Using wmctrl in Linux, close any windows who's titles are not recognized via a whitelist (with regex).

window_whitelist.py

# coding: utf-8
import subprocess
import re


def get_windows():
    list_of_windows = subprocess.check_output(["wmctrl","-l"]).split(b"\n")
    meta_list_of_windows = [s.decode("utf-8").split() for s in list_of_windows if s]
    user_processes = {}
    for line in meta_list_of_windows:
        n = int(line[1])
        if n == 0:
            user_processes[line[0]] = " ".join(line[3:])
    return user_processes


def close_window(title):
    return subprocess.call(["wmctrl","-c",title])


def get_whitelist(fname):
    patterns = []
    with open(fname, "r") as f:
        for line in f:
            patterns.append(re.compile(line.replace("\n","")))
    return patterns


if __name__=="__main__":
    import argparse

    # Get arguments from user
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Using wmctrl in Linux, close any windows who's titles are not recognized via a whitelist (with regex).")

    # Plotting Options
    parser.add_argument('-f', '--fname', metavar='f', type=str, default="./whitelist.conf",
                        help='The file name and path of the whitelist.')

    args = parser.parse_args()

    user_processes = get_windows()
    whitelist = get_whitelist(args.fname)
    allowed = set()
    for pattern in whitelist:
        for k, v in user_processes.items():
            if re.fullmatch(pattern, v) is not None:
                allowed.add(k)
    disallowed = set(user_processes.keys()) - allowed
    for k in disallowed:
        close_window(user_processes[k])