Cfrgtkky

I want to have two completely different instances of Chromium, each with its own icon, so that:

1. There are two taskbar buttons, and...


2. ...two entries in the window switcher (Ubuntu 18, GNOME)


3. They are easily distinguishable by icon/color


4. I can Alt+Tab between these two instances, and Alt+` (key above Tab) among windows within an instance

How can I do that?

Solutions I've considered:

1. 
   Different profiles - doesn't satisfy the requirements because all Chromium windows, from all profiles, get lumped under the same taskbar button and window switcher entry.


2. Install Chrome Beta and Chrome Dev. These aren't exactly Chromium, and I prefer the open source Chrome.


3. 
   Install Chromium beta/dev. That might work, but the PPA seems maintained by an apparently random developer, who isn't affiliated with Google. If the builds get compromised, the security implications are serious. Also, I prefer the stability of Chromium, and the beta/dev builds tend to be less stable.


4. I've copied /usr/lib/chromium-browser to /usr/lib/chromium-browser-2 and created a local shortcut ~/.local/share/applications/chromium-browser-2.desktop pointing to it, with a separate icon. That showed a separate icon in the Dash, but when launching it, it opened my existing Chromium profile, and the window still got lumped with the existing Chromium windows. Looks like the executable must be actually different in some way?

What worked (cobbled together from the various answers and comments - thanks!) was to create a .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications with a few tweaks:

[Desktop Entry]

Version=1.0

Name=Chromium Browser 2

GenericName=Web Browser 2

Comment=Chromium Alternate

Exec=/usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser --user-data-dir=/home/dandv/Chr2 --class="Chr2"

Terminal=false

X-MultipleArgs=false

Type=Application

Icon=/home/dandv/chromium-browser-2.png

Categories=Network;WebBrowser;

MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml_xml;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;

StartupNotify=true

Actions=NewWindow;Incognito;TempProfile;

X-AppInstall-Package=chromium-browser

StartupWMClass=Chr2

Make sure to replace /home/dandv/ with your home directory. Using ~ did not work.

The tweaks I applied to the .desktop file were:

1. Add --class="SomethingLikeChr2" to theExec=` line


2. Add StartupWMClass=SomethingLikeChr2 to the `[Desktop Entry] (use the same unique value as above; apparently this is what makes a separate window, that won't get lumped in with existing Chromium windows


3. Add --user-data-dir=... to the Exec line, due to this Chromium bug.

Result

The easiest way I know of is using the More Tools -> Create Shortcut. From there it will create a .desktop entry that you can customize the icon and you can go to chrome://apps to modify settings like opening as a window.

The WMClass seems to have no authority when it comes to Chromium... I came up with this abomination (personal opinion... I'd just like for it to work with sh :) ) It has a few tricks, but is pretty robust for two windows.. The script sets individual classes for the opened chromium windows (not profiles, even though that is what I am after) You could specify further windows too, but they have to be manually added by adding more "specificprofile1" along with the corresponding function.. Maybe someone could make it have more.. logic!

#!/bin/bash

# chromium-start.sh $1 

# e.g. put: 

# chrome-start.sh "Profile 1" to .desktop Exec=

# wmctrl -o 1366,0 ; chromium-browser %U --profile-directory=Profile 2 & sleep 3; wmctrl -o 0,0



# $1 = Profile folder name



profilename=$1



#2nd Chromium profile

specificprofile1="Profile 1"



echo "starting Chromium"

echo "args: " $1

echo "Profile name: " $profilename

echo "Specific profile: " $specificprofile1



# Just setting Chromium scaling variable, because of course Google Devs don't care about no fractional scaling on linux

scale_var=0.8



# Check if Chromium window with the specified class already exists

# Also allows using icons as "taskbar" switches (clicking icon takes to corresponding Chromium Window)

if wmctrl -l -x | grep "chromium-$profilename"

then

echo "Chromium Window exists, moving focus to it"

wmctrl -x -R chromium-"$profilename"

echo "true"



# Check if 2nd profile $specifiedprofile1 has been started yet or not. The WMCLASS(es) has to have been set correctly...

elif [[ "$specificprofile1" == "$profilename" ]] && [[ ! "`wmctrl -l -x | grep chromium-"$specificprofile1"`" ]]

then

    # TODO: Nesting

    if [ "$specificprofile1" == "$profilename" ]

    then

    echo $specificprofile1 "equals" $profilename

    fi

echo "#2 Chromium Window for $specificprofile1 does not exist"

# wmctrl moves to specific position of desktop (1366 means moving to the following workspace since my resolution is 1366x768)

# Be careful if using sleep timing, since the command needs to have enough time to execute to have the window in the correct workspace

wmctrl -o 1366,0

chromium-browser  --profile-directory="$profilename" --force-device-scale-factor=$scale_var %U &

# https://askubuntu.com/a/626524/654028

# Set's the chromium window which was opened latest to have a custom class, since Chromium doesn't care about the --class= flag...

# It has it's limitations, but should be robust enough for most use... Has not been tested long term.. Something probably could reset the WM_CLASS again

# xprop -id "$(wmctrl -l -x| grep "chromium-browser" | tail -n 1 |awk '{ print $1 }')" -f WM_CLASS 8s -set WM_CLASS "chromium-browser.chromium-$specificprofile1"



# Alternative method for checking if a window with specified class exists

# xprop -id "$(wmctrl -l -x| grep "chromium-$profilename" | tail -n 1 |awk '{ print $1 }')" | grep -o "WM_CLASS(STRING) = ".*"" | grep -o '".*"' | tr -d '"'



# https://stackoverflow.com/a/19441380/5776626

winrep=""

while [[ ! "`echo $winrep | grep -l "Map State: IsViewable"`" ]]

do

    winid="$(wmctrl -l -x| grep "chromium-$profilename" | tail -n 1 |awk '{ print $1 }')"

    # print $winid

    winrep="$(xwininfo -id $winid | grep -o 'Map State: IsViewable')"

    # print $winrep

    sleep 0.75

    xprop -id "$(wmctrl -l -x| grep "chromium-browser" | tail -n 1 |awk '{ print $1 }')" -f WM_CLASS 8s -set WM_CLASS "chromium-browser.chromium-$specificprofile1"

done

# sleep 3



# Move Window directly to workspace (#2 with 1366x768 resolution x = 1366), optionally comment out wmctrl -o 1366,0

# wmctrl -v -i -r $winid -e 0,1366,0,-1,-1



# sleep 5

# Move back to workspace #1

wmctrl -o 0,0





elif ! wmctrl -l -x | grep chromium-"$profilename"

then

echo "#3 Chromium Window $profilename does not exist"

wmctrl -o 0,0

chromium-browser  --profile-directory="$profilename" --force-device-scale-factor=$scale_var %U &





# https://askubuntu.com/a/626524/654028

# ....

# sleep 3



winrep=""

while [[ ! "`echo $winrep | grep -l "Map State: IsViewable"`" ]]

do

    winid="$(wmctrl -l -x| grep "chromium-$profilename" | tail -n 1 |awk '{ print $1 }')"

    # print $winid

    winrep="$(xwininfo -id $winid | grep -o 'Map State: IsViewable')"

    # print $winrep

    sleep 0.75

    xprop -id "$(wmctrl -l -x| grep "chromium-browser" | tail -n 1 |awk '{ print $1 }')" -f WM_CLASS 8s -set WM_CLASS "chromium-browser.chromium-$profilename"

done

wmctrl -o 0,0

# xprop -id "$(wmctrl -l -x| grep "chromium-browser" | tail -n 1 |awk '{ print $1 }')" -f WM_CLASS 8s -set WM_CLASS "chromium-browser.chromium-$profilename"

fi

Issues:

Printing gives errors (deprecation warnings..):

Unescaped left brace in regex is deprecated, passed through in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/%{ <-- HERE (.*?)}/ at /usr/bin/print line 528.

For debugging you can use the following to print out the errors when using actual icons:
https://askubuntu.com/a/664272/654028 (# The Manual alternative)

awk '/^Exec=/ {sub("^Exec=", ""); gsub(" ?%[cDdFfikmNnUuv]", ""); exit system($0)}' chrome-ws2.desktop

while loop bugs out, probably because of looping interval

Error: no such file "at while function"

xwininfo: error: -id requires argument

xprop: error: Invalid window id format: .

xwininfo: error: -id requires argument

xprop: error: Invalid window id format: .

xwininfo: error: -id requires argument

xprop: error: Invalid window id format: .

Also when clicking a corresponding .desktop icon too fast (before the custom class has been set ?), a new window will be opened..

(quite) Sometimes when starting from both Chromium too fast (~<3s), the class of the previously opened window gets reset to chromium-browser.chromium-browser..
Then you can expect the icons to have swapped around or other unexpected behavior.