Cycle through your workspaces in a ...

My system is quite old so I completely deactivated the Visual Effects (System->Preferences->Appearance). But afterwards I noticed that when switching my workspace it won't act like I want it to.
By pressing <Super>Tab I want to cycle through all workspaces like: 1->2->3->4->1->2->... endless. BUT it stopped at 4.
So, what to do?
Ask google ;-)
I found a nice thread discussing how to cycle through workspaces in Gnome.
And there is a little snippet at the end:

#!/bin/sh
num=$(wmctrl -d | wc -l)
wmctrl -s $(wmctrl -d | awk '/[0-9]+ +\*/ {print ($1+1)%'$num' }')

Well, this works. But I thought: "What about cycling in both directions?"
So, here is my solution:

#!/bin/sh
function usage {
	echo "Usage: $0 {--left|--right}"
	exit
}

if [ -n "$1" ]; then
	case $1 in
		--left) DIR=-1;;
		--right) DIR=1;;
		*) usage
	esac
	MAX=$(wmctrl -d | wc -l)
	CMD='/\*/{ rv=($1+'$DIR')%'$MAX'; } END { print (rv < 0) ? ('$MAX'-1) : rv; }'
	NEW=$(wmctrl -d | awk "$CMD")
	wmctrl -s $NEW	
else
	usage
fi

You could pimp it by showing your current desktop number.
To do this you could use notify-send - but this is somehow... "crippled" in Ubuntu.
So I thought it's a better idea to use xosd.

# add before "wmctrl -s $NEW"
MSG=$(($NEW+1))
# nice but TOO SLOW!!!
# notify-send "Desktop $MSG" -i gnome-terminal
# better:
FONT="-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-200-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
OPT="--outline 4 --outlinecolour black --pos middle --align center -l 1"
killall -q osd_cat
echo "< $MSG >" | osd_cat --delay=1 $OPT --font=$FONT - &

For the first scipt you only need wmctrl. Open a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+t and type (or copy) the command beginning after "~$ " and press Enter:

you@terminal:~$ sudo apt-get install wmctrl

For the second you will also need xosd:

you@terminal:~$ sudo apt-get install xosd-bin

If you saved the script in ~/myWspSwitch.sh you can use it like this:

you@terminal:~$ ./myWspSwitch.sh --right
you@terminal:~$ ./myWspSwitch.sh --left

Or better, bind these commands to some keys, like <Super>Tab for right and <Shift><Super>Tab for left.
To do so launch the GConf-Editor:

you@terminal:~$ gconf-editor

You will see a file-explorer-like window. Browse to /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/ and select the first unused run_command.
For example run_command_1 for <Super>Tab and run_command_2 for <Shift><Super>Tab.
Now browse to /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/ and select the corresponding key.
The full path to the script is required. So command_1 will become /home/you/myWspSwitch.sh --right and command_2 will become /home/you/myWspSwitch.sh --left.
And if you replace "you" with your username, this should work ;-)

Happy workspace-cycling!