How to move workspace to monitor

Question

I regularly change physical setup (work from home and office) and need a flexible and quick way of changing workspace form monitor to monitor.

• OS: Arch
• Window Manager: i3

Answer 1

There are a number of ways to do this.

Use the command line:

$ i3-msg move workspace to output left
[{"success":true}]
$ i3-msg move workspace to output right
[{"success":true}]
$ i3-msg move workspace to output next
[{"success":true}]

Add bindsym binds in your i3 config file as per other answers (for regolith users here is a good example).

Use python:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

# pip install --user i3-py rich

import i3
import rich

DEBUG = False

outputs = i3.get_outputs()
workspaces = i3.get_workspaces()

focused_workspace = [w for w in workspaces if w["focused"] == True][0]
active_outputs = [o for o in outputs if o["active"] == True]
other_output = [o for o in active_outputs if o["name"] != focused_workspace["output"]][
    0
]

if DEBUG:
    print("outputs:")
    rich.print(outputs)
    print("workspaces:")
    rich.print(workspaces)
    print("focused_workspace:")
    rich.print(focused_workspace)
    print("active_outputs:")
    rich.print(active_outputs)
    print("other_workspace:")
    rich.print(other_output)

# Send current workspace to other output
i3.command("move", "workspace to output " + other_output["name"])

See this gist for other versions.

When using i3-msg or i3.command possible syntax is move workspace to output left|right|down|up|current|primary|<output>.

Answer 2

I found a way to do that that fits my needs:

First I need to detect what are the monitors I currently have connected: I'll use xrandr to list all active monitors.

Sample output:

$ xrandr --listactivemonitors
Monitors: 3
0: +*HDMI-1 1920/531x1080/299+0+0  HDMI-1
1: +eDP-1 1280/301x800/188+3840+280  eDP-1
2: +DP-2 1920/595x1080/336+1920+0  DP-2

and then pipe that into grep to extract the names of the outputs:

xrandr --listactivemonitors | grep '{{ OUTPUT_NUMBER }}:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$'

• First grep to isolate the desired output line
• Second grep to get only the output name

And then I'll do some dirty copy/past into my i3 config file.

# move focused container to workspace
bindsym $mod+$alt+1 exec "i3-msg move workspace to output $(xrandr --listactivemonitors| grep '0:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$')"
bindsym $mod+$alt+2 exec "i3-msg move workspace to output $(xrandr --listactivemonitors| grep '1:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$')"
bindsym $mod+$alt+3 exec "i3-msg move workspace to output $(xrandr --listactivemonitors| grep '2:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$')"
bindsym $mod+$alt+4 exec "i3-msg move workspace to output $(xrandr --listactivemonitors| grep '3:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$')"
bindsym $mod+$alt+5 exec "i3-msg move workspace to output $(xrandr --listactivemonitors| grep '4:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$')"
bindsym $mod+$alt+6 exec "i3-msg move workspace to output $(xrandr --listactivemonitors| grep '5:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$')"
bindsym $mod+$alt+7 exec "i3-msg move workspace to output $(xrandr --listactivemonitors| grep '6:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$')"
bindsym $mod+$alt+8 exec "i3-msg move workspace to output $(xrandr --listactivemonitors| grep '7:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$')"
bindsym $mod+$alt+9 exec "i3-msg move workspace to output $(xrandr --listactivemonitors| grep '8:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$')"
bindsym $mod+$alt+0 exec "i3-msg move workspace to output $(xrandr --listactivemonitors| grep '9:' | grep -Po '[^ ]*$')"

A simple reload of the configuration file will update the binding when I'm connected to a new set of monitors.

PS: this could surely be improved but it's a quick and efficient way of doing it that fits my needs.

Answer 3

Add this to your i3config

bindsym $mod+Ctrl+Shift+Left  move workspace to output left
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+Shift+Right move workspace to output right
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+Shift+Up move workspace to output up
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+Shift+Down move workspace to output down

bindsym $mod+Ctrl+Shift+h  move workspace to output left
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+Shift+l move workspace to output right
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+Shift+k move workspace to output up
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+Shift+j move workspace to output down