Is it possible to retrieve the active window process/title in Gnome?

It is as simple as this:

xdotool getactivewindow getwindowname

Good luck hope it works for you!

You can use xdotool, a versatile X window automation tool.

focused_window_id=$(xdotool getwindowfocus)
active_window_id=$(xdotool getactivewindow)
active_window_pid=$(xdotool getwindowpid "$active_window_id")

(I don't know what the difference between focused and active is.)

(I thought wmctrl could do this, but apparently not.)

Simpler (IMO) than OP's solution (i.e. without ps, grep and awk), to get the process name :

cat /proc/$(xdotool getwindowpid $(xdotool getwindowfocus))/comm

Or if you want an end of line :

echo $(cat /proc/$(xdotool getwindowpid $(xdotool getwindowfocus))/comm)

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