[FEATURE REQUEST] Hot Corners feature to show only current application's windows?

[GalacticSun]

Please forgive me if this isn't the correct place to request a feature for Cinnamon / LM, but I wasn't sure where else to post this.

I used to use Mac OS and loved their "Exposé" / "Mission Control" feature, which is just like Linux Mint's Hot Corners->Show All Windows feature. I use this Hot Corners feature in Linux Mint to quickly switch to other application windows in a visual way with my mouse by selecting the window to switch to.

However, Apple also has a slightly modified version of this feature that allows the user to show the windows of only the current application you're using. They have it available as a Hot Corner option called "Application Windows".

I used to use the "Application Windows" hot corner option all the time and would find it tremendously handy to have in Cinnamon / Linux Mint. Mainly for my web browser where it would allow me to quickly and easily switch between all open browser windows, and not see every single other open window I have open.

Would it please be possible to get such an option for hot corners in Cinnamon / Linux Mint, by chance?

Thanks very much and keep up the great work.

Related:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-use-mac-hot-corners/
https://osxdaily.com/2021/06/24/use-hot-corners-mac/

[GalacticSun]

Actually, if this is a relatively simple Javascript change somewhere in Cinnamon, can you please let me know how to make this change and how to have it appear as an option for Hot Corners, by chance? I can take a shot at making the change myself. Thanks.

[GalacticSun]

I guess that's a "no", then? Do you guys even take feature requests like this?

[zeigerpuppy]

Would love this feature too

[zeigerpuppy]

also see:

• https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=379430
• Add new hot-corner options #2117

[GalacticSun]

I'm just curious if this ever has a chance at being implemented. If not, how would I go about trying to make this change myself? Could someone please point me to the right place, where this code is located, perhaps? Would it be possible via third party code? How about if i support the Cinnamon project financially by donating something to get this feature implemented?

[ewmailing]

I also really want this feature. (I would also appreciate hints on how to get started implementing this ourselves.) Apple really nailed the feature with Exposé. This is the best/closest thing I've ever experienced on Linux, but without the per-application feature, it is that 'so close, yet so far' feeling. I find that the lack of this feature completely kills my ability to use the rest of this feature productively. It is really frustrating because it is soooo close.

The workaround of separating every application into its own workspace doesn’t work for me. Here is a simple illustrative example of how I use this feature.

Imagine I have two separate tasks:

1. I am developing some code.
2. I am writing some emails.

I put each of these tasks into their own workspace.

For writing code, I have a couple of different apps open.

• IDE, with multiple windows open for different source files, debugger, compile log, etc.
• Web browser with multiple windows open to related things, such as useful code examples, algorithms I need to apply, , source repo
• Terminal windows open to different directories to easily access different source code or application resources or dev tools.

For emails:

• Mail client with the main inbox, the current message I’m reading, and message I’m composing.
• Web browser open to specification document, team planning docs, spreadsheets, research, etc. that are connected to the email I'm working on.

Frequently when writing code or writing email, I will have that window on one-side of my screen, side-by-side with a useful web browser window on the other side.

Then frequently, I need to either swap the browser window for a different one, that is in that same workspace.

Showing ALL application windows is too overwhelming. There are too many windows to see because the combined total is too large, especially when I know I only need to choose between just the web browser windows.

And the separate workspace workaround doesn’t work for me because I want the different apps in the same workspace so I can put them side-by-side. And I want workspaces to keep separate tasks isolated from each other.

[ewmailing]

I've finally found where the relevant code is and managed to cobble something together that works. Please note, I am not a Mint Cinnamon developer, and implemented this in the worst brute force way. I found the files in /usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui and directly modified the scripts via sudo and kept relaunching cinnamon on my computer after every change. But what I have seems to work well, and would like to start discussion about how to get this accepted into the official repository.

I've committed into a feature branch named 'scaleapp-feature' at:
https://github.com/ewmailing/cinnamon/tree/scaleapp-feature
and specific commit at:
ewmailing@dc19558

This implements a variation based on the 'scale' feature that shows only the current application windows instead of all the application windows. The new variation is called 'scaleapp'. It shares the 'scale' code and simply filters the list of windows down to the current application if this mode is requested.

The changes are primarily in workspace.js, but also touches hotCorner.js and overview.js.

The changes in cs_hotcorner.py make the feature accessible in the UI. The name used is 'Show application windows', which is derived from the name 'Application Windows' from Mac, but follows the existing naming paradigm in the existing Cinnamon UI. I found out KDE Plasma already supports this feature too. They use the label: 'Present Windows - Current Application', which doesn't fit the Cinnamon naming paradigm as well.

I am using Mint 22.2 (the current official stable), so my script files are tied to that release, and not the main head. For specifics:

$ inxi -Sxxx
System:
  Host: LinuxRyzen Kernel: 6.17.0-23-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64
    compiler: gcc v: 13.3.0 clocksource: tsc
  Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.4.8 tk: GTK v: 3.24.41 wm: Muffin v: 6.4.1 vt: 7
    dm: LightDM v: 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 22.2 Zara base: Ubuntu 24.04 noble

Being aware of this, I looked through the tags and checked out 6.4.8 and committed my modifications from that reference point. This should allow git to be able to merge forward when the time comes for any parts that aren't new code or direct conflicts. However, I noticed that there has already been a refactor of the Javascript API (most recent commits by @mtwebster ) so my new code will probably need to undergo similar changes. I repeat, I am not a Mint Cinnamon developer, and I was just hacking directly on the files installed on my system. I don't have an environment to actually develop for Mint Cinnamon, so it may make more sense for an actual maintainer to take the reins on this.

[GalacticSun]

Wow, @ewmailing, that is amazing, and thank you!

However, I wasn't able to get it to work. I tried making those changes manually to those files (cs_hotcorner.py, hotCorner.js, overview.js, and workspace.js), and restarting Cinnamon, but it made it so the System Settings application won't open. As a result, I can't set the new 'Show application windows' option in the System Settings Hotcorner UI.

I'm using Mint 22.3, so maybe there's a tweak I need to make somewhere? Or something else I need to do to get it to work?

System:
  Host: computer Kernel: 6.8.0-117-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 13.3.0 clocksource: tsc
  Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.6.7 tk: GTK v: 3.24.41 wm: Muffin v: 6.6.3 dm:
    1: LightDM v: 1.30.0 2: SDDM note: stopped Distro: Linux Mint 22.3 Zena
    base: Ubuntu 24.04 noble

[ewmailing]

@GalacticSun I'm pretty new to Mint and didn't realize point releases aren't part of the regular update process, and I didn't realize Mint 22.3 was already out. So if 22.3 is version 6.6.7, there have been some changes since 6.4.8. On quick visual inspection, they don't seem to be major changes, but some things were renamed which is probably sufficient to break your scripts if you blindly copy over your 22.3 scripts with my 22.2 scripts.

But I knew I was behind the master head, so I anticipated my changes would ultimately need to be merged forward, which is why I made sure to base my changes on the older 6.4.8, so they could easily be merged forward. So I merged forward my changes to 6.6.7. I've created a new topic branch named scaleapp-6.6.7. The merge was pretty clean. (There was some top level repo stuff for changelog and meson notes which I never touched or committed, but merge indicated a conflict which I didn't understand. But the correct files in this case are to fully take the 6.6.7 version, which I did.)

You can find my new 6.6.7 topic branch at:
https://github.com/ewmailing/cinnamon/tree/scaleapp-6.6.7
and the merge/commit:
ewmailing@3c6ac83

Please let me know if this 6.6.7 based version works for you. I haven't tested this version because I need to backup my system first before I attempt to do an update to 22.3.

[ewmailing]

@GalacticSun Also, I forgot to say, try copying over all the files except cs_hotcorner.py first. Make sure the old scale mode still works before trying to change the HotCorners UI with the cs_hotcorner.py. So if there is a problem with the other scripts, then we can rule out this one.

And if you want to do some print debugging, you can sprinkle these over the code to see where things are breaking:

global.log("This is a debug message");

Alt-F2 will bring up a command launcher. Type:

lg

which will bring up Looking Glass app which shows the log messages.

The log messages also get written to ~/.xsession-errors if you break Cinnamon and have to fallback to a terminal. (All this is what I learned the hard way trying to develop this feature.)

[GalacticSun]

Okay, that is awesome. I got it working! Very nice work, @ewmailing!

The System Settings application not starting was actually due to me having made copies of the files and left them in their directories, I think, and Cinnamon apparently doesn't like that. It works now, though. Anyway, I removed those and added the 6.6.7 changes you made, and it works perfectly!

THANK YOU! I've literally waited years for this and have tried a few times myself to get it working, but just couldn't quite figure it all out. Very much appreciated. I hope the Cinnamon devs merge in your work, because this is, in my opinion, a very nice addition!

[ewmailing]

@GalacticSun Terrific! Maybe you can try to grab the attention of the Cinnamon team. This bug might be so old, that they are ignoring it because it aged out in their filters. It has no labels or types, whereas some other bugs will at least be marked as Feature or Pull Request or something.

[GalacticSun]

Good point. What do you think is a good way to go about getting their attention? I can create another issue and reference this one, perhaps?