My fork of xcwd - cleaned up code and did some improvements. Only works in Linux.

xcwd - X current working directory

xcwd is a simple tool that prints the current working directory of the currently focused window.

The main goal is to launch applications directly into the same directory as the focused applications. This is especially useful to open a new terminal or a file explorer.

Disclaimer

This program is basically a hack, but it works well with my setup and I hope it will work for you as well :)

This script can't retrieve the working directory of a "single instance application" nor terminal multiplexer, e.g.:

tmux, screen
lilyterm
konsole
urxvtc with urxvtd
programs with tabs

The application works with the following terminals:

urxvt
xterm
gnome terminal
terminology

How it works

Get the handle of the focused window.
Try to get the PID of the process using the window's _NET_WM_PID attributes.
Find the deepest child process.
Print the working directory of this process to stdout.

If one of these steps fail, xcwd prints the content of the $HOME variable.

Requirements

Linux
libX11

Installation

Clone this repository
make
sudo make install

Usage

xcwd [-h|--help]
xcwd [-a|--all|-t|--tty-only]

Examples: