Switching Window Manager without Logging-out

Question

I run both XFCE's xfwm and awesome. I'm usually in awesome but I occasionally have to run some applications that don't play nicely at all with tiling window managers.

I'm looking for a way to switch between window managers while remaining in the same session, with all apps and windows open. Can this easily be achieved with a couple of commands or a bash script?

I currently have to log out and select a different WM at the login screen, which of course means saving everything and loosing all my open windows.

Answer 1

This is a possible solution for WM binding in the same session.

man dm-tool

Details can be found in this thread.

Answer 2

Try this (put in the bash script and You can even run it via keyboard shortcuts - just assign proper scripts in XFCE and Awesome) :

To switch to Awesome:

killall xfwm4 && awesome &

To switch to XFCE:

killall awesome && xfwm4 &