Switch to a workspace sticked to another monitor

[inwaar]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I have 2 monitors setup and somehow all workspaces are moved to my right monitor. And there are no workspaces on the left monitor at all.
Is there a way to move (not swap) workspaces from one monitor to another?

Describe the solution you'd like
Have a shortcut to move a workspace to a specific monitor.
Or make optional sticking a workspace to a monitor.

It is also interesting in what way the workspaces distributed between monitors by default (say if I have 5 workspaces and 2 monitors)?
I see that when a workspace has no windows I can switch to it from any monitor but once there is at least one window in a workspace the workspace sticks to one specific monitor, is this expected behavior?
Would it possible to make this optional maybe?

[jtaala]

I have 2 monitors setup and somehow all workspaces are moved to my right monitor. And there are no workspaces on the left monitor at all.

Hmm I might not be understanding this but a workspace should be on each monitor. Can you put up some screenshots or video to show this? Or do you mean in gnome overview?

You can move workspaces to other monitors but you need to swap them (as a workspace needs to be on each monitor) - see swap monitor keybinds

But I'm guessing that might not be what you mean?

[Lythenas]

What you describe is indeed the behavior of Super+PageUp/Down. I don't remember why it is this way.

But using Super+AboveTab you can still switch to any workspace that is not currently shown.

[inwaar]

I have 2 monitors setup and somehow all workspaces are moved to my right monitor. And there are no workspaces on the left monitor at all.

Hmm I might not be understanding this but a workspace should be on each monitor. Can you put up some screenshots or video to show this? Or do you mean in gnome overview?

It is easy to reproduce:

1. Setup say 4 fixed workspaces
2. Open a text editor (or any window) on monitor 1 on workspace 1
3. Switch workspace on monitor 1 to workspace 3 (with Super-PgDn)
4. On monitor 2 try to iterate workspaces with Super-PgUp/Super-PgDn
5. See no workspace 1 in the list on the monitor 2

You can move workspaces to other monitors but you need to swap them (as a workspace needs to be on each monitor) - see swap monitor keybinds

But I'm guessing that might not be what you mean?

Yes, swapping is working, but if most of the workspaces are "sticked" to one monitor and only 1 workspace to another monitor - this swapping is not really something usefull.
In this case what can help is to close all windows on some workspaces which will "unstick" when from specific monitors.

[inwaar]

What you describe is indeed the behavior of Super+PageUp/Down. I don't remember why it is this way.

But using Super+AboveTab you can still switch to any workspace that is not currently shown.

Thanks, @Lythenas Super+AboveTab works.
Is this possible to make it also work for Super+PageUp/Down or make it configurable?

[Lythenas]

I think that would make sense, but we need to think a bit about how to order the workspaces conveniently. E.g. put the workspaces of other monitors after what is currently shown. And maybe mark them somehow.

We could maybe also put this as a new keybinding that is unbound by default, that you can then bind Super+PageUp/Down to.

I think we should avoid changing the behavior of the default (and probably often used) keybindings.

[jtaala]

Hey @inwaar,

This is a common misconception in PaperWM. Apart from the workspaces shown on the monitors - all other workspaces are actually in a stack that is available to any of the other monitors.

The swapping is just a shortcut for workspace stack switching. I.e. it's just doing this very fast:

#571 (comment)

You see how I was three-finger swiping down on the video? You can keep swiping down to get any of the other workspaces any of your monitors.

[jtaala]

Thanks, @Lythenas Super+AboveTab works.
Is this possible to make it also work for Super+PageUp/Down or make it configurable?

Ah, I understand now. Yes, that's a bit of a bug. It really should be in there.

[jtaala]

but we need to think a bit about how to order the workspaces conveniently. E.g. put the workspaces of other monitors after what is currently shown. And maybe mark them somehow.

No, it's really just a bug - in @inwaar's example, it should show workspace 1 on monitor two - with workspaces in workspace order.

[Lythenas]

No, it's really just a bug - in @inwaar's example, it should show workspace 1 on monitor two - with workspaces in workspace order.

I'm not actually sure what "workspace above/below" is supposed to mean. Super+AboveTab switches in the order they were last used. But "above" and "below" imply some other ordering. I guess currently it is all workspaces on the current monitor in numeric order. This is probably useful to keep that way. I expect people would rely on that and get annoyed if workspaces from the other monitor were mixed into that.

[jtaala]

I'm not actually sure what "workspace above/below" is supposed to mean. Super+AboveTab switches in the order they were last used. But "above" and "below" imply some other ordering.

Well, it just means in sequential order, e.g. Workspace 1 --> Workspace 2 --> etc., i.e. workspace is "above" workspace 2 (remember paperwm's concept of "spaces" are conceptually vertically stacked).

I guess currently it is all workspaces on the current monitor in numeric order. This is probably useful to keep that way. I expect people would rely on that and get annoyed if workspaces from the other monitor were mixed into that.

I'm not sure what you mean by:

I expect people would rely on that and get annoyed if workspaces from the other monitor were mixed into that.

See comment below (they actually are already mixed in)... that is, PaperWM keeps a workspace stack (not bound to any monitor). There's two sets of methods in tiling.js: selectSequenceSpace (i.e. numerically sequenced workspaces) and selectStackSpace which uses mru (most recent used) ordering... but they're essentially doing the same thing... although ordering workspaces differently.

This is a common misconception in PaperWM. Apart from the workspaces shown on the monitors - all other workspaces are actually in a stack that is available to any of the other monitors.

[jtaala]

Noting the issue where the workspace in sequence switching isn't showing - although it will show if you "stack" switch first... and then sequence switch.

[jtaala]

Anyways, it's a trivial fix if you want to try/test it out.

@Lythenas, @inwaar, happy to create a branch if you want to test it out.

@inwaar - are you on Gnome 44 or Gnome 45?

[jtaala]

The fix will just be changing this line:

PaperWM/tiling.js

Line 2255 in 82db457

(space.length === 0 && this.monitors.get(space.monitor) !== space))

to this:

          (this.monitors.get(space.monitor) !== space))

(note that is from the Gnome 45 branch).