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I would like to be able to minimize fullscreen applications using Alt-Tab, like on Windows.

It is irritating that I can't do it, because when I am playing a game and I have a message in skype, I can't read the message without quitting the game first.

Note that I don't want to kill the application, just minimize it (and show the desktop). Is there an easy way for this?

I'm using Ubuntu 13.04 64 bit.

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  • Can you give an example of an application that you're unable to effectively switch out of with Alt+Tab? Generally Alt+Tab is supposed to work, even for full-screen programs. Aug 30, 2013 at 14:30
  • League of Legends running on Wine. Also I can't minimize super tux kart when it is in fullscreen mode.
    – Minas Mina
    Aug 30, 2013 at 14:31

3 Answers 3

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You can take a look at this question: What are Unity's keyboard and mouse shortcuts?

There are some shortcuts that may help:

  • Ctrl+Super+↓ - Restore/Minimize the current window (seems to be buggy at the moment)
  • Ctrl+Super+D - Show desktop; hitting it again restores the windows
  • Ctrl+Alt+Numpad 0 - Minimize the current window (Ubuntu 12.04.1)
  • Shift+Alt+↑ - Expo mode for all windows in the current workspace only.
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This is application specific. Some applications will handle Alt+Tab and refuse to pass it onto the window manager, while others let it float through.

Unfortunately there isn't a good answer to this but there are options...

  • Control+Alt+F1..6 should work as a combination. I don't think it's even possible for an X application to block this combo. That will get you to a TTY console and from there you can... Well you can't do all that much. But you can log in and fire off commands like:

    DISPLAY=:0 xdotool windowminimize $(xdotool getactivewindow)
    

    Which you game might just ignore. Anyway, Control+Alt+F7 to get back to the desktop.

  • On a similar idea, you could run your game in a separate X server. Loading it on TTY8 would mean you could switch between desktop and game by smacking Control+Alt+F8 and Control+Alt+F7 respectively.

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Alt+Tab is usually supposed to work in Ubuntu for switching applications, even from a full-screen program. However, when you're running a Windows application with Wine, it does not always work. I don't have League of Legends, but the technique described in this post of this Ubuntu Forums thread may help.

Press the Super key (i.e., the Windows key) and type in: configure wine

An icon for Configure Wine should appear in the search results. Click on it. The "Wine configuration" window will come up. Click the "Graphics" tab.

screenshot of the Graphics tab in the Wine configuration window

Check the box that says Emulate a virtual desktop. Unless you want your game to appear in a Window that's smaller than the whole screen, you'll probably want to fill in your current resolution for Desktop size. For example, if your screen is "1808p", you'd replace 800x600 with 1920x1080.

This should make it possible for you to Alt+Tab out, because this makes Wine encapsulate your game in a window. Even if the game itself doesn't like to be minimized, and even if there is a bug in Ubuntu preventing it from being minimized, this should usually work around the problem.

It might not work, though. If it doesn't, I recommend trying other shortcuts, as Hugo Vieria suggested, and also the general, Wine-nonspecific method that Oli has suggested.

Finally, the Emulate a virtual desktop setting will affect other Windows programs you run with Wine (if any), but you can change it (and change it back) as needed.

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