Comment 5 for bug 656517

Here's the scenario ... I do this all the time, and I have seen lots and lots of people do this as well.

1. I'm working away on workspace 1
2. someone walks up to me and asks me a question, I need to hit the web or open a document like a text document to answer them. I don't want to disturb my context on workspace 1.
3. I switch to workspace 4, and launch a browser or other app.
In Natty, this is busted. I have to go back to the workspace 1, spawn a window, and manually move it. Aaarg.

Here's something similar I do daily ...
1. I have workspace 1 set up for email and irc to do my work. I have a terminal open for various things that I do with a terminal.
2. I decide to take a break and write a bit of code.
3. I switch to workspace 2, open a terminal, and launch my dev environment.
Again, this doesn't work. I have to go back to workspace 1, spawn a new window from the terminal, and move it to the new workspace.

I believe these are very common usage patterns for workspaces. I mean, what are workspaces for but for creating new work contexts?

This situation is handled in 3 ways today:
1. Some apps, like the browser, always launch a new window. Whether there is one on the current workspace or not.
2. Some apps, like Gedit, activate the current instance if there is one one the current workspace, but spawns a new window if there is not one on the current workspace.
3. Some apps, like evo, are always single window and alert you to change the workspace it is already running on.

I am confident that this tried and true behavior evolved for the reasons I mentioned above.