How to display specific workspace to selected screen on i3 startup?

Question

I have 8 different workspaces defined in ~/.i3/config:

set $workspace1_name 1:www
set $workspace2_name 2:programming
set $workspace3_name 3:communication
set $workspace4_name 4:files+dictionary
set $workspace5_name 5:documents
set $workspace6_name 6:graphics 
set $workspace7_name 7:virtualization
set $workspace8_name 8:music

I also have 2 screens. When I start i3 on my Linux start-up, each screen shows a different workspace. The right screen is showing workspace 2:programming, but the left screen shows empty workspace 1 (not 1:www).

How can I configure i3 so that the left screen shows properly named workspace 1:www instead of 1?

Answer 1

According to the doc, the syntax is

workspace <workspace> output <output>

where output is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to.

You can use one of the following RandR commands to get the output value

xrandr --current

# or if your X server supports RandR 1.5
xrandr --listmonitors

So, as an example (for my current dual screen set-up) the configuration should look like this

workspace "1: www" output DP-1