Option to move a workspace to a monitor instead of swapping

[malcolmredheron]

I'd like an easier way to put a workspace on a given monitor.

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
At the moment I can swap a workspace with the one on the monitor to the left/right/etc. But generally I'm happy with where that workspace is already, otherwise I'd have moved it already. It becomes a bit of a rubik's cube puzzle to figure out which workspace to switch to on the other monitor so that when I swap the two workspaces I'm happy with the result.

Describe the solution you'd like
I'd love new options to set a shortcuts that would simply move the current workspace to the monitor in a given direction.

[jtaala]

Hey @malcolmredheron,

I can definitely see the utility and use case for these shortcuts.

Any thoughts on what should be done in the case where there's only one space left on a monitor (and hence, can't really move to another monitor)? A couple of options:

• do nothing (although that might be a bit confusing for users - e.g. "it's not working!");
• do nothing but show a notification (either gnome notification or a small message in the corner saying something like "can't move as it's the last workspace on this monitor...");
• fallback to swapping the space with the target monitor;

Thoughts?

Jay.

[malcolmredheron]

Oh, hmm. I didn't know about that requirement. Is that a Gnome thing, or a Paper thing? Regardless, swapping in this case seems reasonable and like the simplest option.

[jtaala]

I guess it's more of a PaperWM thing. In PaperWM we have a "one workspace per monitor" paradigm (which interestingly is one of the top voted features for gnome). This does cause a few issues/hurdles as we're often fighting against Gnome's concept of "one workspace across all monitors".

In any case, it means that PaperWM needs at least one space (workspace) on each monitor. Swapping the space seems like a logical thing to do to maintain that. Will play around and put up a PR and branch for others' to test as well to see what works.

Jay.

[malcolmredheron]

Awesome! Thank you so much!

…

--- Sent with Superhuman ( https://superhuman.com/refer/cmsqjaxn ). Please favor brief email ( http://three.sentenc.es/ ) over chat, especially for tasks. For chat (+1-415-235-0687), WhatsApp is best. Never Signal unless there are legal issues.

On Thu, Apr 11, 2024 at 2:03 PM, jtaala < ***@***.*** > wrote: I guess it's more of a PaperWM thing. In PaperWM we have a "one workspace per monitor" paradigm (which interestingly is one of the top voted features ( https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/37 ) for gnome). This does cause a few issues/hurdles as we're often fighting against Gnome's concept of "one workspace across all monitors". In any case, it means that PaperWM needs at least one space (workspace) on each monitor. Swapping the space seems like a logical thing to do to maintain that. Will play around and put up a PR and branch for others' to test as well to see what works. Jay. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub ( #824 (comment) ) , or unsubscribe ( https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAAOIXLZ4JKIVGF56QGMLRLY433DLAVCNFSM6AAAAABGCY2EYWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDANJQGU2DCMBTGI ). You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Message ID: <paperwm/PaperWM/issues/824/2050541032 @ github. com>

[jtaala]

Hey @malcolmredheron,

So, we can actually already do this (move workspaces, not swapping) but it's a two-step process. I was searching for a quick video and explanation I did a while back on this and found it today:

#571 (comment):

So you can actually move entire workspaces to other monitors quite easily (without messing with windows). Use workspace stack switching - bascially you switch to prev workspace (default key Super+`) - then go to the other monitor and do the same thing, which then switches that workspace to the new monitor.

1.mp4

[jtaala]

Anyways, what I'm implementing now is a simple shortcut to pretty much do this. At the time I called it workspace stack switching, but it's basically just moving a workspace out of view (which makes it available on other monitors).

In the video, I'm just using the default 3 finger swipe down for workspace stack switching.

[jtaala]

All,

I've put up a PR that implements this (and a few other things).

#825

Please try it out and let me know how it goes:

remove EGO version of PaperWM, then:

git clone https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM.git
cd PaperWM
git checkout feature-move-space-to-monitor
./install.sh

Then login/logout and enable PaperWM like normal.

Thanks!

[malcolmredheron]

Thank you! I'm on Nixos, which I generally love but by design makes it hard to monkey with my system, so I'll wait for the new version to get packaged up instead of figuring out how to install it manually. But I'm excited!

[jtaala]

Thank you! I'm on Nixos, which I generally love but by design makes it hard to monkey with my system, so I'll wait for the new version to get packaged up instead of figuring out how to install it manually. But I'm excited!

I'm not familiar with Nixos, but this has also now been released on https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/6099/paperwm/ (which most people use to install nowadays).

Also, I think Gnome Extensions app notifies of updates (from extensions.gnome.org) and updates extensions for you in most cases (just needed a logout/login).

Cheers.

[malcolmredheron]

I figured out how to manually update Nix's gnome extensions and I have the new version running now. It's working great. Thank you!