Open a specific application in a *new* workspace with i3wm

i3window-management

My question is something like this – but I don't want to open a given application on a specific workspace, I want each instance to open on a new workspace each time.

The OP in the linked-to question wants to open Firefox on workspace 2, Chromium on workspace 1, etc…

I want to open new instances of a text-editor (Sublime Text) in a new workspace for every new instance. Is this possible?

solution:

I used the accepted answer in a modified form: 

# .bashrc
...
function sublime {
  i3-msg workspace $(($(i3-msg -t get_workspaces | tr , '\n' | grep '"num":' | cut -d : -f 2 | sort -rn | head -1) + 1))
  /usr/bin/sublime_text_3/sublime_text $1
}

so that I can use it like this:

$ sublime /path/to/file

and also because I'm using my dotfiles across several computers, so it's nicer to include everything in one place!

Best Answer

You can use a small BASH script to do that:

This opens a new workspace (taken from here) and runs a command:

#!/bin/bash
i3-msg workspace $(($(i3-msg -t get_workspaces | tr , '\n' | grep '"num":' | cut -d : -f 2 | sort -rn | head -1) + 1))
sublime-text

Create this script under /usr/bin, name it eg. sublime-new, give it exec permissions and you can now launch it from a terminal emulator. Strange, but when executing the script from dmenu, it first opens the program and then changes the workspace.

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