How to change workspace/monitor assignment when monitor configuration changes?

[ianjsikes]

On my work laptop, I commonly change between one of three display configurations:

• Office (laptop and one large external monitor)
• Home office (laptop closed, two large external monitors)
• Coffee shop (laptop only)

What I would like to do is assign windows to workspaces (via on-window-detected), and then assign workspaces to monitors. So something like workspace-to-monitor-force-assignment seems like what I want, but I need the workspace<->monitor mapping to change dynamically based on which of these display configurations is active.

Is there currently a way to do this with AeroSpace? I previously had a working Yabai config that did this, but I can't use it due to my work laptop not allowing disabling SIP.

If this isn't currently supported, here is an idea of how it could work:

If aerospace move-workspace-to-monitor accepted identifiers for which workspace to move to which monitor, rather than relying solely on the current focus state, it would be easy to write a organize-workspaces.sh script. Something like this:

`organize-workspaces.sh`

#!/bin/bash

# These were obtained by plugging in the appropriate
# monitors and running `aerospace list-monitors | pbcopy`
LAPTOP_MODE='1 | Built-in Retina Display'
HOME_OFFICE_MODE='1 | DELL U2720Q
2 | DELL S2721DGF'
OFFICE_MODE='1 | Built-in Retina Display
2 | DELL U2720Q'

CURRENT_MODE="$(aerospace list-monitors)"

case $CURRENT_MODE in

$LAPTOP_MODE)
    # Don't need to do anything here because everything should auto-move to the only existing display
    ;;

$HOME_OFFICE_MODE)
    aerospace move-workspace-to-monitor --workspace "code" --monitor "DELL U2720Q"
    aerospace move-workspace-to-monitor --workspace "term" --monitor "DELL U2720Q"
    aerospace move-workspace-to-monitor --workspace "slack" --monitor "DELL S2721DGF"
    aerospace move-workspace-to-monitor --workspace "browse" --monitor "DELL S2721DGF"
    ;;

$OFFICE_MODE)
    aerospace move-workspace-to-monitor --workspace "code" --monitor "DELL U2720Q"
    aerospace move-workspace-to-monitor --workspace "term" --monitor "DELL U2720Q"
    aerospace move-workspace-to-monitor --workspace "slack" --monitor "Built-in Retina Display"
    aerospace move-workspace-to-monitor --workspace "browse" --monitor "Built-in Retina Display"
    ;;
esac

`aerospace.toml`

[[on-window-detected]]
check-further-callbacks = true
run = 'layout floating'

[[on-window-detected]]
if.app-id = 'com.microsoft.VSCode'
run = ['move-node-to-workspace code']

[[on-window-detected]]
if.app-id = 'com.github.wez.wezterm'
run = ['move-node-to-workspace term']

[[on-window-detected]]
if.app-id = 'com.google.Chrome'
run = ['move-node-to-workspace browse']

[[on-window-detected]]
if.app-id = 'com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap'
run = ['move-node-to-workspace slack']

[[on-window-detected]]
if.app-id = 'us.zoom.xos'
run = ['move-node-to-workspace zoom']

[[on-window-detected]]
if.app-id = 'org.mozilla.firefoxdeveloperedition'
run = ['move-node-to-workspace fun']

[[on-window-detected]]
if.app-id = 'com.anytype.anytype'
run = ['move-node-to-workspace notes']

And then I'd just need to either manually run this script when changing displays, which isn't too annoying, or figure out some way to automatically trigger it.

Checklist

• I've searched for duplicates. My search queries were (please don't forget to search in closed issues too):

  • is:issue display change
  • is:issue monitor change
  • is:issue workspace-to-monitor-force-assignment

• I've read the documentation https://nikitabobko.github.io/AeroSpace/guide & https://nikitabobko.github.io/AeroSpace/commands

• I've searched in the documentation. My search queries were:

  • workspace-to-monitor-force-assignment
  • display
  • monitor

aerospace CLI client version: 0.14.2-Beta 0cb8dbdfc5ee73b8cbc200f175f467ebead55201
AeroSpace.app server version: 0.14.2-Beta 0cb8dbdfc5ee73b8cbc200f175f467ebead55201

[nikitabobko]

(1) You can specify multiple patterns as an array in workspace-to-monitor-force-assignment. The first matching pattern will be used. If monitor is not presented, the pattern matches nothing. It's sufficient for some cases of different monitor configurations

If aerospace move-workspace-to-monitor accepted identifiers for which workspace to move to which monitor, rather than relying solely on the current focus state

(2) -> #186