Add tags to workspaces or something

[michalmoc]

For my desktop I want to add a key-bind super+N to create a new workspace immediately after the current one. It often happens that after opening a few workspaces I return to the first one and need to open yet another related to it, but with default setup the new workspace will be opened at the end, and switching between fist one and last one can be very inconvenient.

So, the idea seems very simple, Hyprland is prized for huge customizability, surely there is some dispatch to do it? Well, nope. In fact some similar idea was rejected long time ago, not sure why. So I tried to do it myself, with Hyprland IPC (https://github.com/michalmoc/hyprland_dyn_workspaces/). I more or less succeeded, but it showed there is virtually no extensibility in workspaces system.

Workspaces are really described only by ID and by name. ID is unchangeable, so nothing can be really done with it. So I was forced to abuse workspace names, thus losing ability to grant workspaces nice, recognizable ones. In contrast, windows are described by title, class, tags and TWO identifiers. This seems very unfair.

I see following options:

• add tags to workspaces - this will be symmetrical to windows and very generic, allowing other custom behaviours
• add field "order" to workspaces, and some dispatches to change id - this would make my use-case trivial, and allow easy setup of any kind of workplace reordering. While it's true that workspaces do not inherently need to be ordered, on practice most users use them as such
• allow custom fields for workspaces, windows and whatnot - universal solution to all problems ever

[vaxerski]

add field "order" to workspaces, and some dispatches to change id - this would make my use-case trivial, and allow easy setup of any kind of workplace reordering. While it's true that workspaces do not inherently need to be ordered, on practice most users use them as such

why add an order field if we can just allow changing id?

[michalmoc]

We could, but the purpose of ID is identification. I believe users would expect it to be unchangeable, they would store it and use to address previously chosen workspace.

[vaxerski]

if they dont change it - they will be unchanged, after all? Ordering makes less sense to me - too confusing

[michalmoc]

id: permanent identification: For example I could make some script to play music whenever I am at workspace 3, which at beginning is ordered 3. When workspaces get reordered, and workspace 3 is now ordered 7, music is still playing at workspace 3, which is what I want. Reorder should be invisible to anything that targets specific workspaces.

ordering: current place on list. It will decide how workspaces are listed e.g. by hyprctl workspaces and which workspace will be selected for relative addresing. Can be changed at anytime for any reason, scripts should not depend on it.

[vaxerski]

I understand it - but for an average user it will be confusing IMO.

[michalmoc]

We cannot know that, and anyway any kind of configuaration for hyprland already requires reading docs. I don't think it will be that difficult to explain the concept in 2 sentences.