require_version('Wnck', '3.0') # specify Wnck version
from gi.repository import Wnck

from gi.repository import Gtk


# the script itself
screen = Wnck.Screen.get_default()

while Gtk.events_pending():
    Gtk.main_iteration()

windows = screen.get_windows()
active = screen.get_active_window()

for w in windows:
    if not w == active:
        w.minimize()

then assign the shortcut to the python script: (in Kubuntu) kmenueditor -> create a new item -> script bash -c 'python path_to_the_python_script.py' -> assign a desired shortcut

UPDATE (May'19):

At Kubuntu 19.04 I needed to install gir1.2-wnck-3.0 module to make the script above work.

$ python -V
Python 2.7.16
$ sudo apt-get install python3-gi gir1.2-wnck-3.0

Answer 5

Ubuntu 21.10 is running Wayland and I want this functionality on my new monitor. This is the solution that works for me, it's a bash script I bind to a custom key combination.

#!/bin/bash
gdbus call \
  --session \
  --dest org.gnome.Shell \
  --object-path /org/gnome/Shell \
  --method org.gnome.Shell.Eval \
  "global
      .get_window_actors()
      .filter(w=>w.meta_window.has_focus()===false)
      .forEach(w=>w.meta_window.minimize())"