Friendly names to workspaces don't work with "move container"

asked Dec 17 '15

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >100 is welcome to improve it.

Note: there is a relevant question ("1657/add-friendly-name-to-workspace-but-keep-numbers-for-shortcuts") whose link I cannot post since I don't have enough karma. However, that question seems to address only the part about directly switching to a workspace, not moving a container to a workspace.

I frequently rename my workspaces in an ad-hoc manner to easily see the names of the programs running in each workspace (and know where to switch). E.g. I have names like: "1: web, 2: code, 3: dbvis, 4: email" etc. These friendly names are prefixed with a number so that bindings like the following:

# switch to workspace
bindsym $mod+1 workspace number 1
bindsym $mod+2 workspace number 2
bindsym $mod+3 workspace number 3

... do in fact work. What doesn't work however is bindings for the move container to workspace commands. E.g. the following don't work:

# move focused container to workspace
bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
bindsym $mod+Shift+3 move container to workspace 3

Instead, when I press $mod+Shift+1 a new workspace named "1" is created (alongside the already existing workspace "1: web") and the window is moved there.