Is there a way to get a list of programs in the taskbar from the command line?

e.g.

firefox_bin:Google - Mozilla Firefox
kate:Default Session
konsole:dmonty@vs1

If I just use `ps` I don't get the window title text.

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Are you familiar with C++? Then take a look at /usr/include/taskmanager/taskmanager.h.

If you do not have access to Xlib directly and want to use shell commands you will need to do the following:

xprop -root | grep _NET_CLIENT_LIST(WINDOW)

Then parse that and query every window ID with:

xprop -id | grep WM_NAME(STRING)

And parse that result as well. =)

Chances there is a script around that already does this. Google.

This prints each window of the taskbar in one line.

Code: Select all

for w in `xprop -root | grep _NET_CLIENT_LIST(WINDOW) | sed -e "s/.*# //" | sed -e "s/,//g"`
do
  xprop -id $w | grep WM_NAME(STRING) | sed -e "s/.*"(.*)"/\1/"
done


Hmm, that also displays windows that do not want to be displayed on the taskbar. You will need to have a condition that checks _NET_WM_STATE to see if it contains _NET_WM_STATE_SKIP_TASKBAR.

... And another one to check if WM_TRANSIENT_FOR is set as well (Transient windows are not displayed in the taskbar).

Perfect! This does the trick!

I love Linux support!