@miniben90/x-win

This project uses Rust and napi-rs to make it easy to obtain the active window or an array of open windows. It works on Microsoft Windows (10, 11), Linux (with X server), Linux (with Gnome =< 45), and macOS 10.6+.

How to install

# With npm
npm i @miniben90/x-win

# With yarn
yarn add @miniben90/x-win

How to use x-win

Get information about the currently active window

exemple.ts:

import { activeWindow, type WindowInfo } from '@miniben90/x-win';

const currentWindow: WindowInfo = activeWindow();

console.log(currentWindow);

response:

{
  id: 26148,
  info: {
    execName: "Code",
    name: "Visual Studio Code",
    path: "C:\\Users\\miniben\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Microsoft VS Code\\Code.exe",
    processId: 26148
  },
  os: "win32",
  position: {
    height: 1048,
    width: 1936,
    x: -8,
    y: -8
  },
  title: "● README.md - x-win - Visual Studio Code",
  usage: {
    memory: 113270784
  },
  url: ""
}

You can also use asynchronous methods instead. To do so, you just have to use activeWindowAsync, for example:

import { activeWindowAsync, type WindowInfo } from '@miniben90/x-win';

activeWindow()
.then((currentWindow: WindowInfo) => {
  console.log(currentWindow);
});

Get a list of open windows with information

exemple.ts:

import { openWindows, type WindowInfo } from '@miniben90/x-win';

const windows: WindowInfo[] = openWindows();

console.log(windows);

response:

[{
  id: 26148,
  info: {
    execName: "Code",
    name: "Visual Studio Code",
    path: "C:\\Users\\miniben\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Microsoft VS Code\\Code.exe",
    processId: 26148
  },
  os: "win32",
  position: {
    height: 1048,
    width: 1936,
    x: -8,
    y: -8
  },
  title: "● README.md - x-win - Visual Studio Code",
  usage: {
    memory: 113270784
  },
  url: ""
}]

You can also use asynchronous methods instead. To do so, you just have to use openWindowsAsync, for example:

import { openWindowsAsync, type WindowInfo } from '@miniben90/x-win';

openWindowsAsync()
.then((windows: WindowInfo[]) => {
  console.log(windows);
});

Subscribe to get the current active window

Thread will be start to check every 100ms for a new active window (checking window title, window id and process id).

• subscribeActiveWindow: Create a subscription with a callback function
• unsubscribeActiveWindow: Remove a specific subscription
• unsubscribeAllActiveWindow: Remove all threads

import { subscribeActiveWindow, unsubscribeActiveWindow, unsubscribeAllActiveWindow } from '@miniben90/x-win';

const a = subscribeActiveWindow(activeWindow => {
  console.log('test a', activeWindow);
});

const b = subscribeActiveWindow(activeWindow => {
  console.log('test b', activeWindow);
});

const c = subscribeActiveWindow(activeWindow => {
  console.log('test c', activeWindow);
});

setTimeout(() => unsubscribeActiveWindow(c), 5000);

setTimeout(() => unsubscribeAllActiveWindow(), 10000);

Linux

Dependencies are required to be installed for development purposes.

sudo apt install libxcb1-dev libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev pkg-config build-essential

⚠️Warning libc.so.6 is needed Recovery url is not available on linux

GNOME (Wayland)

In order to recover data, you'll need to install and activate an extension designed for systems running GNOME version 41 or newer (as evaluation is disabled from this version onward).

The extension can be installed using the installExtension function, which will deposit it in ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/[email protected].

After executing this function, it's vital to restart the user session to load the new extension and then proceed to enable it using enableExtension to be able to use x-win.

| Gnome Distrib. | Tested | |---|---| | Fedora Workstation 39 | ✅ | | Ubuntu 22.04.4 Desktop | ✅ | | Debian 12 Desktop | ✅ |

Darwin (version 10.6+)

Screen recording permission introduced in macOS 10.15 Catalina

macOS requires you to grant access for screen recording. If your project does not have it, the title will be an empty value.

URLs (Only available for Darwin and Windows Systems)

It is possible to get URL of browsers window for macOS and Windows.

Windows

| Browser name | Tested | |---|---| | firefox | ✅ | | firefox developer edition | ✅ | | google chrome | ✅ | | microsoft edge | ✅ | | opera software - opera | ✅ | | opera software - opera GX | ✅ | | brave | | | vivaldi | | | iron | | | epic | | | chromium | ✅ | | ucozmedia | | | blisk | | | maxthon | | | beaker | | | beaker browser | |

macOS

It will use AppleScript to get informations for chromium browsers and safari

For the moment Firefox and firefox developer edition are not supported

| Browser name | Tested | |---|---| | Safari | ✅ | | Safari Technology Preview | | | google Chrome | ✅ | | google Chrome beta | | | google Chrome dev | | | google Chrome canary | | | brave Browser | | | brave Browser beta | | | brave Browser nightly | | | microsoft edge | ✅ | | microsoft edge Beta | | | microsoft edge Dev | | | microsoft edge Canary | | | mighty | | | ghost browser | | | bookry wavebox | | | pushplaylabs sidekick | | | opera software - Opera | ✅ | | opera software - OperaNext | | | opera software - OperaDeveloper | | | opera software - OperaGX | ✅ | | Vivaldi | |

Electron

• To prevent potential crashes and issues, it's recommended to execute recovery operations within a worker thread (https://nodejs.org/api/worker_threads.html)
• For macOS, you can utilize functions to check and request screen permissions (https://www.electronjs.org/fr/docs/latest/api/system-preferences)

Project References

Project Inspirations:

• active-win
• active-win-pos-rs
• This project was generated with @napi-rs/cli