Get current window title with Python and Xorg

After stackoverflow answered my previous question on here about my Wiimote left/right click issue, Not only can I move the mouse cursor, I can now left/right click on things. I now have one more question.

What do I use in python to get the title of the开发者_运维百科 current active window? After googling 'X11 Python Window Title', 'Linux Python Window Title' and things similar, All I've found is win32 and tkinker (again?), which isn't what I need.

If you could help, That would be awesome!

EDIT

best way:

import gtk
import wnck
import glib

class WindowTitle(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.title = None
        glib.timeout_add(100, self.get_title)

    def get_title(self):
        try:
            title = wnck.screen_get_default().get_active_window().get_name()
            if self.title != title:
                self.title  = title
                print title
        except AttributeError:
            pass
        return True

WindowTitle()
gtk.main()

Alternative way:

from subprocess import PIPE, Popen
import time

title = ''
root_check = ''

while True:
    time.sleep(0.6)
    root = Popen(['xprop', '-root'],  stdout=PIPE)

    if root.stdout != root_check:
        root_check = root.stdout

        for i in root.stdout:
            if '_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW(WINDOW):' in i:
                id_ = i.split()[4]
                id_w = Popen(['xprop', '-id', id_], stdout=PIPE)

        for j in id_w.stdout:
            if 'WM_ICON_NAME(STRING)' in j:
                if title != j.split()[2]:
                    title = j.split()[2]
                    print "current window title: %s" % title

I noticed that wnck requires GTK event loop to update the active window. There is no such problem with Xlib:

import Xlib
import Xlib.display
disp = Xlib.display.Display()
window = disp.get_input_focus().focus

# Get active window class and name
window.get_wm_class()
window.get_wm_name()

killown's xprop-based solution can be compacted into a single (though lengthy) statement:

import subprocess
def GetActiveWindowTitle():
    return subprocess.Popen(["xprop", "-id", subprocess.Popen(["xprop", "-root", "_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0].strip().split()[-1], "WM_NAME"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0].strip().split('"', 1)[-1][:-1]

With ewmh:

from ewmh import EWMH
wm = EWMH()
win = wm.getActiveWindow()
win_name = win.get_wm_name()
print(win_name)

I think python-wnck might be useful if you want to handle Windows & workspaces & such. I can't find the Python docs immediately, but according to the docs for the libwnck C library that it wraps, it has a wnck_screen_get_active_window() method.

My solution:

import wnck
disp=Display()
default_screen=wnck.screen_get_default()
default_screen.force_update()

active_window=disp.create_resource_object('window', default_screen.get_active_window().get_xid())
title=active_window.get_wm_name()

Is the problem to find out which window is active or what the title is? Getting a window's title is easy:

MainWindow.title()

,where MainWindow is the window's name. No idea about active window though. Never had multiple windows.