X11 Programming

Recently I had the need to perform some common X operations programmatically, this included:

• Changing the current Workspace
• Closing a window (nicely, I did not want to just kill the process)

This lead to me learning a little about the various X11 messages, specifically:

_NET_CURRENT_DESKTOP
WM_PROTOCOLS
WM_DELETE_WINDOW

I also used XGetWMName which allowed me to find the window I wanted to close!

References

• Johns Blog X11 Posts
• Something on getting the top most window - probably useful in future.
• The Xlib Manual Probably all I really needed :-)
• Everyone's Favourite QandA Site