Issues with "Prefer tabs when opening documents" Setting

[Seanathon]

System Settings

• Preference: "Prefer tabs when opening documents" set to Always (found under System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Windows).

What's Happening

When this preference is enabled, opening a new window in applications like VS Code causes unexpected behavior in AeroSpace. Specifically:

1. It messes up the current layout tree, leaving gaps between apps/windows.
2. In some cases, AeroSpace crashes altogether.

Expected Behavior

When selecting "New Window" in VS Code (or similar apps), the layout tree should remain intact. Since the new window is technically opened as a tab in the existing window (per the user preference), it shouldn’t alter the container tree structure in any way.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Go to System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Windows and set "Prefer tabs when opening documents" to Always.
2. Open a new workspace in AeroSpace.
3. Launch VS Code or another app that supports tabs.
4. Select New Window from the app menu.
5. Observe how AeroSpace handles the new tab.

Additional Context

• This behavior seems tied to how macOS handles tabbed windows, which may not align with AeroSpace’s expectations for new windows.
• Attached is a screenshot of the relevant macOS preference for reference.

[Seanathon]

More Context:

When I run aerospace list-windows -all, I see two windows listed:

20859 | Cursor   | README.md — AeroSpace
15618 | Cursor   | aerospace.toml — aerospace

However, visibly, there are three tabbed windows:

When I switch to the unlisted window (simply named "Cursor"), a new container opens up, but the grouped windows remain in the same place. Running aerospace list-windows -all again, the third "Cursor" window appears as expected:

20916 | Cursor   | Cursor
20859 | Cursor   | README.md — AeroSpace
15618 | Cursor   | aerospace.toml — aerospace

• Perhaps this is an issue with window caching?

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Conceivably Hacky Ways to Fix This

1. Use the on-window-detected callback to handle applications with grouped/tab-separated windows differently (if there’s no existing concept of grouped windows in AeroSpace).
2. Detect the user preference ("Prefer tabs when opening documents") directly from within AeroSpace and handle this behavior automatically for users.