In linux How can one remove an Xorg window that the window manager is unaware of?

Answer 1

I could not find the answer to this anywhere else, so I came up with the following program.

Note, Answers may reformat the code, so don't blame me for bad formatting! Also, if the output format of xwininfo changes, the program won't work. In this case, you may need to change the number of times that fgets() is called, or change the scanf format.

Also, I have copyrighted this program both to retain credit, and to make sure nobody else copyrights it to keep it from being freely available. You may do anything you like with the program except change or remove the copyright notice or distribute a compiled binary without this source and any changes you have made to it.

/* Copyright (C) 2012 Michael A. Bloom ({my first two initials followed by my last name}@{combine two words as follows: "dsl" followed by the word: extreme} dot com})

You may not change or remove this copyright notice, but except for distributing binaries without this original source and any changes you have made to it, you may otherwise do anything you wish with this code.

*/

#include

#include // Every Xlib program must include this

/* Chrome leaves unwanted windows around that are left over from popups. */

/* They are not present in the list produced by wmctrl -l. If your */

/* window manager is either metacity or openbox, it is a curious thing */

/* that although restarting either of them does not change anything, */

/* running metacity --replace (if not already running metacity) followed */

/* by openbox --replace, followed by metacity --replace (with three */

/* second sleeps between invocations) gets rid of the unwanted windows. */

/* As it is time consuming to do all that, I came up with this kludge to */

/* get rid of the obscuring windows more quickly. */

/* This is not a great workaround, as after getting rid of these orphan */

/* windows, new ones will continue to appear (once they have started to */

/* do so, they will keep on doing so). But it's better than nothing. */

void exit(int);

char linebuf[BUFSIZ];

main( int argc, char **argv){ FILE *fp;

int i;

Display *dpy = XOpenDisplay(NULL);

int Wid ;

int ret;

printf("Click on UNdesired window\n");

fp = popen("xwininfo","r");

/* Warning: This kludge will break if xwininfo's output format changes */

for (i=0;i< 5;i++){fgets(linebuf,sizeof(linebuf)-1,fp);}

fscanf(fp, "xwininfo: Window id: %i",&Wid);

pclose(fp);

/* Should this be XDestroySubwindows() ? */

ret = XDestroyWindow(dpy,(Window)Wid);

/* printf("%d\n",ret); */

XCloseDisplay(dpy);

exit(0);

}