Permanent number of workspaces

[Hlobil Vaclav]

Dear UX developers,

is there a plan to have permanent (optional) number of workspaces? It's critical question for me. I used to have 4 workspaces for my work. On the first workspace I have browser, on second devel IDE, on third Gimp and on the fourth there I have Thunderbird. This settings helps me to keep very very clear and fast environment for my work. It's so strong when you get used to it, you're much more quicker than on usual minimize/Alt-Tab interface. Essentially it's one of the thing, why I use Linux on my desktop.

It's strongly related to shortcuts for switch to the specific workspace. If I have these workspaces and shortcuts, I can just press Alt+F1 to switch to browsers windows, Alt+F3 to switch to devel IDE (where I have Eclipse, Mysql Workbench and some others apps at once), Alt+F4 to switch to Mails etc. All with one hand, my second hand can still keep the mouse without change! It's very quick and I have everything tidy all the time. No need to find out minimized apps, move mouse to Plank or anything else.

I can't establish this on elementary OS now, because there is no shortcut for jump to specific workspace. Also I must create 3 next workspaces after every boot... Also, now I need to press Super+s (or move cursor to hot corner miles away...) to open workspaces overview, move cursor on the correct workspace thumbnail, click on it. It's very slow and work focus ruining...

I think number of workspaces should be optional (or workspaces should be remembered before reboot/power off), same as shortcuts for switch to workspace.

Thank you for every help in this way.

[Jaap Broekhuizen (jaapz-b)]

I think we purposefully chose to go for unlimited workspaces, but adding keyboard shortcuts for accessing workspaces is not a very bad idea. Still think that the UX team should look at this.

[Hlobil Vaclav (vaclav-hlobil)]

Some new idea comes with Jaaps comment. I have no problem with adding of new workspaces. So my wish for permanent number of workspaces can be understood as "minimal number of workspaces". This MIN number could be defined in settings, and Gala could stop collapsing of workspaces, if count of workspaces is equal to MIN and if closed app is on workspace lower or equal to MIN.

Then, shortcuts for accessing workspaces could be easily assignable.

It would be great! :)

[Jaap Broekhuizen (jaapz-b)]

I think that would be a great solution.

[Tomáš Karger (tomak)]

I understand that the collapsing of workspaces after closing all windows can improve the user experience for some, but I also find it counter-productive and I think it should be optional. Here's why:

1) It goes against the idea that you can use various workspaces for different tasks consistently (when I close the last window on the second workspace, it doesn't mean the task I was up to is done and that I don't want to open another window right away).

2) I migrated from ubuntu and what I really liked about the workspace layout in unity was that you were able to access two other workspaces directly from any one that was there. In eOS, that's not possible with the first workspace and the fact that you keep getting pushed to the first from others doesn't help the case.

I think that an option to set a minimum number of workspaces could be a nice compromise solution.

[Tom Beckmann (tombeckmann)]

Alternatively, just run "gsettings set org.pantheon.desktop.behavior.dynamic-workspaces false", which will disable the described behavior and instead use the configured number of workspaces.

[Tomáš Karger (tomak)]

Ok, thanks tombeckmann. Just a follow up question: Where do I configure the number of workspaces?

[Tom Beckmann (tombeckmann)]

It's at "org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces".
So for example "gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 8" would set it to 8.

[Tomáš Karger (tomak)]

I know this is not the best place for troubleshooting, but the first command (gsettings set org.pantheon.desktop.behavior.dynamic-workspaces false) doesn't work for me - it keeps showing me the info on how to set the schema, key, value, etc in the command.

I have run "gsetting list-schemas" and I found that the schema "org.pantheon.desktop.behavior" is not present. The closest one is "org.pantheon.desktop.gala.behavior". So I tried "gsettings set org.pantheon.desktop.gala.behavior.dynamic-workspaces false" - but it returned again the info on how to write the command.

The last idea I had was "gsettings set org.pantheon.desktop.gala.behavior dynamic-workspaces false" - the terminal swalloved it but even after rebooting, there is no change to the workspace behavior. Am I missing something?

[mojo2012 (meister-fuchs)]

Should these commands work? Or did you just guess? I really love elementary os, but this is one of the main bugs that really hurt

[Tom Beckmann (tombeckmann)]

It's "gsettings set org.pantheon.desktop.gala.behavior dynamic-workspaces false"

[oscarfroberg (oscarfroberg)]

I used dconf-editor (apt-get install dconf-tools) to uncheck "dynamic-workspaces" under org.pantheon.desktop.gala.behavior and changed "num-workspaces" under org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences from 4 to 8.

It works fine (after 10 minutes of testing) except sometimes when you close the last window, Win-Left/Right won't work until you change workspace some other way (I've only done it clicking in Plank so far). After that it works normally again.

[aleksdj (aleksdj)]

Works great oscar! thanks