Are multiple windows of an app supported?

[tukusejssirs]

I have read this comment and your response. I have searched PRs, but I could not find a PR by @roselandgoose nor a PR related to multiple windows of an app. It doesn’t seem to work right now (tested v1.0 from GitHub Releases).

Although @roselandgoose claimed she added support multiple windows of the same program. Her version of sway_workspaces.py still contains Multiple windows of an application/class aren't handled. No idea how to do so. comment. I haven’t tested her version of the script.

I simply want my windows (even those of a same program) open in a specific order right after Sway startup. I presume I need to start the programs first, then run sway_workspaces.py and it will re-order the windows based on the saved configuration, right?

After saving the current config, reordering the windows (both windows of an app and those of different apps), I tried to restore the window order using load command, but the windows order didn’t change. Tried to re-order both XWayland and Wayland windows (like JetBrains Webstorm [X], Sublime Text [W], Alacritty [W], Insomnia [X]), but it does doesn’t do anything but blinks the windows (actually entire output on each monitor) and outputs Loaded Workspace Setup notification.

I use sway version 1.9-dev-ab9b164e (Jan 31 2023, branch 'master') on Arch Linux if that matters.

[Nama]

I wanted rose to do a PR, but they didn't. So I made 7580bc1 mostly of roses code.

Her version of sway_workspaces.py still contains Multiple windows of an application/class aren't handled. No idea how to do so. comment.

That's just because they didn't care of the Readme. And I just noticed I didn't write about that in the README.md, too D:
But here #3

I presume I need to start the programs first, then run sway_workspaces.py and it will re-order the windows based on the saved configuration, right?

Exactly. just re-run sway_workspaces load <profile> every time you want to re-order your windows.

I haven’t tested her version of the script.

Please do, just to see if any other commits here are breaking that feature. Especially this one 53bff61

It doesn’t seem to work right now (tested v1.0 from GitHub Releases).

For me, just two Firefox windows, it mostly worked, if I have the same tabs in the foreground, which I had while saving the profile. If the title of the window doesn't match, it can't be put in the correct workspace.

But I guess, 53bff61 to don't touch the windows which are on the "correct" workspace, breaks this. Since the title isn't checked.

After saving the current config, reordering the windows

You need to save the profile after you reordered your windows manually. Or do you mean "change, to test if it works"?.

[Nama]

Window titles are compared: why didn’t use .nodes.nodes[].node[].ids? Like:

That doesn't even output anything for me (using sway 1.8). I also just noticed, that swaymsg -t get_tree isn't outputting a json anymore. Needs to be piped.
This works: swaymsg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes[].nodes[].nodes[].id'
But I know what you mean: #12: con "Element [1] |
13 would be the ID of this node, but that ID is not persistent. After a reboot, you will get new IDs.

I assign some apps to specific Sway workspaces; cannot it interfere with sway_workspaces?

What do you mean? How do you assign apps to workspaces?

I want the saved order of the windows to be preserved.

Currently, even if there is only a single window of an app, although it is moved to the right workspace, the order of the windows (both of an app and of different apps) is not preserved.

This was never implemented. But I thought about it and might do it at a later time.

[tukusejssirs]

Window titles are compared: why didn’t use .nodes.nodes[].node[].ids? Like:

That doesn't even output anything for me (using sway 1.8). I also just noticed, that swaymsg -t get_tree isn't outputting a json anymore. Needs to be piped. But I know what you mean: #12: con "Element [1] | 13 would be the ID of this node, but that ID is not persistent. After a reboot, you will get new IDs.

Yeah, I believe in Sway starting with v1.8, swaymsg (get_tree and get_outputs at least) does not output JSON when the output is not piped into another program. When I use swaymsg -t get_tree | less, I get a JSON as expected. Now, if you don’t want to pipe the content, you can use -r option (i.e. swaymsg -rt get_tree; src).

that ID is not persistent

I get it. You have no way to identify a particular window of an app unless the window title does not change. Without that, I see no way to make it possible to make the order of windows of an app persistent across reboots, unfortunately.

I assign some apps to specific Sway workspaces; cannot it interfere with sway_workspaces?

What do you mean? How do you assign apps to workspaces?

In Sway config:

# Assign an app that has `app_id` to a workspace (prefered)
assign [app_id="Firefox"] workspace 3
# Assign an app that has `class` to a workspace (prefered unless the app has `app_id`)
assign [class="VSCodium"] workspace 2

# Move an app that has neither `app_id` nor `class` to a workspace
# Actually, this moves all windows that ends with `.*Firefox Nightly` regex.
for_window [title=".*Firefox Nightly"] move window to workspace 3

I want the saved order of the windows to be preserved.

Currently, even if there is only a single window of an app, although it is moved to the right workspace, the order of the windows (both of an app and of different apps) is not preserved.

This was never implemented. But I thought about it and might do it at a later time.

What part of my use case was never implemented?

• move apps to the right workspace:
  • I think this is implemented;
• preserve order of the windows of different apps within a workspace;
• preserve order of the windows of a single apps within a workspace:
  • this is not yet implemented;
  • I see no way to identify a window across reboots if an app has multiple windows.

[Nama]

• move apps to the right workspace
• move all windows of a single app to the right workspaces (kinda, title needs to match)
• preserve order of the windows of different apps within a workspace
• preserve order of the windows of a single apps within a workspace (could be possible with title matching)

The remaining two should be possible to implement, but only with title matching for different windows of the same app.

[tukusejssirs]

• move all windows of a single app to the right workspaces (kinda, title needs to match)

I don’t that for moving all windows of a single app to the right workspace needs to match the window title. All windows of a single app share the same app_id/class/name (unless the app dev forgot to fill it out, like Vorta packaged in Arch Linux AUR, currently has app_id set to python3). IMHO app_id should be considered a unique app ID, although I have no proof for that.

[Nama]

In Sway config:

This should not interfere with sway-workspaces, since this is only applied while the window is created. But you run sway-workspaces after all your windows are created.
The same as, moving the window to another workspace via hotkey, even tho, it's assigned to a workspace.