Exposé with Skippy-xd in Dom0 (Gnome alternative to "Activity")

General Discussion
1

Hi,

In Gnome Desktop Environment, there is an “Activity” button or you can press “Supper” key that exposes all open windows on the desktop like Exposé in Mac.

I have finally got time to test Skippy-XD in Qubes - and it works perfect in XFCE Dom0. While the steps how I got it to work are still fresh in my memory I thought to share them with our community. Please note that the below steps may change because of different software versions in the future.

I have: Qubes 4.1.1, Kernel 5.15.89-1.fc32.qubes.x86_64, XFCE 4.14

  1. Get Fedora 32 template by running in Dom0:

[user@dom0 Downloads]$ sudo qubes-dom0-update qubes-template-fedora-32

This step is important because dom0 runs Fedora 32 and compiled skippy-xd from Fedora 36 won’t work in dom0 because it would ask for glibc-devel of a newer version that Fedora 32 does not have.

  1. Create AppVM using Fedora 32. I have used disposable VM in my case. Open this AppVM and compile Skippy-XD
[user@disp4468 ~]$ sudo dnf install git make gcc pkgconfig libwnck3-devel libX11-devel libXcomposite-devel libXdamage-devel cairo-devel pango-devel giflib-devel libjpeg-turbo-devel
[user@disp4468 ~]$ git clone https://github.com/richardgv/skippy-xd.git
[user@disp4468 ~]$ cd skippy-xd/
[user@disp4468 skippy-xd]$ make
[user@disp4468 skippy-xd]$ sudo make install
  1. Now copy compiled skippy-xd and config file to Dom0
[user@dom0 Downloads]$ qvm-run --pass-io disp4468 'cat /usr/bin/skippy-xd' > /home/user/Downloads/skippy-xd
[user@dom0 Downloads]$ qvm-run --pass-io disp4468 'cat /etc/xdg/skippy-xd.rc' > /home/user/Downloads/skippy-xd.rc
  1. Move compiled and config files:
[user@dom0 Downloads]$ sudo mv skippy-xd /usr/bin/
[user@dom0 Downloads]$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/skippy-xd
[user@dom0 Downloads]$ mkdir ~/.config/skippy-xd
[user@dom0 Downloads]$ cp skippy-xd.rc ~/.config/skippy-xd/
  1. You might also need to install giflib-devel in dom0

[user@dom0 Downloads]$ sudo qubes-dom0-update giflib-devel

  1. Edit config file (optional)

[user@dom0 Downloads]$ nano ~/.config/skippy-xd/skippy-xd.rc

and set background = orig mid mid #36454F and in [Normal] opacity = 255

  1. add to Dom0 startup System Tools > Session and Start-up > Application Autostart command: skippy-xd --start-daemon

  2. Add shortcut in System Tools > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts command: skippy-xd --toggle-window-picker and I got it set to F9 - you can set your own.

I hope this will help to increase your productivity.

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2

If you switch to KDE, you get this functionality for free.
You can configure a key press, or screen corners, to show all open windows, or filter the
display by Activity, or desktop.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team. When I comment in the Forum or in the mailing lists I speak for myself.
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