Quickly navigate to application by typing name of application in XMonad

Question

I often have several applications open across several workspaces in XMonad. I'd like to be able to switch between them without hunting; specifically, I'd like to be able to type something that identifies the application window (the window title?) and jump to it. Any creative ideas about how to do that?

Answer 1

You're lucky, what you want already exists: WindowBringer

The procedure is very simple if you have have already a xmonad.hs configuration file (as described in linked page):

• Add the correct import at the beginning:

  import XMonad.Actions.WindowBringer
  

• Map keys to functions (to insert near other key mapping):

  , ((mod1Mask, xK_g     ), gotoMenu)
  , ((mod1Mask, xK_b     ), bringMenu)
  

Then when pressing ALT+G that will open dmenu (like for launching applications) with running application windows name, and then you can enter the beginning of the name and press enter to jump to it.

The behaviour of ALT+B is the same except that it doesn't focus the windows but instead move it to current workspace.