# Change focus to window left / right

**URL:** <https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780>\
**Category:** Budgie Desktop\
**Created:** [March 18, 2021, 12:28am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780 "2021-03-18T00:28:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 13\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RafalSkolasinski](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/rafalskolasinski/32/2659_2.png) [@RafalSkolasinski](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/RafalSkolasinski)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 12:28am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/1 "2021-03-18T00:28:18Z")

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Hey,

Wonder if there is option to have a key binding to change focus to the window left/right/up/down from currently focused window?

Something similar to what one can do in KDE, Pop (Gnome), i3.

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**Author:** ![vlijm](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/vlijm/32/34_2.png) [@vlijm](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/vlijm)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 11:37am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/2 "2021-03-18T11:37:50Z")

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Currently no, but the option is on my wishlist to work on as part of shuffler.

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**Author:** ![RafalSkolasinski](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/rafalskolasinski/32/2659_2.png) [@RafalSkolasinski](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/RafalSkolasinski)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 12:04pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/3 "2021-03-18T12:04:50Z")

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haha, that was my followup question: how do people then make effective use of shuffler without this 🙂 the two would probably go really nicely together indeed

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**Author:** ![fossfreedom](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/fossfreedom/32/1405_2.png) [@fossfreedom](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/fossfreedom)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 12:21pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/4 "2021-03-18T12:21:58Z")

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For the uninitiated here … what are the key bindings used to switch focus left/right/up/down?

How do things work when you have partially overlapping windows / fully overlapping windows?

What happens when you have a window maximized and you attempt to switch focus left/right/up/down?

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**Author:** ![vlijm](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/vlijm/32/34_2.png) [@vlijm](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/vlijm)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 12:27pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/5 "2021-03-18T12:27:51Z")

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Shortcuts: yet to decide. In case of overlap: top left window corner decides its position. In case of multiple windows in same position, including maximized: move to window in “next” position (left, right, up, down) , according to z-order, so most recently active gets preference.

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**Author:** ![RafalSkolasinski](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/rafalskolasinski/32/2659_2.png) [@RafalSkolasinski](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/RafalSkolasinski)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 1:28pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/6 "2021-03-18T13:28:04Z")

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Just some thoughts:

Often used keybindings is super + arrow (folks coming from i3 etc will like it).

For the overlapping: could also be centre of the window - may work better if you have a big window that is “effectively” closer to where current focus is but which top left-corner is a bit further.

For maximised window I guess it could be disable unless you go into direction of second monitor.

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**Author:** ![vlijm](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/vlijm/32/34_2.png) [@vlijm](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/vlijm)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 4:01pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/7 "2021-03-18T16:01:54Z")

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Ah, Super + arrow is occupied unfortunately. Shortcuts that make sense are pretty crowded anyway already btw.  
For the overlapping, not sure if center is as clear qua geometry as simply topleft, which feels more absolute imo.

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**Author:** ![RafalSkolasinski](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/rafalskolasinski/32/2659_2.png) [@RafalSkolasinski](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/RafalSkolasinski)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 4:57pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/8 "2021-03-18T16:57:10Z")

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> Ah, Super + arrow is occupied unfortunately. Shortcuts that make sense are pretty crowded anyway already btw.

That’s fair enough, if it would be something else I can always rebind 🙂

> For the overlapping, not sure if center is as clear qua geometry as simply topleft, which feels more absolute imo.

From my experience the way it works in Pop / KDE is quite good (and they cover overlapping use cases). Maybe worth checking the behaviour.

TBH, that’s the corner case and whatever choice will be made won’t affect the fact that having it is better than not having it :).

As I am really interesting in this feel free to ping me anytime the work on it start - happy to test.

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**Author:** ![mezcalbert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@mezcalbert](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/mezcalbert)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/9 "2021-03-19T00:55:08Z")

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It’s occupied for the nice snapping feature. But it would be wonderful if it would not stop at one screen.

A life saver for me would be Super+left going for the half left snap of current screen, then assuming your second monitor is on the left of the 1st ( | 2 | | 1 | ) go for the half right snap of monitor 2 when doing the shortcut a second time, and eventually half left of monitor 2 at third strike.

I can do that on Windows to recover a window when the 2nd screen is turned off, and it’s very convenient. On Linux, when my second monitor is turned off, it would prevent me from using the impractical alt + f7 then drag blindfolded to bring the window in the current screen. Honestly, who the hell thought about that shortcut?

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**Author:** ![vlijm](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/vlijm/32/34_2.png) [@vlijm](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/vlijm)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2021, 9:49am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/10 "2021-03-19T09:49:45Z")

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Ah, but that is a different discussion.

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**Author:** ![fossfreedom](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/fossfreedom/32/1405_2.png) [@fossfreedom](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/fossfreedom)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2021, 10:17am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/11 "2021-03-19T10:17:39Z")

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Super+left / right is in the remit of budgie-desktop itself. So any suggestions with those key combinations should go upstream [GitHub - solus-project/budgie-desktop: I Tawt I Taw A Purdy Desktop](https://github.com/solus-project/budgie-desktop). Then its a question of finding someone willing to implement.

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**Author:** ![mezcalbert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@mezcalbert](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/mezcalbert)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2021, 10:59am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/12 "2021-03-19T10:59:13Z")

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Of course it is, but it’s been bothering me for a while, so I take advantage of this being mentioned to vent out my frustration. 🙃

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**Author:** ![mezcalbert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@mezcalbert](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/mezcalbert)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2021, 1:40am UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/change-focus-to-window-left-right/4780/13 "2021-03-20T01:40:32Z")

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Adding Shift to Super + arrow (= shift + super + arrow) does the trick I mentioned above.  
No more alt + f7 for me. No more frustration.