About

Simple program that looks through the i3 config and finds the bound workspaces for each output, and then opening that workspace on the output, that the mouse is currently on.

Allowing for a more seameless interaction with how workspaces are openend.

Usage

usage: pi3-smart-workspace [-h] [-d] -i INDEX [-s] [-k]

Changes the workspace, based on what output your cursor is on.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -d, --debug           Turn on debug mode.

Required:

  -i INDEX, --index INDEX
                        The indexed workspace for the output where the cursor is currently located

Shift:
  manipulate the active window

  -s, --shift           Moves the active window to the index workspace
  -k, --keep-with-it    Moves the active window to the index workspace, and moves with it

Installation

Install using pip (recommended):

pip install pi3-smart-workspace

Example config to be inserted into your i3 config.

# Displays
set $primary eDP
set $top HDMI-A-0
set $bottom HDMI2

# Workspaces
set $ws1 1:1
... # And so on
set $ws{n} {n}:{n}

set $TopWs1 {n+1}:1
... # and so on
set $TopWs{k} {n+1+k}:{k}

set $BottomWs1 {k+1}:1
... # and so on
set $BottomWs{q} {k+1+q}:{q}

workspace $ws1 output $primary
... # and so on
workspace $ws{n} output $primary

workspace $TopWs1 output $top
... # and so on
workspace $TopWs{k} output $top

workspace $BottomWs1 output $bottom
... # and so on
workspace $BottomWs{q} output $bottom

# Shift workspace
bindsym $mod+1 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 1
bindsym $mod+2 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 2
bindsym $mod+3 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 3
bindsym $mod+4 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 4
bindsym $mod+5 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 5
bindsym $mod+6 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 6
bindsym $mod+7 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 7
bindsym $mod+8 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 8

# Move focused container to workspace
bindsym $mod+Shift+1 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 1 -s
bindsym $mod+Shift+2 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 2 -s
bindsym $mod+Shift+3 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 3 -s
bindsym $mod+Shift+4 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 4 -s
bindsym $mod+Shift+5 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 5 -s
bindsym $mod+Shift+6 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 6 -s
bindsym $mod+Shift+7 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 7 -s
bindsym $mod+Shift+8 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 8 -s

# Move to workspace with focused container
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+1 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 1 -sk
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+2 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 2 -sk
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+3 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 3 -sk
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+4 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 4 -sk
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+5 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 5 -sk
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+6 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 6 -sk
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+7 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 7 -sk
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+8 exec --no-startup-id pi3-smart-workspace -i 8 -sk

Future work

Here a few ideas on how to improve pi3-smart-workspace could be improved in the future. If anyone wants to submit a pr that solves one of the problems stated below feel free to do so :)

• Save the outputs and the mapped outputs in a json file, instead of looking through the config every time a button is pressed.

  This would greatly reduce the cost of running this program, if we could just look up the required value in the json instead of the whole i3 config.

  In order for this to be a thing, we need to transition away from looking at active display, have the user set a exec_always and out indexer in their i3 config.

Credits

Thanks to Michał Wieluński for an inspiration (pi3-switch) and Tony Crisci for an easy-to-use i3 python library (i3ipc-python).