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Accepted
Tom
Asked: 2019-11-14 01:13:47 +0800 CST

gnome-terminal - open new window instead of finding the existing one

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A recent change is that running gnome-terminal (the "Terminal" application) from the launcher now finds an existing window if one is open. In 18.04, doing this would always open a new terminal window.

This is really annoying. I typically have half a dozen workspaces open for different things, and when I try to launch a terminal, I want a new one on the workspace I'm on, not to be dragged to a different workspace that happens to have a terminal already open where I then have to create a new terminal window and drag it back to the workspace where I want it.

Is there some way to change back to the old behaviour?

gnome-terminal workspaces launcher

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Use the Middle-Button on your mouse when you're clicking on the icon. This will open a new instance of that application in gnome.

    But I suggest you to make a shortcut for yourself for Terminal because you're going to put your hands on the keyboard anyway. I use Super + Enter since I use terminal too much!

    You can also change the /usr/share/applications/org.gnome.Terminal.desktop and change the gnome-terminal exec commands to gnome-terminal --window.

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  2. If you are using Gnome...

    • Go to Extensions.
    • Look down the list for Launch new instance.
    • Set it to ON.

    This affects more than the gnome-terminal window but I also find the behaviour of returning to the same terminal window extremely annoying.

    An alternative is to hit the context menu button in the currently open terminal window and hit T (or just ENTER because it is already on the Open terminal menu item at the top of the context menu) for a new terminal window, then do a ctrl-alt-shift-downcursor to move the new terminal window into the next available desktop. I frequently do this when opening multiple terminals already set to the directory I am working in. Saves all the cd'ing you might otherwise do. If you are using the mouse to do things, it will only slow you down. I strongly recommend learning your way around keyboard methods of doing things. Makes things quicker.

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