move + goto workspace when moving a container empties the focused workspace

asked 2014-11-29 12:08:59 +0000

Jeff Bauer
57 ●4 ●5 ●11 http://www.python.org/

updated 2014-11-29 12:10:03 +0000

My current keybindings look something like this:

# switch to workspace
bindsym $mod+1 workspace $ws1

# move focused container to workspace
bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace $ws1

# move focused container to workspace, then goto that workspace
bindsym $mod+Control+1 move container to workspace $ws1; workspace $ws1

I want to modify my environment in the following manner:

Move a focused container to a new workspace.
If the current workspace is empty (as a result of the moved container) ...
... automatically goto to new workspace.

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Comments

You can write a script e.g. in Python and use `i3-msg -t get_tree` to receive some data (see http://i3wm.org/docs/ipc.html#_tree_reply). You'll have to parse the nodes of the current workspace to figure out whether it is empty yourself, though.

airblader ( 2014-11-29 14:35:11 +0000 )edit

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2 answers

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answered 2014-11-29 15:05:57 +0000

Airblader
1121 ●2 ●7 ●25

updated 2014-11-29 15:36:09 +0000

Airblader
1121 ●2 ●7 ●25

Going off my suggestion in the comment, here's a quick proof of concept.

It makes two system calls:

i3-msg -t get_workspaces to find the currently focused workspace
i3-msg -t get_tree to get information about i3's tree, select the node of the active workspace and check if that has in turn any active nodes

It then executes the move command and, if necessary, switches the workspace. Bind it like this:

bindsym $mod+Control+1 exec --no-startup-id /path/to/script.py $ws1

I'm not a Python developer, I just know enough to get by. So this might be horrible in the eyes of someone knowing a bit more about Python. Since your profile links to the python website, I'm sure you can make this better (and if you do, make sure to share it with us). Here we go:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
import subprocess
import json

def run(command):
  return subprocess.Popen(command, shell = True, stdout = subprocess.PIPE).stdout.readlines()

if __name__ == '__main__':
  workspaces = json.loads(''.join(run('i3-msg -t get_workspaces')))
  tree = json.loads(''.join(run('i3-msg -t get_tree')))

  target = sys.argv[1]

  focused_workspace_num = None
  for workspace in workspaces:
    if workspace['focused']:
      focused_workspace_num = workspace['num']
      break

  focused_workspace = None
  for node in tree['nodes'][1]['nodes'][1]['nodes']:
    if node['num'] == focused_workspace_num:
      focused_workspace = node
      break

  # now move the container to the target workspace    
  run('i3-msg move container to workspace ' + target)

  # if it was the only node, switch to that workspace as well
  if len(focused_workspace['nodes']) == 1:
    run('i3-msg workspace ' + target)

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answered 2014-11-29 19:47:09 +0000

tasinet
41 ●1 ●2 ●6

updated 2014-11-29 23:39:24 +0000

Same concept as airblader's answer, but in bash.

Requires jq - apt-get install -y jq or equivalent. This is a lightweight JSON parser.

Put the script in your path, then bind as:

bindsym $mod+Shift+exclam      move workspace 1; exec i3-switch-if-workspace-empty.sh 1
# ..10

To run it manually, just pass it the number to switch to, if the current workspace is empty.

#!/bin/bash

set -e

new_workspace=$1

if [ "" == "$new_workspace" ]; then
    echo expecting workspace name/number
    exit 1
fi

active_workspace=$( i3-msg -t get_workspaces | jq '.[] | select(.focused).num' )

toplevel_containers=$( i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '(.nodes[].nodes[].nodes[] | select(.type=="workspace") | select(.num=='"$active_workspace"') | .nodes | length) // 0' )

if [ "$toplevel_containers" -eq "0" ]; then
    i3-msg workspace $new_workspace
fi

Tested with multiple monitors as well. Hope this helps.

Again, credit to airblader for the original solution and pointing me to i3 tree!

(it is also on github, but not enough karma to post links)

edit: fixed a bug - was looking at the second-top level rather than the top-level. should work now.

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Cool, I was mostly using python because of JSON. Glad to see there's a good bash-friendly solution. That will definitely help me with a problem I've been having, so thanks.

airblader ( 2014-11-29 21:12:54 +0000 )edit

Yeah, there isn't much you can do with json with the standard awk/sed/grep/etc toolkit. The best you can do (or rather, I can do) without an explicit tool is pretty-print the json (json_pp) and pipe to grep to look for a key or value. jq is pretty nice! Worth learning the syntax.