How to move a window to the next monitor on Xfce, Mate and other X Window Managers

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Since I use this a lot in my daily work and there were no scripts working properly for me, I made one myself.
It's actually not bound to Xfce but should work on any window manager (haven't tried it, though).

Installation

  1. If you don't yet have xdotool, install it:

    sudo apt-get install xdotool
    
  2. If you don't yet have wmctrl, install it:

    sudo apt-get install wmctrl
    
  3. Store the attached file in some place that's in your PATH.
    The cool kids use ~/bin/.

  4. Make it executable: chmod +x ~/bin/move-to-next-monitor

Trying it

Open up a terminal and run it:

move-to-next-monitor

There should be no errors and the terminal window should have moved one monitor to the right.

Assigning a keyboard shortcut

  1. Your window manager has a way to setup global hotkeys somewhere. In Xfce you may open Xfce settings → Keyboard → Keyboard shortcuts
  2. Add an entry for move-to-next-monitor and assign a keyboard shortcut to it.
  3. It should be active right away, so try it on the settings window. :)

Done!


Props to icyrock.com who had a script that was basically working (not properly on 3 monitors and was lacking some workarounds) and saved me quite some time figuring this all out.

Arne Hartherz
Last edit
Jonas Schiele
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Keywords
xubuntu
License
Source code in this card is licensed under the MIT License.
Posted by Arne Hartherz to makandra dev (2012-11-14 14:24)