Konsole Scratchpad

This here is a KWin script that makes Konsole behave more like Guake does.

Installation

1. Clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/pschmitt/kwin-konsole-scratchpad.git
cd ./kwin-konsole-scratchpad

2. Choose one of the following two install paths:

• Shortcut only (recommended)
• KWin script

TL;DR (Shortcut only)

1. Setup a custom shortcut that triggers ./konsole-scratchpad.sh (Optional flags available. See ./konsole-scratchpad.sh --help).
2. Set up a scratchpad service (see below)
3. Optional Install uglifyjs to make the loading of the script a tiny bit faster

Install as a KWin script

1. Edit settings in ./contents/code/main.js
2. Run ./install.sh
3. Open System Settings: Window Management > KWin Scripts and make sure that "Konsole Scratchpad" is enabled
4. Setup a custom key binding for "Toggle Konsole Scratchpad"
5. Set up a scratchpad service (see below)

Setup a scratchpad service

Since this script is mainly intended to have a Konsole window stick to the bottom of the screen and show/hide on a keypress I suggest you autostart konsole via one of the following methods:

Desktop file

See ./extra/konsole-scratchpad.desktop

To install:

cp ./extra/konsole-scratchpad.desktop ~/.config/autostart

systemd user service

See ./extra/konsole-scratchpad.service

To install:

cp ./extra/konsole-scratchpad.service ~/.config/systemd/user
systemctl --user enable --now konsole-scratchpad.service

Once done you should be able to show/hide your Konsole scratchpad with the "Toggle Konsole Scratchpad" shortcut (F1 by default)

NOTE

For this script to work reliably you need to ensure that Konsole's window/tab title contains the caption set in ./contents/code/main.js.

To do this you can either:

• set a static title in your Konsole profile
• make the startup program set it at runtime (provided that in your Konsole profile the "Tab Title Format" contains %w) with:

title="scratchpad"
echo -ne "\e]0;${title}\a"

Uninstall

1. Run ./uninstall.sh
2. Restart KWin 🤷

Inspiration and credits

• https://github.com/fooblahblah/shimmer