Bug 197952

Summary:	a hotkey to minimize everything except active window
Product:	[Plasma] kwin	Reporter:	keisangi <anarchic.teapot>
Component:	effects-window-management	Assignee:	KWin default assignee <kwin-bugs-null>
Status:	ASSIGNED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	bugs.kde.org, nate, postix
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Fedora RPMs
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description keisangi 2009-06-26 12:44:00 UTC

Version:            (using KDE 4.2.4)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Fedora RPMs

it would be nice to have a hotkey to minimize all windows except the active one..
when you have lots of opened windows and want to focus on one window in particular, having a hotkey to minimize all but active window..

also it would be cool to have grouping options, like in compiz.
say i group 3 or 4 dolphin windows, and then i press the hotkey
everything would get minimized except the 4 dolphin windows..

tnx for your time.

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2020-09-29 23:54:53 UTC

I've periodically wanted this too. Kind of like a "focus on only the current app" action.

Comment 2 ratijas 2021-07-06 07:57:53 UTC

For the reference, OS X used to have this feature. Besides, there are separate shortcuts for
- Hide
- Hide others
- Minimize
- Minimize all (others?)

Those are good ones for productivity.

Comment 3 Piotr Dobrogost 2025-03-26 19:28:28 UTC

I was just looking for this feature, too.
I asked about this at https://discuss.kde.org/t/keyboard-shortcut-to-minimize-all-windows-but-the-current-focused-one-so-called-shake-it-action/32061?u=piotr_dobrogost
As described in the above post it's especially useful when using tiling window manager (Krohnkite in my case) because by minimizing all but focused window the focused one automatically gets "maximized" without actually changing its state to `maximized`. This is very nice because Krohnkite does not tile windows in `maximized` state (I guess other managers do the same) so this essentially makes it possible to "maximize" window and have it still managed by Krohnkite. It's then possible to again have this "maximized" windows tiled with some other window by simply switching to this other window – no need to first unmaximize to get the window to be tillable again.

I suggested to add this directly to Krohnkite at https://github.com/anametologin/krohnkite/issues/151 but this was rejected with the reply
"Krohnkite arrange visible windows only, it doesn't Kwin minimize, maximize, close or any other way influence on windows beside change its size. Suggested feature is useful maybe but related rather to Kwin not Krohnkite."

I'm eagerly waiting for it in KWin, then ;)

Btw, thread on this subject from 2009 – https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php%3Ff=83&t=41936.html – with 51 votes.

Comment 4 Bug Janitor Service 2025-04-20 07:55:13 UTC

A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/7538