kwin-maxmize-to-new-desktop

KWin script that moves fullscreened window to a new virtual desktop, emulating macOS like maximize to new desktop.

Link to KDE Store page.

Screenshot

The config panel

Feature

• Move window to a newly created virtual desktop when fullscreen/maximize.
• Move window back to original desktop when restored to normal size or closed.
• Configurable trigger: fullscreen or maximize or both.
• Configurable new desktop position: right most or next to current desktop or next to app.
• Window blacklist: windows that match the class name will not trigger the script.

Note: The default behavior is triggered by window FULLSCREEN, not the normal maximize. Window fullscreen can be enabled by right clicking on the window decoration -> More Actions -> Fullscreen.

Web browsers also enters fullscreen mode when the web page requests so, like clicking on fullscreen button in videos. In Firefox or Chrome, pressing F11 also triggeres this.

Installation

Install via Get New Scripts (Recommended)

Go to System Settings -> Window Management -> KWin Scripts -> Get New Scripts...

And then search for kwin-maximize-to-new-desktop.

Note: To get the configuration panel fully working, see this and this

Install directly

Download the latest release from KDE store, and run

plasmapkg2 --install kwin-maxmize-to-new-desktop-0.2.0.tar.gz

Note: To get the configuration panel fully working, see this and this

Tips

Get window's class for the blacklist

Right click on the window decoration of the window of interest, then select More actions -> Special Window Settings in the menu. In the "Window matching" tab, there's a little utility called "Detect Window Properties" that can be used to reveal information of clicked window.

Trouble Shooting

No configuration button available in the KWin Scripts entry

Due to a technical limitation of installation, the desktop file is not installed into correct place. More details here.

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/kservices5
ln -s ~/.local/share/kwin/scripts/max2NewVirtualDesktop/metadata.desktop ~/.local/share/kservices5/max2NewVirtualDesktop.desktop

Blank window class blacklist in configuration

You need to install an additional package called kdesignerplugin (link), which makes it possible to use KEditListWidget.

• For ArchLinux: pacman -Syu kdesignerplugin.
• For Ubuntu and alike: apt install kdesignerplugin.

Configuration not picked up by the script after changing

Log out and log in again.

Or you could try something like the following to restart kwin (the executable name may be different depending on your Linux distribution.)

kwin_x11 --replace >/dev/null 2>/dev/null &; disown

KWin hangs or crashes after a fullscreened/maximized window is directly closed

Fixed in efc212cbc38b8f5d10a30d28a034e21288519ea4.

The root cause is the clientRemoved signal I connected to is too late and only emits after cleanGrouping called on the client. Moving the client around and changing focus requires a not null group of the client in kwin. Therefore, changing to per window windowClosed signal works.

Change Log

See CHANGELOG.md.

Thanks

• I got the idea of triggering by maximize and other things from one of the fork by @lrasche.
• I also learned a lot about adding configuration UI from faho/kwin-tiling.